Pat Scotland has women in her sights — which is highly appropriate for the first woman to hold the post of Attorney-General since it came into being in 1315. This month, too, is International Women’s Month, so she has more than enough excuse to promote an agenda for women.

As minister in charge of the Crown Prosecution Service, Baroness Scotland of Asthal has responsibility for victims of crime and for the prosecution of crimes such as rape and domestic violence, where women make up most of the victims.

But she’s ideally placed also to look at women inside the system itself — in the Government Legal Service, Crown Prosecution Service — and beyond, to the wider legal profession and judiciary.

Last week she and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced a £1 million cash boost for tackling domestic violence and rape. Much of it will go to specialist sexual advisers who are attached to courts to help victims alleging rape or other sexual violence as well as domestic assaults. “This extra money will help to bring more of these courts on stream much more quickly,” she says.

The Government’s target is for 60 such courts within three years. But Lady Scotland is impatient for progress. “The existing courts — there are 23 — have seen a tremendous success rate in prosecutions, running at 70 per cent, compared with 46 per cent in ordinary courts three years ago,” she adds. Local teams, made up of specialist magistrates, prosecutors, trained police and support agencies, apply for funding to set up a court in their areas.

“Traditionally there is a real attrition rate for these cases. Women, or men, might be scared to give evidence or there is family pressure on them to drop the case, so they withdraw. Or the court might be too far from the refuge centre where they are staying or they are worried about their children.”

Some 6,000 prosecutions of domestic violence have gone through the 23 courts in the past three years. The number of women murdered by a partner or former partner in 2006-07 was 83, the lowest since 1999-2000.

The culture change that has occurred within the police on domestic violence she wants replicated in their attitude to rape prosecutions. “There is a culture change, but it is not changing fast enough.”

Two weeks ago John Yates, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, admitted that the police were contributing to the “appalling” conviction rate in rape cases because officers too often failed to take alleged victims seriously enough.

There is a problem, Lady Scotland argues, to do with myths held by the public at large about rape, and this was to some extent reflected in the police force. “Women have a problem telling anyone because of the stigma attached to rape and the fear of how people will respond. A lot of people somehow think that the rape victim is at fault.”

A working party is putting together an agreed set of misconceptions or myths and will decide how best to ensure juries have the information, she says.

Several proposed reforms on rape have fallen by the wayside or been overtaken by events. But one that is going ahead is that the video of a complainant’s first account of the attack to police could be used in evidence. New training is also under way for judges after a Court of Appeal case last year that set out how they should deal with drunken rape cases. “I hope with all these initiatives, including more than 100 specialist rape prosecutors who are being set up, that we will get better results.”

Prostitution is also an area ripe for action. But Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, has just dropped measures to overhaul the law on prostitution to ensure that a Bill that prevents prison officers striking is law by May. Lady Scotland insists she wants to bring the measures back, however. Plans to scrap the term common prostitute from the statute book — 184 years after it was first used in the Vagrancy Act 1824 — were also lost. There was “no question that when parliamentary time allows, this will be back on the agenda. There is no change of policy.”

She is cautious, though, about the idea floated by Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader, for outlawing prostitution, as in Sweden. “We are looking at what we can do to reduce demand. We have to look at all the options — but I think [a ban] would be challenging. We are determined, though, to do everything we can do to stop this activity — we’ve had blitzes, for example, on kerb crawling.”

She backs non-custodial penalties for prostitutes where possible, so that they can be rehabilitated, have drug problems treated and be helped off the streets. “If there is no danger [in a non-custodial penalty], they are not violent, you have to ask whether a more effective way of helping these woman to cease this form of criminality would be in the community.”

Courts have discretion now but prosecutors could help to encourage a shift from custody, she adds. “I can’t say what judges and magistrates should do, but the prosecution now has a bigger role in helping courts with sentencing and courts have a wider range of options.”

On women in the legal profession Lady Scotland also plans action. In that profession, she and fellow minister, Vera Baird, QC, the Solicitor-General, are rarities. But already their mark can be seen — and not just in the new red-leather chairs and light wood furniture in Lady Scotland’s office (“it was all very dark and masculine”), complete with doorstop styled as a red stiletto.

Mr Straw recently lamented the shortage of women at the top of the law and judiciary. “Isn’t it great?” Lady Scotland enthused. “We do now have women making up 45 per cent of entrants to the Bar. But I am talking to a number of women judges about this — they do want to make a difference. There are things one can do . . . one has got to look at why [few women make the top].”

At the Bar, the lifestyle remains “very tough”, trying to secure a work-life balance if a woman has children. She is married to a barrister and has two sons. “But there’s an extremely good story to tell in the CPS: 45 per cent of senior prosecutors and 26.5 per cent of chief Crown prosecutors are women, and one of the reasons is that women can manage their families. Many at the Bar do manage careers and children — but we have to make it much easier to do that.”

More movement in both directions between private practice and the Government Legal Service or CPS would help and for people to move more easily up through the judicial ranks: Baroness Butler-Sloss, for example, started out as a district judge. Paralegals in the CPS or legal executives, she says, can in theory become judges. As more women are concentrated in these jobs, that — in turn — will boost numbers of women at the top. “You can now start as an administrative assistant and work up to being a High Court judge.”

More controversially, she favours allowing prosecutors to apply to be circuit judges. At present they cannot sit part-time as recorders on criminal cases, the key stepping stone to the circuit bench. With proper training this could be possible. “I hope there would be a way.”

More women are becoming district judges, but she says that there is need for more women judges generally: “We have only one woman law lord. I am delighted that there is now a woman Attorney, and not just because it’s me. But it’s a bit odd that I am the first.”

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