It is a classic case of poacher- turned-gamekeeper — or in the case of Sir Ken Macdonald, perhaps the other way round. The Director of Public Prosecutions has embarked on a programme of taking on Crown Court trials — the stomping ground of his profession, the Bar. Instead of paying millions a year to private practice barristers, he wants more CPS advocates to take their own cases to court.

It is one of the critical factors that has helped to turn round the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Once the butt of jokes about the criminal justice system — and scapegoat for all its failings — the CPS now plays a central role, not least because it is responsible for charging all cases that come to court. The advocacy programme, too, has been key, Sir Ken says: “When I took on the job [four and a hlaf years ago], I said: you have to make the CPS the employer of choice. People used to laugh and say that’s never going to happen.” But in a recent survey of where law students want to work, the CPS came in the top five. Its trainee scheme had 2,500 applications for 25 places. The CPS, he boasts, is recruiting the “brightest and the best from universities. That’s a significant turnaround. We’re no longer a large organisation of instructing solicitors but of prosecuting advocates”.

Not everyone is so delighted. Last week the Lord Chief Justice — in his review of the courts — said he was concerned that the increasing use of in-house advocates [along with legal aid pay] could reduce the numbers entering the Criminal Bar. At the top end of the Criminal Bar, Sir Ken is poaching senior prosecutors to take on organised crime cases, a move being replicated for counterterrorism. Those numbers are small. He has also launched a career plan for prosecutors, encouraging them to become Crown advocates. Targets have been set across England and Wales: by 2008-09, each CPS area aims to be doing 20-25 per cent of all Crown Court cases, excluding the most serious complex trials. That represents £22.6 million worth of cases being handled in-house — but still leaves £80 million worth of work going to the Criminal Bar.

There is room, he insists, for all. “There is a massive amount of publicly funded work in our courts — plenty for us and plenty for the Bar. The Bar is a meritocracy — and competiton is not a bad thing for the Bar. There is always going to be an enormous amount of prosecution work for the independent Bar but we are determined to do more ourselves.”

The rationale is part greater efficiency, part improving performance. “We need a body of trial lawyers in-house like every other prosecuting authority. Their expertise is invaluable. It makes us better at charging cases, at building cases, increases our accountability — if you have to justify yourself, the way you prepared it, in court, you’re going to prepare a lot more carefully than if farming out to a barrister to take the flak.”

The other side of that coin is also controversial: he wants to train more non-lawyers to take simpler cases in the magistrates’ courts. He is negotiating with the Institute of Legal Executives to ensure that these designated case workers (DCWs) are adequately trained after concerns expressed by the Law Society and Bar — and from some case workers. Change, he says, makes people uneasy. But he is determined to develop the DCW cadre “as the right thing to do” — so qualified lawyers focus on the more complex work. “We are absolutely clear that they are a good resource for us and for the public.”

The CPS is far from perfect. Thousands of cases are thrown out at trial because they are not ready or properly prepared. Sir Ken admits that “volume” work — its bread and butter — needs to be better. But he can justly claim that it is unrecognisable from a few years ago. As well as charging, powers were rolled out nationwide last week for prosecutors to interview witnesses and to give conditional cautions.

All this is grist to its mill. Sir Ken, the defence lawyer-turned-arch-prosecutor. “I’m quite bullish. There are stresses and strains in any organistion. We prosecute 1.2 million cases a year . . . I’ve got lawyers all over the country making decisions in hundreds of cases — they’re not always going to be the right decisions. Sometimes decisions in a small case can be a public- relations catastrophe for us: if we decide to prosecute a case where some kid throws a chip at somebody — we’ve got headlines, we look like idiots . . . so that’s all difficult to manage. So we’re always going to have negative stories but if you look at serious case work, counterterrorism, recruitment . . .”

He adds, perhaps mindful of the postbag: “I am not complacent. For people who didn’t get justice in the courts they will be thinking: ‘That’s all very well — but I didn’t get justice.’ But I think we get it right more often than we used to.”

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