MORE than 40% of all decisions over whether or not to charge people with crimes in the south east are “poor”, inspectors say.

Poor casework and financial mismanagement are also problems at the area’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), according to a new report.

The service, which decides who to charge and brings criminal cases in court, needs “much hard work” to improve, the watchdog said.

Inspectors from Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service revisited the south east this year after finding in 2013 that its performance was a “cause for concern”.

The CPS’s work affects everything from whether criminals or innocent people face conviction to the smooth and timely running of court cases.

Prosecutors typically decide whether to bring charges based on files of evidence provided by police.

But inspectors said decisions and advice in the south east were “unimpressive”, rating 41.7 per cent of decisions as “poor” and saying the system was “overloaded and bureaucratic”. Files from police forces were sometimes poor, they noted.

Inspectors said the complex casework unit was “reliable and effective” but the team working on magistrates’ court cases – typically less serious ones – was “an area for concern.”

They added: “Its performance has consistently failed to meet all of the CPS’s own levels of ambition in most respects."

In Sussex, 83.7% of cases brought by prosecutors in magistrates’ courts ended in a conviction last year, compared with 87.1 per cent in 2010-11.

Inspectors raised concerns about an inflexible system which caused delays, with charging decisions automatically delayed by eight weeks if a case was incomplete.

They noted that when the new chief crown prosecutor for the south east Jaswant Narwal took over in January 2014, she faced a “challenging” situation, with low morale due to “radical savings” and poor results.

They said it was with “some sense of achievement” that performance had not fallen since she took over and in some ways things were looking better.

They rated governance as “fair”, casework quality as “poor”, and financial management and value for money as “poor”.

Ms Narwal said nothing in the report was a “surprise” and much of it had already been acted upon.

She added: “Our staff have had to deal with huge changes as the criminal justice system has undergone important reforms.

“Despite that, they all recognise that every case they deal with has a victim at the heart of it and they are determined to do the best they can for them.”