ABSTRACT
The major aim of the 2010 Coalition government was to reduce the large public defi cit. This entailed reductions in all forms of public expenditure from which the criminal justice system was not exempt. In 2008/9, the total spending by all criminal justice agencies amounted to around £23 billion per year (HMIC, 2010a: 3) and it was thus inevitable that all criminal justice agencies would face cuts when the Comprehensive Spending Review was announced in October 2010. This proved to be the case and a cut of around 23 per cent in the budgets of the Ministry of Justice and Home Offi ce was required by 2014/15. Individual agencies that included the CPS and the police service had budget cuts imposed upon them of 25 per cent and 20 per cent respectively in these cases (HMIC, 2010a: 3). A reduction of this magnitude in central government funding for the police service amounted to around £1.2 billion in cash terms over this period (Brain, 2011) (see Figure 12.1 ).
