Background
The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office is an independent government department responsible for prosecuting all Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) criminal cases.
Following the termination of several high profile Customs cases, the Government commissioned two separate reviews - Gower Hammond that reported in December 2000 and Butterfield in July 2003. Both recommended greater independence for prosecutors from Customs and Excise.
The Gower Hammond Review followed the failure of 2 major drugs prosecutions conducted by Customs in the late 1990`s. The report reviewed the structure and practices of the Prosecutions Group within the Customs and Excise Solicitors Office and made a number of recommendations for its future development. Of particular relevance was the fact that it recommended that Prosecutions Group should be given greater autonomy within the Solicitor's Office. It should have its own budget and a distinct line of ministerial accountability to the Attorney General alone. Independence from investigators would be essential to ensure that prosecutors felt able to exercise their professional judgment when dealing with their own cases. The Prosecutions Group was renamed Customs and Excise Prosecutions Office, CEPO. A Memorandum of Understanding, which clearly set out the relationship between the Attorney, CEPO and the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, was agreed.
Re-structuring had just been completed when new appeals in a group of major excise fraud cases collectively known as London City Bond, or LCB were launched. Serious allegations of non-disclosure were made against Customs, and in a number of instances these appeals were successful.
Ministers therefore asked Mr Justice Butterfield to look at how the mistakes (in both investigation and prosecution) made during the London City Bond cases had occurred and how they could be avoided in the future.
A key finding of the subsequent Butterfield Report was that it was vital to build on the progress made since Gower Hammond and to take the logical development of the Office even further. In his report Justice Butterfield reported:
"I am satisfied that much of the necessary ground work has been done and that personnel and machinery has been, or is being put in place to achieve the changes HMCE need to make. There is much that is good and some that is excellent within the present department. But the task is not yet complete."
He recommended:
"a complete separation of the prosecuting function for HMCE`s criminal cases from the organisation itself, through the creation of a separate prosecuting authority."
This recommendation was accepted by the Government in December 2003.
Meanwhile the Treasury conducted its own, completely separate, review of Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue. The O'Donnell Review concluded that the most efficient and beneficial way to collect tax would be to merge the two. In Budget 2004 The Chancellor announced that the new Department would be known as Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. It is in line with this wider merger of functions, that the Attorney announced in October 2004 that the Inland Revenue prosecutions would join the new independent prosecuting authority and that the new authority would be know as the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office (the RCPO).
In announcing the name of the new authority Lord Goldsmith said:
The new Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office, accountable to me, will be an entirely separate prosecuting authority, responsible for the prosecution of all HM Revenue and Customs cases in England and Wales. The creation of the RCPO is an important step which will ensure that we have an effective and fully independent prosecuting authority, dealing with many of the most important cases in the criminal justice system. It will play a vital role in shaping the criminal justice system of the future.