Too big for its coffers
From Sir Michael Ogden, QC Sir: Your leader writer was correct when he spoke of the 'legendary' incompetence f the Crown Prosecution Service (20 May)' However, Edward Bowles, a senior CroWa Prosecutor, was also correct when he wrote of the serious underfunding of the C17 (Letters, 27 May). It should have been obi' ous to everybody that the salaries offered when the CPS was set up would result in its lawyers being of inferior calibre to those 111, independent practice and lawyers erriploYe`' in commerce and industry. The principal culprit is the 'TreasuryIncreasingly, in recent years it has adopted the attitude that it does not matter I' well things are done so long as they ,31! done in the cheapest possible fashion. Sines it is the paymaster, it often succeeds. As result, the legal system has been seriously damaged, although a great deal of the don, age will not be seen for some years. thlf°rf tunately, much of it is irreversible. 0 course, this does not apply to the legal sYsd tem alone; it applies across the board she is, in large part, responsible for many Of the nation's most serious problems. Successni, governments have permitted the Treasrl" to become overmighty and it is a rnisf°r_
LETTERS
tune that no government seems prepared to curb it.
Now I read that the CPS budget is to be cut by 4 per cent. Gordon Brown is said to have a `war-chest; a euphemism for money to be spent in ways he thinks will encourage voters to return Labour at the election. A cut which increases the all too high number of acquittals of guilty people does not fit in with this strategy. Michael Ogden London W8
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