The Council’s third annual consultation on miscellaneous amendments to guidelines opens today. 

We are proposing a series of changes designed to bring greater clarity and consistency to guidelines and reflect developments in legislation. The proposals include:

• amending the Fraud guideline to give more recognition to the impact of no or very little financial loss
• amending the guideline for sentencing individuals for fly tipping and other environmental offences to give greater emphasis to community orders over fines, and
• including factors on strangulation and coercive control in the manslaughter guidelines as part of our response to recommendations in the Domestic Homicide Sentencing Review

We are also proposing amendments and additions to mitigating factors and their associated expanded explanations across the offence-specific guidelines, in response to research from 2021 examining equality and diversity in our work.

The consultation is open until 30 November 2023. Any subsequent changes will come into effect on 1 April 2024.