The Council’s fourth annual consultation on miscellaneous amendments to guidelines is now open. 

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

• changing ‘children and young people’ to ‘children’ across all guidelines
• aligning factors in the careless driving guideline with other driving offence guidelines
• clarifying how the factor ‘Exceptional financial hardship’ in shop theft and benefit fraud relates to ‘Difficult and/or deprived background or personal circumstances’
• clarifying guidance on sentencing very large organisations
• including the aggravating factor ‘Offence committed in a domestic abuse context’ in a greater number offence specific guidelines

The consultation is open until 27 November 2024.