As part of its tenth anniversary year, the Council undertook to investigate its impact in three key areas, and this involved conducting a series of analytical projects.

Summary

Summary of findings from the analytical projects

Attitudes to sentencing guidelines: views from the judiciary

All members of the judiciary were invited to take part in a survey to explore their views on sentencing guidelines, and over 1,000 sentencers took part. This summary report contains the findings from this survey.

Attitudes to sentencing guidelines – views from the judiciary

Estimating the changes in sentencing severity and requirements for prison places associated with the Sentencing Council’s guidelines

Analysis was conducted to estimate the cumulative impact of the Council’s evaluated guidelines in its first ten years, both on sentencing severity and on the requirements for prison places. This summary report and associated annexes contain the findings from this analysis.

Estimating the changes in sentencing severity and requirements for prison places associated with the Sentencing Council’s guidelines (includes Annexes A – D)

Annex E

Consistency in sentencing

A review was conducted of consistency in sentencing, to outline the different ways in which consistency in sentencing can be defined and measured, how the Council has chosen to address the issue and to collate the best available evidence on measuring consistency in sentencing. Alongside this, a methodology to measure consistency of approach to sentencing was developed and applied to data covering three Sentencing Council guidelines, to understand whether these guidelines have achieved the Council’s aim of promoting greater consistency in sentencing. These summary reports contain findings from these two projects.

A review of consistency in sentencing

The impact of three guidelines on consistency in sentencing