I am pleased to introduce the Sentencing Council’s annual report for 2024/25. It is the Council’s 15th report and my third as Chairman.
Developing and revising guidelines
The core work of the Council continues to be the production of sentencing guidelines. Whether the Council is developing an entirely new guideline or revising an existing guideline, the process is the same. Based on the work of our analysis and research team, policy officials present proposals to meetings of the full Council for discussion and amendment. Any proposed guideline will be discussed at several meetings before it is ready to be published as a draft guideline. The draft guideline will be road tested along the way with the assistance of our pool of volunteer magistrates and judges. Once a draft guideline has been published, it will be subject to public consultation in accordance with the statutory provisions which govern the work of the Council. Each consultation runs for 12 weeks and is open to all. We are obliged by statute to consult with the Lord Chancellor and the Justice Committee of the House of Commons. That obligation ensures that both the executive and Parliament have a full opportunity to comment on our draft guidelines.
The Council takes the consultation process extremely seriously. For guidelines to succeed they must be informed by the knowledge and expertise of those people who have legal or practical experience in the area we are examining, and by the views of those with an interest in our work or in the operation of the wider criminal justice system. This year we have again been assisted greatly by those who have responded to our consultations; the evidence and insight they have given us has helped to shape the definitive new and revised guidelines we have produced. The consultation process not infrequently leads to significant revision of the draft guideline published as part of the consultation process. When any definitive guideline is issued the Council also publishes a response to consultation setting out in some detail the comments made by consultees and the Council’s response to them.
The way in which the Council prepares and publishes guidelines has not changed substantively since the Council was established in 2010. Over that time we have published guidelines relating to hundreds of specific offences together with overarching guidelines dealing with subjects such as sentencing children, sentencing offenders with a mental disorder and sentencing cases in which domestic abuse is a relevant factor.
The Council undertook several consultations on draft sentencing guidelines during the year. We consulted on draft guidelines for blackmail, kidnap and false imprisonment; immigration; non‑fatal strangulation and suffocation; hare coursing activities; and aggravated vehicle taking. We also consulted on amendments to the guidance on ancillary orders and held the fourth annual consultation on miscellaneous amendments to sentencing guidelines. Miscellaneous amendments are changes and updates to guidelines, often technical in nature, which the Council proposes based on feedback received from guideline users and others, or to take account of changes to legislation. The process in relation to guidelines for offences of blackmail, kidnap and false imprisonment, strangulation and suffocation and aggravated vehicle taking (including a variety of miscellaneous driving offences) was completed during the year ending 31 March 2025. The guidelines in relation to blackmail, kidnapping and false imprisonment are entirely new. Neither the Council nor our predecessor body previously had published guidelines in relation to these offences. The guidelines for offences of strangulation and suffocation also were new, the offences only having come into being in 2021.
The aggravated vehicle taking guidelines included a new guideline for vehicle registration fraud offences, no guideline previously having been in existence. They also included overarching guidance on disqualification from driving, which consolidated guidance previously contained in different guidelines. These new guidelines are significant in that they replace a guideline published by our predecessor body. There are now no Sentencing Guidelines Council guidelines still in force.
Understanding the Council’s impact
In addition to publishing guidelines, the Council has a statutory duty to monitor and evaluate their operation and effect. Our dedicated analysis and research team uses a range of different approaches and types of analysis, including bespoke, targeted data collections in courts, qualitative interviews with sentencers, transcript analysis and analysis of administrative data. Where possible, we collect data both before and after a new guideline has come into effect. Analysis of data from these collections helps us explore what might be influencing outcomes and understand how the guideline has been implemented in practice.
In August 2024, the Council published an evaluation of the impact and implementation of the Bladed articles and offensive weapons definitive guidelines that came into effect on 1 June 2018. Overall, the evidence reviewed suggests that the group of guidelines is generally working as intended, although conclusions about the guidelines’ impact are likely to be affected by the impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic from early 2020 onwards. There is more information on this evaluation on pages 19‑20.
On 10 December 2024, we published the Council’s response to a research review conducted independently by Nottingham Trent University. The review looked at the guideline for sentencing offences committed within a context of domestic abuse. The research review found that there was generally a high level of satisfaction among sentencers with how the guideline was used in practice, but we have identified some areas where minor changes should improve the clarity and accessibility of the guideline and help the courts better to reflect the seriousness of domestic abuse when it is present in other offences.
The Council has a statutory duty to produce a resource assessment for every sentencing guideline we develop. Each of the definitive guidelines we published and offence specific guideline consultations we launched during the reporting year was accompanied by a resource assessment. In these assessments we estimate the effects of the guidelines on the resource requirements of the prison, probation and youth justice services. They allow us and others in the criminal justice system to understand better the potential consequences of the Council’s proposed or definitive guidelines.
The Council also undertakes research and analysis to support some of our wider statutory duties, ie to provide further information in specific areas or to fill gaps in existing data. On 24 September 2024 we published a report of a research review we had commissioned looking at the effectiveness of sentencing. Commissioned from an independent academic, the review considers previously published research to look at the ways in which sentencing may or may not be effective in relation to sentencers, offenders, victims and the public. The work allows the Council to consider the most up‑to‑date evidence of the effectiveness of sentencing options when developing and revising sentencing guidelines.
Informing and responding to decision-makers
In January of this year, we submitted the Sentencing Council’s response to the call for evidence from the Independent Sentencing Review 2024–25 led by David Gauke. The review was set up to make a comprehensive re‑evaluation of the sentencing framework of England and Wales. Our submission, which explored potential influential factors in sentencing, focused on seven themes: key drivers: structures and processes; use of technology; alternatives to custody; custodial sentences: reform; custodial sentences: progression; and individual needs.
In exploring what factors might have led to an increase in sentence lengths in the past decade, our response concludes that sentencing guidelines might have played some part in the increase, although the available evidence suggests their influence appears to be limited.
The report of the Independent Sentencing Review was published on 22 May 2025. At the time of writing, the Council was considering the implications of its recommendations.
Promoting public confidence in sentencing
When people are aware of sentencing guidelines and understand how sentencing works, they tend to have more confidence in sentencing and the criminal justice system. As part of our five‑year strategy, published in November 2021, the Council committed to an objective of strengthening confidence in sentencing by improving public knowledge and understanding of sentencing, including among victims, witnesses and offenders, and the wider public.
In July 2024 we launched You be the Judge, an interactive sentencing website designed to engage users on the issue of sentencing and to challenge misconceptions about its leniency and fairness. You be the Judge shows how sentencing works via six short, filmed sentencing hearings that allow users to compare their sentencing decisions with those of the judges and magistrates. The website was promoted to teachers for use in schools and to public audiences of all ages. There is more information on You Be the Judge on pages 50‑51.
Another of the strategic objectives we set ourselves in 2021 was to seek opportunities to collaborate with academics, particularly with a view to broadening the range of analytical work we can draw on and to which we can contribute. On 15 January 2025, in partnership with the Sentencing Academy and The City Law School, we hosted a seminar to explore perspectives on sentencing. The seminar was well attended. We were particularly pleased that David Gauke spoke at one of the sessions and answered questions on a wide range of topics. There is more information on the presentations and discussions that took place at the seminar on pages 36‑7.
The Imposition guideline
The final guideline to be published in the year ending 31 March 2025 was the revised overarching guideline relating to the imposition of community and custodial sentences. The original guideline was published in 2017. It is probably the single guideline most frequently referred to by sentencers because it concerns the approach to offenders who are on the cusp of immediate custody for terms of up to two years. The revised guideline aimed to provide more detailed guidance on all aspects of sentencing. There was an emphasis on offenders facing shorter periods of custody. However, the guideline also dealt with particular groups of offenders such as young adults up to the age of 25 and female offenders. Discussion of the guideline by the Council began in July 2022. Consultation in relation to the draft guideline took place at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. There were over 150 responses to the consultation on the draft guideline. The Council considered the responses at a series of meetings concluding in January 2025. The process in which the Council engaged was the same as had been adopted on many occasions over the last 15 years. Many suggested changes were put forward, some of which we adopted. There were some adverse comments in relation to parts of the draft guideline. In no instance was there even a significant minority who opposed the approach taken by the Council.
One section of the revised guideline dealt with various aspects of pre‑sentence reports, the section being more detailed that the equivalent section in the original guideline. This section included a list of cohorts or groups for whom the guideline advised a pre‑sentence report normally would be necessary. The reason for including the individual groups varied. The common theme was that a court would need as much information as possible about the group identified. The list was not exhaustive. At the suggestion of the Justice Committee, the Council added a paragraph after consultation emphasising that the list was non‑exhaustive.
On the day that the revised Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline was published – 5 March 2025 – there was reference to it in the course of a debate in the House of Commons. One of the groups for whom a report was said normally to be necessary was ethnic, cultural and faith minorities. It was suggested that the guidance in relation to pre‑sentence reports created differential sentencing outcomes for ethnic minorities. Following the debate the Lord Chancellor wrote to me as Chairman of the Council. I responded in writing. I then met the Lord Chancellor with her officials to discuss the position. As a result she wrote to me again on 20 March 2025. The Council was invited to take one of two courses: remove the list of cohorts or groups for whom a pre‑sentence report normally would be necessary; re‑open the consultation on the revised Imposition guideline.
The full Council met to consider the request made by the Lord Chancellor. We considered that there was no basis for taking the first course. The Council is an independent public body which operates via a well‑established statutory framework. Its purpose in part is to preserve the independence of the judiciary in relation to sentencing. The statutory framework provides for the executive and Parliament (and all other interested parties) to provide input to any draft guideline within the consultation process. That is what happened in this case.
The Council considered carefully the proposition that we should re‑open the consultation process. The Council decided not to do so. I explained the reasons for our decision in some detail in an open letter to the Lord Chancellor on 27 March 2025. The letter remains available on the Council’s website. I spoke to the Lord Chancellor on 31 March 2025. She told me that she intended to introduce legislation to prevent guidance in relation to the provision of pre‑sentence reports for particular groups in any Council guideline. Since the revised Imposition guideline was due to come into effect the following day, I informed the Lord Chancellor that the in‑effect date for the guideline would be postponed at least until the outcome of the legislative process was known. At the time of writing the legislation is still making its way through Parliament. Plainly the Council will not bring into effect any guideline which has been declared unlawful in legislation.
The Lord Chancellor’s reason for inviting the Council to remove the list of cohorts was that in part it trespassed into the realm of policy. The Council respectfully disagreed with that analysis. A pre‑ sentence report is one means by which a court can obtain information about an offender. The cohorts were those about whom information a court might be lacking information were a pre‑sentence report not to be obtained. In the case of ethnic minorities the Council’s rationale was that there are current disparities in sentencing which adversely affect ethnic minorities and that providing more information might assist in removing those disparities. This was not a matter of creating differential outcomes. A pre‑ sentence report does not determine the sentence imposed.
There has been reference at various stages of the progress of the relevant Bill through Parliament to the prospect of some further legislative action in relation to the Council. Given that there has not been any outline of what might be proposed I cannot offer any developed view on behalf of the Council. The only point that I would make at this stage is that the Council has operated since 2010 during which time hundreds of guidelines have been issued. The Council has provided an opportunity for the executive and Parliament to contribute to the development of sentencing guidelines in a way which did not exist hitherto. The current structure was deliberately created to provide a careful balance between quasi‑political involvement in sentencing and judicial independence.
The people behind the guidelines
There have been some changes in Council membership over the past year. I am delighted to welcome Her Honour Judge Amanda Rippon as a judicial member of the Council. Amanda brings a wealth of experience from her time on the bench and as an advocate. I am equally pleased to announce the reappointment of Richard Wright KC for three years. Richard was appointed to the Council on 1 August 2022 with specific responsibility to represent criminal defence.
Sadly, this year we have said goodbye to Her Honour Judge Rosa Dean. Rosa was an active and vital member of the Council for six years, chairing the confidence and communication sub‑committee and leading our work on the guidelines for sentencing offenders with mental disorders, developmental disorders, or neurological impairments; guidelines covering animal cruelty offences; and latterly the new guidelines for strangulation and suffocation.
In March 2025 we also bade farewell to Chief Constable Rob Nixon who had been serving as the non‑judicial member of the Council with policing experience since 1 December 2023. We thank Rosa and Rob for their significant contributions to our work and wish them the best for the future.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to the staff of the Office of the Sentencing Council. They are the Council’s most valuable resource. I continue to be greatly impressed by their expertise, professionalism and dedication.
Lord Justice William Davis Chairman
June 2025