The Citizen's Charter and the criminal justice system in England and Wales - an examination of policing charter documents and how they may affect the police and the citizen/consumer

For those who are not involved in the provision of public services the Citizen's Charter is likely to be a low key concept. My intention here is to describe the Charter, in order to understand its content, its origins and its effects upon users and service providers.The f i r s t part of the dissertation deals with some of the policies, described as the fore-runners to the inception of the Citizen's Charter programme. The main features of the. Citizen's Charter w i ll then be examined, and discussed .with relation to the concepts of citizenship within the United Kingdom today. Focusing primarily upon the Police Service, the second part outlines how the Citizen's Charter i s affecting the criminal justice system. Here the performance indicators produced as a consequence of the Citizen's Charter w i l l be examined, revealing that, even i f the Citizen's Charter i s of low salience to the general public, these measures have given i t prominence.^ to those; employed i n organisations which provide public services. The role of the Police will be. - 1 - reviewed, to consider whether the Citizen's Charter has led to the setting out of core policing duties, and r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s . The concepts of quality, consumersim and measurement of police services and the implementation of the Citizen's Charter Policy w i l l also be discussed. The third and fourth parts will concentrate upon the research andsubsequent description and comparison of individual Charters produced by Police Forces i n England and Wales. The Intention i s to examine these Charters i n terms of the issues discussed i n the f i r s t two parts of the dissertation. The f i f t h and sixth parts w i l l provide a conclusion, and an assessment of the affects and implications which the Citizens Charter may be having upon the Police Service, and the citizen/police relationship