A recruitment freeze at the Crown Prosecution Service and its latest budget cut will increase the burden on defence solicitors and the criminal justice system, lawyers warned this week.

The Attorney General’s Office has said that the CPS must contribute an additional £16m of savings. This will be over and above the CPS’s existing savings commitment of £69m during 2010.

It has imposed a recruitment freeze on the service, and called on it to implement ‘aggressive cost reduction strategies’ in relation to the procurement of goods and services.

Commenting on the cuts, CPS chief inspector Michael Fuller told the Gazette that the service was already ‘severely stretched’. He added: ‘The CPS faces the difficult challenge of needing to improve the quality and efficiency of its work with a reducing budget. I hope the increased focus on the core quality standards will help give it a much needed focus.’

Recent inspection reports found poor case preparation by the CPS, arising from its limited resources and the high number of new criminal justice initiatives.

Fuller said: ‘The service has been severely stretched in terms of what’s been expected of it… What’s needed in these tight financial times is to focus on the quality of casework and delivery of justice in the most cost-efficient way.’

Paul Harris, chairman of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, said: ‘I have sympathy with the CPS; they are hugely under-resourced and under great pressure. But further cuts will place greater pressure on the whole justice system and defence representatives.’

Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Law Society’s criminal law committee, said: ‘If the CPS becomes dysfunctional because of cuts, this will have an adverse impact on the court system and on defence practitioners.

‘We’ll undoubtedly see further examples of delays in replying to correspondence, files not appearing at court, witnesses not warned and trials being delayed.’

A CPS spokeswoman said the service is working through the implications of the new recruitment freeze and ‘efficiency savings’.