• Accreditation of the Office under the ACT Smart Office program; and
• The recruitment and training of junior lawyers.

The major challenge facing the Office is undoubtedly maintaining prosecutorial services in the face of increasing workloads and resourcing cutbacks. Other major challenges are:

• Meeting the demands of the new Industrial Court, and the new environment for work safety prosecutions, at a time of contracting resources;
• Maintaining staff development, particularly professional development for prosecutors in face of workload and budgetary pressures;
• Retaining junior prosecutors;
• Continuing pressures on wage rates and workloads of paralegals;
• Dealing with issues of security of staff outside the office, particularly in court and on the way to court; and
• Contributing to legislative reform within existing staffing levels and workloads.

A.4 Outlook

Priorities for the coming year include:

• Participating in the reform of case management in the Supreme Court and listing reform in the Magistrates Court;
• Engaging with government as to the situation of the Office in the context of the one department model, and separate appropriation for the Office;
• Contributing to the improvement and coordination of regulatory offences, particularly work safety offences involving death or serious injury;
• Enhancing continuing legal education opportunities for prosecutors, particularly through in-house training, mentoring and advocacy exercises;
• Enhancing the reporting capabilities of CASES; and
• Doing business electronically, particularly with the service of briefs and the presentation of material in court.

The key influence on the operating environment of the Office is likely to be the case management practices of the Supreme Court and the listing practices of the Magistrates Court. The office will continue to contribute to discussions about reforming those practices.

A significant risk facing the office continues to centre upon the retention and recruitment of legal staff given workload pressures, and pressures on prosecutorial services imposed by the contracting fiscal environment. The office prosecutes virtually all matters in house. While this saves the community money on external counsel and increases the skills of public prosecutors, as previously noted, the risks associated with this are the increased pressure on prosecutors and reduced flexibility.

Another significant risk centres on the prosecution of work safety matters. These matters are complex and significant to the community. However there are no resources within the Office to cope with the expected increase in work safety prosecutions and to meet the needs of the new Industrial Court. Deficiencies in the training and resourcing of investigators, and the coordination of investigations between regulators and police are also causes of concern.