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National Witness Service

The Witness Service has been available in all Criminal Courts in England and Wales since 2003. The core purpose of the Service is to meet emotional and practical needs of witnesses and support them to give their best evidence. The key elements of the support offered by the Service are: • To provide information to witnesses about their rights and the process of giving evidence, including the role they play in the Criminal Justice System; • To arrange and conduct pre-trial visits to court buildings, helping witnesses to familiarise themselves with the court building; • Greet witnesses on the day in Court, acting as a generally supportive presence and supporting HMCTS staff in guiding witnesses through court buildings. Some witnesses may also require additional support or outreach.

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Contents

Summary

The Witness Service operates at courts throughout England and Wales.  

The Service should be free of charge to users, flexible, responsive, accessible and delivered in an empathetic, non-judgemental and validating way, and in line with the Equality Act (2010).  

A core principle of the WS is that it is impartial, and therefore the Service should not discuss case details with witnesses or provide legal advice. This is critical to their role as an impartial support service which is available to both prosecution and defence witnesses. 

A full breakdown of activities are set out in the ‘Funded Activities’ document, and includes (but is not limited to):  

  • Pre-trial support: Delivering pre-trial support services for Witnesses except for Witnesses residing in the London Boroughs. This includes delivering a pre-trial visit to a court location;  

  • On the day support: Providing emotional and practical support to all Witnesses who arrive at Court to give evidence or attend a sentencing or special measures hearing. To note, some witnesses may give evidence from a remote, or other court approved, location and the Service -should be notified in advance of this; 

  • Post trial support: Signposting witnesses to other locally and nationally commissioned services if the Witness has ongoing needs, following their attendance at court and whilst they are still in the court building; 

  • In some cases, where Witnesses are identified as being vulnerable and/or intimidated, additional support may be necessary. This could include provision of additional Outreach Support, accompanying witnesses when they give evidence in the court room and sign-posting witnesses to further support services post-trial, with their consent.

Eligibility

Applications must be made by an organisation (or consortium of organisations) who are based in the UK. 

Applicants may be: 

  • A single entity which will deliver the Funded Activities; or 

  • A lead organisation working with other organisations delivering elements of the Funded Activities; or 

  • An umbrella consortium formed from a number of organisations with shared objectives and agreed arrangements for leadership and governance. 

All grants must be delivered on a strictly not-for-profit basis. 

The Authority will not award a grant that would result in duplicate payments for expenditure. This includes activities that are presently delivered through any live contract, grant agreement, co-commissioning arrangement and/or any direct purchases with the Authority or other public body when the beneficiaries are the same

Objectives

The National Witness Service shall provide the following outcomes: 

  • Ensure that witnesses (including victims) in criminal cases can continue to access emotional and practical support both in advance of their trial and on the day.  

  • Introduction and roll-out of bespoke formal Trauma informed training to all operational National Witness Service staff and any volunteers to ensure the service better meet the needs of witnesses. This will also ensure the service is best able to meet the needs of the most vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, particularly those in sexual violence and domestic abuse cases. This objective is in line with wider work taking place across the CJS to help deliver more trauma-informed support. 

  • Gather further evidence on the impact of the service on its users, to build assurance that we are getting value for the funding we are providing for the service and to support continuous improvement of the quality and efficiency of the service post 2030. 

A list of anticipated Performance Measures is included in the Data Room for the competition.

Dates

The successful applicant will be notified by end of April 2025.  Mobilisation funding will be available from July 2025 when the Grant Funding Agreement is signed.  Mobilisation funding must be spent by 31 March 2026 and the Witness Service must be operational from 1 April 2026.  The grant will run for four years until 31 March 2030.

How to apply

To apply, interested parties must create or log into an account on the Ministry of Justice's e-sourcing platform to start an application.  

 The application is an online process and divided into the following sections which will all need to be completed: 

  • Qualification: Applicant shall provide responses to eligibility criteria.  

  • Technical: Applicant shall provide responses to technical-based criteria, illustrating the proposed activities, plans, resources etc.  

  • Commercial: Applicant shall provide a breakdown of funds applied for.

Supporting information

The Code of Practice for Victims of Crime in England and Wales (2020) sets out a requirement, in ‘Right 8’, that all witnesses should be given information about the trial, the trial process and their role as a witness.  This includes the right to be offered a referral to a witness support service that can arrange a visit to the court before the trial date to aid familiarisation with the building, and a contact point at court (who may be a member of a witness support service). The Witness Charter, for which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has policy responsibility, also sets out the standards of care and support all witnesses (including prosecution and defence witnesses, but not those giving evidence in a professional capacity e.g. expert witnesses and police officers) can expect to receive from criminal justice agencies and support organisations if they have witnessed a crime and are required to give evidence in court. This, alongside the Victims’ Code, sets out minimum levels of support and service, which the court-based Witness Service enables us to meet. 

The Witness Service (WS) currently operates at 221 criminal courts in England and Wales. In 2023/24 WS supported approximately 81,000 witnesses.