Part 1: Victims of Criminal Conduct Victims’ Commissioner Section 22: Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses
This section makes the following amendments to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 (the 2004 Act).
	Subsection (2)(a) amends the Victim Commissioners’ statutory function under the section 49 of the 2004 Act to keep the operation of the Code under review to include the extent to which agencies under the duty in section 5(1) of the Act (duty to provide services in accordance with the Code) have complied with it.
	Subsection (2)(b) amends section 49(2)(c) of the 2004 Act to provide that the Victims’ Commissioner can make recommendations at any point in time and is not limited to just making recommendations in the annual report. Subsection (2)(b) inserts a provision which specifies that the Victims’ Commissioner can include within their reports recommendations to any authority within the Victims’ Commissioner’s remit and subsection (2)(c) inserts a requirement for the Victims’ Commissioner to lay their annual report before Parliament.
	Subsection (3) inserts a requirement for criminal justice agencies or Government departments who are named directly in the Victim’s Commissioner’s reports to respond to any recommendations made to them. The relevant person(s) must prepare comments on any recommendations made in the report, with an explanation of:
the action that has been, or is proposed to be taken in response to the recommendation, or;
why action has not been, or is not proposed to be, taken in response to the recommendations.
	The inserted wording provides that the relevant person(s) is the authority the recommendations are made about, or in the event the authority is a Government department with a responsible Minister, that Minister. It also specifies that the response must be published in a manner considered appropriate by the relevant person(s), within 56 days of the Victim’s Commissioner’s report being published and that anything published must be sent to the Victim’s Commissioner and, where the authority is not a Government department in the charge of a Minister, the Secretary of State.
	Subsection (4) ensures that Schedule 9 to the 2004 Act includes the authorities that may be responsible for responding as per subsection (3) above.