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Established in April 2010 to replace and amalgamate the roles of the Sentencing Advisory Panel and the Sentencing Guidelines Council, the Sentencing Council for England and Wales is an independent body designed to create and issue guidelines on sentencing which courts must follow. See Part IV, Chapter 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act (CAJA) 2009.

As part of its role, the Council is responsible for:

•developing sentencing guidelines and monitoring their use;

•assessing the impact of guidelines on sentencing practice; and

•promoting awareness amongst the public regarding the realities of sentencing and publishing information regarding sentencing practice in the magistrates’ court and the Crown Court.

In constructing these guidelines, the Council is required, by s 120(11) of the CAJA 2009, to have regard to:

(a) the sentences imposed by courts in England and Wales for offences;

(b) the need to promote consistency in sentencing;

(c) the impact of sentencing decisions on victims of offences;

(d) the need to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system;

(e) the cost of different sentences and their relative effectiveness in preventing re-offending;

(f) the results of the monitoring carried out under section 128.

Further, by s 121 of the CAJA 2009, the Guidelines must be designed in such a way that they include the following information.

Table 1.8Structure of the Sentencing Council Guidelines

Source	The Guidelines should …
s 121(2)	Describe the different categories of case involving the commission of the offence which illustrate in general terms the varying degrees of seriousness with which the offence may be committed.
s 121(4)(a)	Specify the range of sentences (‘the offence range’) which, in the opinion of the Council, it may be appropriate for a court to impose on an offender convicted of that offence.
s 121(5)	Specify the sentencing starting point in the offence range.
s 121(6)(a)	List any aggravating or mitigating factors which, by virtue of any enactment or other rule of law, the court is required to take into account when considering the seriousness of the offence and any other aggravating or mitigating factors which the Council considers are relevant to such a consideration.

These guidelines, although ‘definitive’, are not absolute in that they allow for the discretion of judges. By s 125(1) of the CAJA 2009, every judge in sentencing an offender must follow any sentencing guidelines that are relevant to the offender’s case ‘unless the court is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so’.