Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What steps his Department is taking to reduce delays in judicial processes.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We remain committed to tackling the outstanding caseloads across our courts and tribunals and have introduced a range of measures to achieve this aim.
While the listing of cases is an independent judicial function, we have consistently invested in judicial recruitment to ensure we have the capacity to deliver effective judicial processes. Since 2018, we have recruited around 1,000 judges and tribunal members annually, across all jurisdictions.
Criminal courts
Over 90% of all criminal cases are heard at the magistrates’ courts, where we heard 100,000 cases a month on average across 2023. While the outstanding caseload in the magistrates’ courts has slightly increased in recent months due to an increase in the number of cases coming to court, the caseload remains well below its pandemic peak and stood at 370,700 at the end of December 2023, and cases continue to be progressed quickly.
To aid our efforts in the magistrates’ courts, we invested £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of more magistrates. We aim to recruit 2,000 new and diverse magistrates this year, and similar numbers for each of the next couple of years.
At the Crown Court, we remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload. We delivered 107,700 sitting days in the most recent financial year (FY23/24) and judges have worked tirelessly to complete more cases. The latest data shows cases progressed through the Crown Court more quickly throughout 2023, with the median time from receipt to completion reducing from 167 days in the first quarter of 2023, to 125 days in the last quarter.
We are also investing more in our criminal courts. In August 2023, we announced we are investing £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of our court buildings, up to March 2025.
Family Court
In March 2024 the Family Justice Board agreed a new set of priorities for the family justice system, with a clear focus on closing the longest running cases and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluding within the 26-week statutory timeline.
We announced in the Spring Budget an additional £55 million to improve productivity, support earlier resolution of family disputes and reduce the number of cases coming to court. This includes creating a digital advice tool for separating couples, piloting early legal advice and supporting the expansion of the private law Pathfinder model. The Department for Education are investing an extra £10 million to deliver new initiatives to address the longest delays in public law.
We have provided the flexibility for judges to sit virtually across regional boundaries, so that judges can be deployed where they are needed most, to reduce the caseload and waiting times.
We are also investing up to £23.6 million in the family mediation voucher scheme, which we intend will allow for its continuation up to March 2025. As of May 2024, over 28,600 families have successfully used the scheme to attempt to resolve their private law disputes outside of court.
Civil courts
With regards to civil cases, we are taking action to ensure those that do need to go to trial are dealt with quickly. We have a significant volume of judicial recruitment underway for District and Deputy District Judges, are digitising court processes and holding more remote hearings, and are increasing the use of mediation.
The requirement for small claims in the county court to attend a mediation session with the Small Claims Mediation Service will start this spring and is expected to help parties resolve their dispute swiftly and consensually without the need for a judicial hearing.
The HMCTS Reform Program has introduced technology that delivers simplified and transformed digital ways of working for civil court users and judges such as the online money claims process and the damages claims service, offering accessible and responsive services.
Tribunals
With regards to the tribunals, we continue to work with the Department for Business and Trade on further measures to address caseloads in the Employment Tribunal, where the deployment of legal officers, recruitment of additional judges and a new electronic case management system have helped the Tribunal to manage its caseload which remains below its pandemic peak.
We have rolled out the HMCTS digital reform programme in the Immigration and Asylum and Social Entitlement chambers so that anyone challenging an immigration or welfare benefits decision can lodge their appeal, track progress and receive the results all online.
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.