Judiciary: Recruitment

(asked on 14th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost to the public purse was in 2019-20 of the (a) recruitment of and (b) induction and initial training for (i) full-time district judges, (ii) deputy district judges and (iii) lay magistrates and each (A) full-time district judge, (B) deputy district judge and (C) lay magistrate.


Answered by
Alex Chalk Portrait
Alex Chalk
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This question was answered on 22nd December 2020

Recruitment of judges in England and Wales is undertaken by the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC). The JAC completed 35 recruitment exercises and made 979 recommendations in 2019/20, including 47 district judges, 151 deputy district judges and 17 district judges (magistrates’ court). The costs allocated to each exercise were £44,000 for district judges, £454,000 for deputy district judges and £60,000 for district judges (magistrates’ courts). Due to the different costs incurred for different exercises, judge level recruitment costs are not reported.

The Lord Chief Justice is responsible for judicial training, exercised through the Judicial College. As district judges are required to have previous judicial experience, induction training is tailored to meet the specific needs of each judge based on their previous sitting experience. Of the appointments made in 2019/20, three district judges were required to attend training at a total cost of £10,000. The cost of induction training for deputy district judges was £1.2m plus £873,000 in sitting in days. These are observation days at a hearing before and after training that must be completed by fee paid judges before presiding over a hearing. Induction training was also provided to 30 newly appointed deputy district judges (magistrates’ courts) at a total cost of £81,000. The Judicial College does not calculate the cost per judge of induction training.

In 2019-2020 1,033 magistrates were appointed. HMCTS are responsible for the recruitment and the delivery of training to magistrates and do not collate the costs of magistrate recruitment or training.

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