Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many staff HM Courts and Tribunals Service employed (a) centrally and (b) through agencies in (i) 2010, (ii) 2014 and (iii) 2018; and how many they estimate will be employed in each of those categories in 2022.

Please find below HMCTS permanent and agency staff numbers for 2014 and 2018. Staff numbers were not available in 2010 as HMCTS was created on the 1^st April 2011 by the merger of Her Majesty’s Courts Service and the Tribunals Service.

From a forecasting perspective, agency staff (as of 31 Aug 2019) currently represent 13.82% of our overall Full Time Equivalent (FTE) workforce. By the end of the financial year (FY) 2021/22 we are forecasting that our overall FTE will be c13,000 FTE based on a Programme Business Case (05) figures; therefore, if our agency % remains the same then this would equate to c1,800 agency staff. However, we do anticipate reducing our agency rates over the coming years so this % is likely to be lower by the end of FY 2021/22.