Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Accepted
Paragraph: 28
Judicial capacity identified as the most pressing constraint on the court system.
Conclusion
When the number of staff and judges falls more sharply than the overall caseload, there are bound to be capacity issues in the courts. Even if the number of cases falls more quickly than the number of staff, reducing judicial and staff capacity creates a risk when there is always a possibility that the number of cases will increase again. As discussed later in this Report, at present, judicial capacity is the most pressing constraint on the capacity of the courts.
Government Response Summary
The government stated that the existing Better Case Management framework sets reasonable timeframes for Crown Court cases and committed to continuing to improve the CJS Delivery Data Dashboard for monitoring timeliness, but offered no new specific actions for increasing capacity.
Paragraph Reference:
28
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The department has previously worked with the judiciary to consider reasonable expectations for case completion times in the Crown Court. This resulted in the development of Better Case Management (BCM) framework, a judicially-led initiative introduced in 2016, under which timeframes are set out for each stage of the process regarding preparation for trial. BCM outlines that cases are expected to take 182 days from receipt at Crown Court to start of trial (assuming a non-guilty plea), providing all parties undertake their obligations. The department believes the timeframes set out in BCM remain a reasonable expectation. The CJS Delivery Data Dashboard (formerly called CJS Scorecards) shows timeliness at different stages of the system such as the investigating or charging stage to better understand where in the justice process delays are occurring, down to Local Criminal Justice Board level. For example, the local data dashboard monitors how long it takes between a case arriving at the Crown Court and the case completing. We are committed to continuing to improve the dashboard with each publication cycle which includes making sure we are monitoring the right metrics that give the fairest reflection of timeliness across the system. The Criminal Courts—Sitting Days in the Crown Court