Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Deferred
Paragraph: 62
Produce comprehensive evaluation of Nightingale Courts and outline future policy for supplementary venues.
Recommendation
We welcome the Government’s announcement of the lease extension for a number of the Nightingale Courts. The Government should now set out its policy on the future use of supplementary venues to support the work of the Crown Court. It should also produce a comprehensive evaluation of the Nightingale Courts, and ensure that the lessons learned from their establishment and operation are taken forward.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government did not set out its policy on the future use of supplementary venues like Nightingale Courts or commit to a comprehensive evaluation of them. Instead, it outlined its current consideration of a Royal Commission and listed several ongoing technology and reform programmes within the justice system.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
62
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
Nightingale courts have been essential throughout the pandemic, providing much needed temporary capacity while social distancing measures were in place, ensuring delivery of justice continued. We have extended the use of 13 Nightingale court venues, providing 30 hearing rooms to support the Government’s target of reducing Crown case backlogs to 53,000 by 2024/25. We also set up a temporary venue to hold a large trial taking place in Walsall, that is expected to sit over a period of more than a year, avoiding disruption in the nearby Crown Court. We continue to evaluate the Nightingale court programme and will assess the need for temporary venues based on operational requirements. The Nightingale court programme has proven our ability to create suitable temporary court capacity at short notice to meet operational demand. We have already gathered and applied a range of important lessons that we have learnt from the Nightingale court programme. We commit to providing a comprehensive evaluation of the Nightingale court programme by the end of the 2022/23 financial year.
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