Recommendation 23

HM Government Acknowledged

72. A table detailing the volumes of youth outstanding cases in both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court in England and Wales between January 2020 to June 2020 is below. No official published statistics are available with a breakdown for youth cases post June 2020. Jan-20 Feb-20 Mar-20 Apr-20 May-20 Jun-20 Magistrates’ courts 9,552 9,396 9,702 11,251 12,573 13,309 outstanding youth cases Crown Courts’ 622 654 652 619 615 617 outstanding youth cases *includes all case types (e.g. ‘for trial’, sentence and appeal cases). For Crown Court the age breakdowns provided are captured as the age of the main defendant at the point of the latest period that the case was outstanding, e.g. age at the point of 30th June 2020. For magistrates’ court, the data is captured based on where the defendant is recorded as Youth in the database. 73. The most recent youth justice timeliness statistics published are from 2018–2019 and can be found online.22 Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it has not been possible to produce criminal court timeliness estimates for Q1 and Q2 2020. Data to the end of December 2019 remain the latest available estimates. Relevant statistics are published as part of the ‘Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly’ series available online, which will provide quarterly updates and will allow an assessment to be made of the trends and impact over time.23 74. It is important that cases involving children are heard as quickly as possible and we are working to clear the courts backlog at pace. HMCTS has put a Covid-19 recovery plan in place in which senior officials in each region are working with Resident Judges to prioritise trials involving youth defendants. Youth cases are continually reviewed to ensure that they remain a top priority, particularly where they involve a child who will be crossing a relevant age threshold. 75. HMCTS work on youth justice has been supported by the Youth Justice Working Group, chaired by the Judicial Lead on Youth Justice, and set up to reduce the impact of Covid-19 delays on the youth court and trials involving youths in the Crown Court. This group is attended by criminal justice agencies and its purposes are: to ascertain the likely impact of Covid-19 on backlogs and to identify options to reduce these safely; to develop criteria for prioritising cases involving children and young people; and to minimise unnecessary child appearances at court where appropriate and where there are alternative options. The group meets regularly to monitor the progress of the recovery plans that are in place, with the meetings being attended by the relevant HMCTS lead. 76. Recovery plans and arrangements have meant that, since July 2020, Youth Courts have been able to conclude more cases every week than have been received.