Recommendation 9

We are not convinced that the capacity of the magistrates’ court can be expanded sufficiently to deal with the potential increases in workload that could result from the changes in the bill. It seems unrealistic to propose that 7,000 magistrates can be recruited in three years and that there will be 21,000 magistrates by 2029. The decline in the number of magistrates and legal advisers is part of a long-term trend which we do not believe can be reversed simply because the government has decided that allocating more cases to the magistrates’ court is the preferred solution to the crisis in the Crown Court. (Conclusion, Paragraph 42)