Reducing the backlog in criminal courts
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a growing backlog of cases waiting to be tried in the criminal courts system. During the first national lockdown, HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) closed some court buildings, and suspended all jury trials. Since then, courts have reopened, but national guidelines for social distancing mean a reduced number of hearings can be held, and the backlog has steadily increased. This backlog has had significant impacts on defendants, some of whom are held in custody on remand, and on victims and witnesses, many of whom are waiting months and years to have even extremely serious cases heard . The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and HMCTS are implementing a COVID-19 recovery programme to tackle the growing backlog. These efforts will have impacts across the whole criminal justice system. The Committee will question senior officials at the MoJ and HMCTS on how they are managing the criminal case backlog, including their understanding of demand and capacity in the criminal courts, the effectiveness of their COVID-19 recovery programme, and their work across the criminal justice system to understand and plan for demand which is expected to increase further as thousands of new police officers are recruited. If you have evidence on these issues, submit it here by Monday 6 December 2021.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
Victims of crime are waiting even longer to access justice. As waiting times increase, so does the probability that a case collapses as victims withdraw from the process. Rape and serious sexual offences survivors are at the sharp edge of this trend, as these cases are more likely to progress to jury trials, which require more space and are more prone to delays. The committee is concerned that the Ministry of Justice (the Department’s)
ambition to support victims is being frustrated by these delays and that victims’
confidence in the criminal justice system is being eroded.
An efficient court system keeps us all safer and empowers victims to move on with their lives. The criminal courts’ backlog of cases has rocketed, both before and since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog in the Crown Court, which hears the most serious cases, increased by 23% in the year leading up to the pandemic, from 33,290 cases in March 2019 to 41,045 cases in March 2020. Since then, the backlog of Crown Court cases has increased by a further 46% to 59,928 cases in September 2021 as courts made changes to keep judges, court staff, and users safe.
The Department has secured funding from the Treasury to reduce the backlog to 53,000 cases by March 2025. But this modest ambition would mean the backlog in cases would be still considerably higher than before the pandemic. There are also significant, systemic challenges that threaten its achievement including having enough judges, legal professionals and local staff to support criminal courts. We also have significant concerns about the ability of the rest of the criminal justice system to respond to more cases flowing through the courts, particularly in the prison service.
What the government said
The government responded on 27 May 2022. The deadline was 9 May 2022.
The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the six recommendations, setting target implementation dates between September 2022 and Autumn 2024 (one is marked as already implemented).
- On expected Crown Court case durations, the department "believes the timeframes set out in BCM remain a reasonable expectation, subject to there being sufficient capacity", will discuss this with the judiciary, and will write to the Committee by October 2022.
- On judicial recruitment, it says recruiting sufficient salaried judges "has been challenging" and that recruitment for 70 Circuit Judges and 125 Recorders "commences in 2022", with shortfalls to be mitigated, including by increased Recorder sittings.
- On prison capacity, it says it is "currently undertaking the largest prison build programme in a century", investing £3.8 billion to deliver 20,000 places by the mid-2020s, and states the recommendation is implemented.
- On vulnerable users and ethnic minority groups, HMCTS "will consider the experience of criminal court users" in its reform evaluation, with findings "anticipated in Autumn 2024". The department says it currently has "a partial data set".
Read the government's response ↗ Read the report ↗ Report an error
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 21 September 2021 to 23 September 2022. The dashed mark is the deadline Parliament records for the government's response.
- Oral evidence 13 Dec 2021
- Report 9 Mar 2022
- Government response 27 May 2022
- Correspondence 2 letters
What it recommended 5 recommendations · 18 conclusions
2Victims of rape and serious sexual offences are facing unacceptable delays to justice that compound...
3We are not convinced that the Department can recruit enough judges to deliver on its...
4We remain unconvinced that the prison system will cope with the likely increase in prisoners...
5Vulnerable users and people from ethnic minority backgrounds are potentially impacted disproportionately by efforts to...
6We recognise the long overdue move towards bringing data on the criminal justice system together,...
1On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence...
7As the backlog has increased, so has the time that defendants, witnesses and victims have...
8The Department’s plan to reduce the Crown Court backlog to 53,000 cases relies on increasing...
9In the meantime, the Department is relying on using part-time judges (recorders) to provide the...
10In 2017, the Lammy review into how ethnic minorities are treated in the criminal justice...
11The Department expects that the demand for prison places will increase significantly.
12In July 2021, the Department estimated that its court recovery plan and the increase in...
13The Department described how it is tightly managing the prison build programme to ensure there...
14We have reported previously on matters concerning the expansion and maintenance of the prison system.
15Since the start of the pandemic, the Department and HMCTS have significantly increased the use...
16The Department told us that the use of remote hearings is at the discretion of...
17We also asked about the impact of the pandemic on black, Asian and minority ethnic...
18The Department explained that victims of rape and serious sexual offences had been particularly affected...
19The Department explained how the longer victims wait for their case to be heard in...
20Several organisations wrote to us to describe the trauma and impact on victims having to...
21The Department told us that having good data across the criminal justice system is a...
22We asked HMCTS what progress it had made on implementing Dr Natalie Byrom’s recommendations on...
23We asked the Department what it is doing to improve data flows across different parts...
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 13 Dec 2021Reducing the backlog in criminal courts3 witnesses, listed belowparliament.uk ↗
Who gave evidence 3 witnesses
- Andrew BaigentChief Financial Officer, HM Courts and Tribunals Service
- Antonia RomeoPermanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice
- Jerome GlassDirector General, Policy and Strategy Group, Ministry of Justice
Correspondence 2 letters
- 23 Sep 2022Correspondence from Antonia Romeo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, re response to the PAC Committee – Reducing the backlogs in criminal courts, dated 7 September 2022
- 7 Feb 2022Correspondence from Jerome Glass, Director General, Policy and Strategy Group, Ministry of Justice, re Individuals released under investigation for RASSO Crimes, dated 2 February 2022