Recommendation 24

MoJ told us that it has spent “a significant amount of money” on maintaining the court estate over the last two years.64 HMCTS told us that there is a significant maintenance backlog, but nevertheless assured us that the total capacity of Crown Court courtrooms is adequate for the current number of sitting days and is not a constraint on progressing cases through the Crown Court. It told us that only 2% of capacity is lost each year because of planned or unplanned maintenance, and, by moving cases around between courts, only 0.2% of sitting days are lost.65 HMCTS stated that at present there are 16 Nightingale courtrooms–temporary courtrooms set up during Covid–19 to meet social–distancing requirements and which are typically three times as expensive to run as existing courts– still operating across seven venues. However, it told us that the remaining Nightingale courts now compensate for court closures for other reasons, for example courts that have shut because they contain RAAC concrete.66 HMCTS told us of its continual efforts to shut expensive Nightingale courts 58 Qq 6 ,42, 46 59 Qq 12, 16; C&AG‘s Report, Figure 10 60 Q 18 61 Qq 17–21, 28 62 Qq 22–23 63 Q 22 64 Q 26 65 Qq 26–27, 73 66 Qq 65–68; Letter from HMCTS to PAC, 22 January 2025 18 and use the main estate instead, but we remain concerned that Nightingale courts are still operating when up to 20% of courtrooms are not in use on a typical day.67