Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
12th Report - Crown Court backlogs
Public Accounts Committee
HC 348
Published 5 March 2025
Recommendations
7
Accepted
Assure accuracy of criminal justice datasets and set out scope for courts' digitisation.
Recommendation
Despite MoJ assuring us that it has rectified the processing errors that led to it publishing inaccurate Crown Court statistics, we remain concerned that other datasets within the criminal justice system may be affected by the same quality and accuracy …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees and outlines its scope for further digitisation and AI, including current trials of transcription and summarisation in tribunals, past AI knowledge management trials, and plans to decommission legacy systems by Spring 2027. Future expansion of AI and data sharing improvements are contingent on Spending Review funding.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (16)
2
Conclusion
Accepted
Long waits for cases to start, delays and the often–last–minute postponement of cases all have a significant impact on the victims of crime, particularly for victims of Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) and violent crimes, seriously disrupting their lives, inflicting additional distress on people who have already experienced terrible …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and commits to rolling over the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund and maintaining ringfenced spending for community-based sexual violence and domestic abuse support in 2025/26. It also engages regularly with providers to improve victim support, but defers further commitments to the Spending Review.
3
Conclusion
Accepted
For some time now, MoJ has been failing to adequately forecast increases in the number and mix of cases being sent to the Crown Court, reducing its ability to plan how the courts system may need to adapt to meet the varying caseload. MoJ carries out modelling to project likely …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and commits to regularly reviewing its CJS projections to incorporate latest data, interventions, and evidence, and will keep its data use under continual review. Specific actions include developing the “OneCrown” single data pipeline and reviewing future demand scenarios with the Home Office and CPS.
5
Conclusion
Accepted
The proportion of hearings that do not take place on the day they are scheduled (ineffective trials) remains far too high, and there are causes of ineffective trials that MoJ and HMCTS could be more active in addressing now. One in four trials do not take place on the day …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and will provide the requested letter outlining its understanding of ineffective trial causes, professional capacity factors, impact of changes, and further required actions, alongside its Treasury Minute response.
6
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ could not tell us which of the actions it funded from nearly £500 million of additional funding it received through the 2021 Spending Review had the biggest impact on reducing the backlog, nor could it quantify what it expects the cost to be of dealing with the backlog now, …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and will provide the requested letter detailing total spending since 2021 on reducing the Crown Court backlog, how additional funding was used for interventions, and the assessed impact of that investment, alongside its Treasury Minute response.
8
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ has previously introduced measures to address the backlog, including those within the 2021 Criminal Justice Action Plan.17 MoJ described current work to manage the Crown Court caseload, including: • Increasing the number of sitting days to 108,500 this year. • Supporting the physical capacity of the courts estate by …
Government Response Summary
The government affirms its commitment to tackling the Crown Court backlog, outlining a range of measures including funding 110,000 Crown Court sitting days for 2025-26 (an increase from the previous year), increased court maintenance, ongoing judicial recruitment, and exploring legal aid funding. It also notes that demand requires substantial reform and awaits the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts' recommendations.
12
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ acknowledges that long waits in the Crown Court are bad for everyone, including defendants, victims and the system as a whole.25 MoJ noted particular concern for victims of sex cases, which are very complex and often take a long time to conclude.26 In September 2024, there were 11,574 open …
Government Response Summary
The government states that ineffective trials for sexual offences are declining and that judicial practices already prioritise serious sexual offences. It also highlights continued protected funding for VAWG support services and commits to improving victim support, though future actions are contingent on the Spending Review.
14
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ acknowledged that the long waits for RASSO victims is “not a particularly desirable situation” and outlined some measures in place to support these victims. These measures included: • investing £41 million in sexual violence and domestic violence advisors, and continuing to protect funding for victims (particularly for victims of …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee's conclusion, reiterating that judicial listing practices already prioritise serious sexual offences, and confirming continued protected funding for Violence Against Women and Girls support services for 2025/26. It also notes it cannot pre-empt the outcome of Phase 2 of the Spending Review for further improvements.
16
Conclusion
Accepted
Written evidence submitted by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons stated that the length of time that people are remanded for and the extent to which this is changing is information that is not in the public domain. The Inspectorate’s evidence also explained that “the increasing average length of time an …
Government Response Summary
The government commits to exploring initiatives to address time spent on remand and plans to develop and publish improved data on this by April 2027. It also highlights ongoing efforts to enhance court capacity and prioritise remand cases, and will consider further steps after independent reviews.
18
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ attributed the increasing backlog to a “significant increase” in the rate of new cases as a result of the recruitment of over 20,000 additional police officers since 2019, and to a change in the nature of the caseload to more complex cases.43 MoJ claimed that since the pandemic it …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee's observation and is committed to regularly reviewing its projections for the Criminal Justice System, incorporating latest data, trends, and new interventions. They are also developing a 'OneCrown' single data pipeline and reviewing future demand scenarios with partners to improve accuracy.
19
Conclusion
Accepted
The NAO report found that MoJ regularly models projections of the size of the Crown Court’s outstanding caseload, and has previously used projections from this modelling to inform decision–making on policy development, resource planning and capacity requirements.47 This modelling includes factors such as incoming demand, case complexity, court capacity and …
Government Response Summary
The government commits to regularly reviewing its Crown Court caseload projections, incorporating the latest data, trends, and interventions, and continually reviewing its use of data and assumptions. This includes developing a 'OneCrown' single data pipeline to improve data quality and coherence, and reviewing future demand scenarios with CJS partners.
20
Conclusion
Accepted
At our evidence session in January 2025, MoJ could not tell us what it forecast the backlog would be in 12 months’ time. It told us that it would not be right to predict what the backlog will be in a year’s time, as it does not publish projections, although …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the Committee's observation and is committed to regularly reviewing its projections for the Criminal Justice System, incorporating latest data, trends, and new interventions. They are also developing a 'OneCrown' single data pipeline and reviewing future demand scenarios with partners to improve accuracy.
25
Conclusion
Accepted
We heard from HMCTS of other reasons for ineffective trials that would appear to have simple solutions.68 We heard how organisations contracted to transport prisoners fail to get all defendants from prison to court on time, incurring a financial penalty if the defendant arrives more than 15 minutes after the …
Government Response Summary
The government states it agrees with the Committee's conclusions and claims the underlying recommendation regarding issues causing ineffective trials, such as prisoner transport and case preparation, has been implemented as of April 2025, with further details provided in a separate letter.
29
Conclusion
Accepted
In evidence to the Justice Committee in November 2024, the Lady Chief Justice described how the concordat agreement with MoJ for 2024–25, agreed under the previous administration, had provided for 106,000 sitting days. She reported that in August HMCTS had then said the courts could actually sit up to a …
Government Response Summary
The government commits to funding 110,000 Crown Court sitting days in 2025-26, the highest allocation ever, and outlines various other ongoing initiatives such as judicial recruitment, increased legal aid funding, and court maintenance to reduce the backlog. It also states it awaits recommendations from the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts for longer-term reform.
30
Conclusion
Accepted
MoJ confirmed that it had identified three factors that caused it to pause publication of its Crown Court caseload data from June to December 2024. It had found that case records in Common Platform (the new digital case management system for the criminal justice system) had been adversely affected through …
Government Response Summary
The government confirms the external review found confidence in Crown Court caseload statistics and details improvements made to magistrates’ caseload data measurement, including revisions due to identified issues in legacy systems. It also notes ongoing investigation for further remedial action for a small number of legacy cases.
31
Conclusion
Accepted
Despite these assurances, we concur with a request from the Law Society of England and Wales in its written submission to us for confirmation from MoJ that other data and statistics across the criminal and civil courts are not similarly affected.87 Exemplifying this point, in correspondence to us after the …
Government Response Summary
The government confirms confidence in Crown Court caseload statistics and details improvements made to magistrates’ caseload data, noting previous overstatements due to legacy system issues and committing to further revisions for additional legacy cases in the future. It also states that other caseload elements like police recorded crime are for other government departments.
32
Conclusion
Accepted
We were relieved to hear from HMCTS that the operation of Common Platform has “vastly improved” over the last few years, describing it as a “a good and stable system”, and that HMCTS now has confidence in the system’s reliability.89 HMCTS told us that it introduced Common Platform gradually into …
Government Response Summary
The government confirms continued trials of AI in courts and tribunals, though scaling up is dependent on future Spending Review funding. It also outlines plans for further digitisation, including decommissioning legacy systems (Xhibit and Libra) by Spring 2027 to reduce dual-keying, and exploring improved integration between case management systems.