Performance Tracker 2025: Criminal courts

At the heart of this problem is poor productivity: magistrates’ courts and the crown court are processing fewer cases per day than before the pandemic, even though average case complexity has fallen since 2016. This means that both types of courts are failing to keep up with demand. Key contributors to low productivity include:

• high workloads
• staff shortages and inexperience
• poor court administration
• crumbling buildings
• problems with technology.

If these problems can be adequately addressed, many of the proposals for radical reform in the courts – such as Sir Brian Leveson’s suggested restrictions on jury trials ¹ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  – would not be necessary.

There are prospects for improvement. The crown court is closing more cases than before the pandemic, and numbers of both judges and barristers are growing, which will increase overall capacity in the court system. Higher payment rates for legal aid work should ease workforce shortages over time, hopefully improving productivity. And some of the government’s proposed reforms, such as increasing the use of intensive supervision courts, are positive and should reduce demand long term.^* But for the moment, things continue to deteriorate in criminal courts.

_{*    Intensive supervision courts are a type of problem-solving court that aim to take a rehabilitative approach  to offenders with complex needs, diverting them away from prison sentences while addressing the causes of offending. Offenders are provided with support to address needs such as drug use and have regular reviews with the judge who sentenced them to assess their progress and apply incentives and sanctions as appropriate.}

Despite recent increases, spending remains below 2010/11 levels – but the crown court has been prioritised for additional spending

HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has seen small day-to-day spending increases in recent years, but in 2023/24 spending remained 12% below 2010/11 levels in real terms. ² Institute for Government analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts, 2010/11– 2024/25.  Following a real-terms rise of less than 1% in 2024/25, ³ HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Account 2024-25, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6879134a2bad77c3dae4ddc8/HMCTS_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25_Online.pdf  the first year of the Labour government, settlements are expected to be more generous in future years.

The 2025 spending review promised substantial increases in court funding of up to £450 million a year by 2028/29. ⁴ HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.  But it is not clear how this will be split between capital investment and day-to-day spending, or exactly when it will materialise.

If 10% of additional spending is on capital,^* day-to-day spending on courts would rise about 2.4% a year from 2023/24 to 2028/29 – significantly above the 1.9% average annual increase from 2019/20 to 2023/24. ⁵ HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.  Under that scenario, however, real-terms spending would still remain 1% below 2010/11 levels in 2028/29. ⁶ Institute for Government analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts, 2010/11– 2024/25.

_{*    Capital spending makes up about 15% of the MoJ’s budget, but the majority of this is likely to be spent on prison expansion (HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, 2025). In recent years, capital spending has made up around 9% of total HMCTS spending (MoJ, Annual report and accounts: 2022–23, 2023 and MoJ, Annual report and accounts: 2023–24, 2024).}

This spending covers all courts and tribunals, not just criminal courts. Within this overall envelope, data on magistrates’ court spending specifically is not available, but the crown court has fared relatively well. Crown court funding is allocated based on a given number of court ‘sitting days’ – the number of days each year when the court can sit to hear cases – and these remained relatively steady from 2011 to 2017.^* In 2018 and 2019, sitting days were reduced markedly. ⁷ HM Courts and Tribunals Service, ‘HMCTS management information - March 2025’ (Crown Court Sitting days by financial year from April 2015 to March 2025), 2025, www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-march-2025

After a further sharp drop in 2020 due to the pandemic, in 2021/22 the cap on sitting days was lifted to allow courts to sit at capacity, to help clear the case backlog that had built up during the pandemic. ⁸ Ministry of Justice, ‘Courts operate at full throttle to cut delays’, press release, 11 August 2023, retrieved 12 October 2025, www.gov.uk/government/news/courts-operate-at-full-throttle-to-cut-delays  The Sunak government reintroduced the cap for 2024/25, at 106,000 sitting days, slightly below 2023/24 levels, ⁹ Fouzder M, ‘‘You are not saving money by cutting sitting days,’ LCJ tells MPs’, The Law Society Gazette, 26 November 2024, retrieved 12 October 2025, www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/you-are-not-saving-money-by-cutting-sitting-days-lcj-tells-mps/5121650.article  despite rising demand and the growing case backlog.

On entering government, Labour initially added 500 sitting days for 2024/25, funded out of the existing HMCTS budget. ¹⁰ Fouzder M, ‘‘You are not saving money by cutting sitting days,’ LCJ tells MPs’, The Law Society Gazette, 26 November 2024, retrieved 12 October 2025, www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/you-are-not-saving-money-by-cutting-sitting-days-lcj-tells-mps/5121650.article  In December 2024, it further increased this by 2,000 days, ¹¹ Ministry of Justice, ‘2,000 extra sitting days to help address courts crisis’, press release, 17 December 2024, retrieved 12 October 2025, www.gov.uk/government/news/2000-extra-sitting-days-to-help-address-courts-crisis  although in practice the late announcement of this increase meant courts actually sat only 1,300 of these.^** In 2025/26, 110,000 days were initially funded, up 1,500 on the previous year and marginally higher than in 2015/16. ¹² Mahmood S, ‘Courts and Tribunals sitting days FY25/26’, Hansard, Statement UIN HCWS499, 5 March 2025, retrieved 13 October 2025, https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-03-05/hcws499  This has since been increased again, in October 2025, to 111,250. ¹³ Ministry of Justice, ‘Extra funding for courts to deliver speedier justice for victims’, press release, 1 October 2025, www.gov.uk/government/news/extra-funding-for-courts-to-deliver-speedier-justice-for-victims  More sitting days will be helpful but increasing the number of days so late in the year again risks that courts will not be able to make full use of the additional funding. If this decision had been made earlier, courts might have been able to make more progress on the case backlog.

A portion of the £450m extra court funding a year by 2028/29, announced in the 2025 spending review, is to further increase crown court sitting days, but it is not yet clear when or by how much. ¹⁴ HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.

_{*    Figures before 2016 refer to judicial sitting days, which includes all days worked by judges whether or not they are hearing cases. From 2016 onwards, figures refer to court sitting days specifically.}

_{**    Courts sat 107,800 days out of the funded 108,500 days. See HMCTS, ‘HMCTS management information – March 2025’ (crown court sitting days by financial year from April 2015 to March 2025).}

The Crown Prosecution Service was a big winner in the 2025 spending review

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is separate from the courts system and sits within its own department. But it has a big impact on criminal court activity and performance. Spending on the CPS has followed a similar trajectory to that for HMCTS, although with deeper cuts of almost 30% from 2010/11 to 2018/19. By 2023/24, just before Labour came into office, spending had risen significantly but remained 9% down on 2010/11. ¹⁵ Institute for Government analysis of CPS, CPS annual report and accounts, 2010/11–2024/25.  It then fell 2% in real terms in 2024/25.

However, the Law Officers’ Department, which funds the CPS, was one of the big beneficiaries of the 2025 spending review, with average annual budget increases of 3.5% from 2023/24 to 2028/29. This is heavily front-loaded, with big initial increases in 2025/26 and 2026/27, followed by a freeze in cash terms (a real-terms cut). In 2025/26, CPS spending is projected to be 3% below what it was in 2010/11 and in 2026/27 it is projected to be 4% higher. By the end of the parliament it is projected to fall slightly to match the 2010/11 spending level. ¹⁶ HM Treasury, Spending Review 2025, Cp 1336, The Stationery Office, 2025.

Criminal legal aid spending has fallen, driven by a sharp drop in spending on lower level offences

Criminal legal aid spending in 2024/25 was down by more than a third (35%) from the level seen in 2010/11. This decline was particularly concentrated on ‘lower’ legal aid: spending on work in police stations, magistrates’ courts and prisons halved (down 49%) over this period. Meanwhile, spending on legal aid in the crown court and above fell by about a quarter (26%). ¹⁷ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.  Sharp cuts both to legal aid fees for lawyers and to legal aid eligibility drove down spending, as did declining demand. ¹⁸ Bellamy C, Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid, 2021, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041117/clar-independent-review-report-2021.pdf

The low point of real-terms spending was in 2020/21, due to the combined effects of inflation and the sharp fall in cases coming through the courts due to the pandemic, but it has been rising since then. In 2018, fees were restructured and increased, and in September 2022, a further 15% increase was applied to defence fees for barristers ¹⁹ Data provided by the Bar Council, 2025.  and 9% for solicitors. ²⁰ The Law Society, ‘Criminal legal aid’, 2025, retrieved 11 September 2024, www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/legal-aid/criminal-legal-aid  Solicitor fees saw a further 6% uplift in 2024, and another 6% is promised by the end of this parliament. ²¹ The Law Society, ‘Criminal legal aid’, 2025, retrieved 11 September 2024, www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/legal-aid/criminal-legal-aid  As most legal aid is only paid when a case is closed, it takes some time for changes in fees to filter through to spending, so spending is expected to continue to rise. Furthermore, the size of the case backlog  in the courts means that there is a longer lag effect for fee increases to translate into higher spending, because cases are taking longer to be closed. ²² Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

Some of the overall decline in spending over the period was due to declining demand. The number of charges brought by the police fell by more than a third from 2010/11 to 2024/25, ²³ Rowland C, ‘Police’, Performance Tracker 2025, Institute for Government, 2025, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2025/criminal-justice/police  leading to fewer cases being received by both magistrates’ courts and the crown court. Other positive crime resolutions (where an offender is identified and sanctioned) also declined. But spending has fallen much more than workload, at least at the lower end: the volume of lower criminal legal aid work fell by around 30% over the same period, while spending halved in real terms, as noted above (down 49%). This means that average spending per case fell from £454 in 2010/11 to £337 in 2024/25 (both in 2025/26 prices). ²⁴ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.

Eligibility cuts and falling spending have led to more unrepresented defendants in the courts, with potential negative consequences for both court efficiency and the quality of justice. ²⁵ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  They have also had serious implications for the legal workforce, making it harder to sustain a career focused on criminal law.

There are fewer criminal lawyers and the profession is struggling with both inexperience and an ageing workforce

The publicly funded criminal legal workforce has shrunk considerably in recent years, particularly among criminal solicitors. The number of solicitors in criminal legal aid firms has fallen more than 30% since 2014/15, and while the rate of decline has slowed, it has not stopped. Duty solicitors – specially qualified solicitors who provide publicly funded legal advice in police stations or courts for anyone who does not have their own representation – have been hit similarly hard; we only have data from October 2017, but numbers fell more than a quarter from then to April 2025. The volume of lower criminal legal aid work fell just 13% over this period, so workloads have increased. ²⁶ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.

Even more concerningly, the workforce is ageing substantially, particularly duty solicitors. The number of duty solicitors under 45 fell by more than half (55%) from 2017 to 2024, while those 55 and over rose by almost a quarter (23%). More than 40% of duty solicitors are now 55 and over, compared to 24% in 2017. Just 6% are under 35, compared to 14% in 2017. In the medium and long term, this presents a severe risk to the basic right to legal advice as the existing workforce retires with no one to replace them. The same trend is evident among legal aid solicitors more generally. The profession appears to be losing people in the critical early to mid-career stages: the number of solicitors at legal aid firms aged under 35 in 2023/24 was 29% below 2017/18 and 45% below 2014/15. ²⁶ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.

The story is slightly different at the criminal bar. The total number of barristers receiving at least 80% of their income from criminal work fell 6% from 2018/19 to 2024/25, and the number doing exclusively criminal work declined further, by around 10%. Among publicly funded barristers who receive at least 80% of their income specifically from criminal legal aid, numbers fell 11% from 2017/18 to 2020/21, but have since returned to 2017/18 levels, closely mirroring spending on criminal legal aid.^{*, 28} Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.

There is no data available on the publicly funded criminal bar from before 2017/18. But given barrister numbers have closely tracked overall criminal legal aid spending and the bulk of cuts to spending took place from 2010/11 to 2015/16, the number of publicly funded criminal barristers probably fell significantly between 2010/11 and 2017/18 and therefore there are likely fewer today than there were in 2010/11.

_{*    Based on barristers who self-declare to the Bar Council that at least 80% of their fee income comes from criminal legal aid work.}

The overall trend conceals a substantial shift in experience levels in publicly funded criminal work. The number of King’s Counsel (KCs or silks) – senior barristers recognised for their excellent advocacy skills^* – who receive at least 80% of their income from criminal legal aid work has fallen by a quarter since 2017/18 and, unlike overall numbers, shows no signs of recovering.

Inexperienced lawyers are also taking on a much greater share of the criminal legal aid workload than previously. In 2015/16, just 2% of criminal legal aid income went  to barristers who had only been practising for up to three years since qualification. In 2023/24, that proportion had risen to 12%. ²⁹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.  This suggests that very junior barristers are taking on both more work and more complex work, reflecting what we have heard in interviews. ³⁰ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  One interviewee told us that barristers’ chambers increasingly will not accept instructions for a specific barrister on less serious criminal matters, and instead will send whoever is available and qualified to cover the hearing. ³¹ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

_{*    Solicitor advocates can also be appointed as King’s Counsel but are not included in this dataset.}

At the same time, the criminal bar has similar problems to criminal solicitors with an ageing workforce and the hollowing out of the middle ranks of the profession. The share of work (in value terms) going to those who have been practising for at least 28 years increased from 9% in 2015/16 to 25% in 2023/24. Meanwhile, those with 13–22 years of practice received just a quarter of the work (25%) in 2023/24, down from 39% in 2015/16. ³² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Agency, ‘Legal aid statistics quarterly: January to March 2025’.  Again, this risks storing up more problems for the future.

Interviewees also noted persistent shortages of legal advisers in magistrates’ courts, who provide legal information to magistrates. ³³ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  HMCTS has recently recruited more than 160 trainee legal advisers, mostly for criminal courts, and has now hit its target level. ³⁴ HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Account 2024-25, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6879134a2bad77c3dae4ddc8/HMCTS_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25_Online.pdf  But this has meant that, in March 2025, 25% of legal advisers were trainees. ³⁵ HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Account 2024-25, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6879134a2bad77c3dae4ddc8/HMCTS_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25_Online.pdf  This limits the work they can undertake, and places a burden on more experienced staff who are responsible for training and mentoring them. Retention of legal advisers is also an ongoing problem. HMCTS significantly increased legal adviser pay in 2024/25, especially at junior levels, but it remains below comparable legal roles in other government departments, particularly the CPS. ³⁶ Fouzder M, ‘Legal advisers ‘need pay parity’ with CPS’, The Law Society Gazette, 29 April 2025, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/legal-advisers-need-pay-parity-with-cps/5123128.article  This means retention is likely to continue to be a problem.

Other staff groups have also declined substantially, particularly non-legal court staff

The total number of HMCTS staff has stabilised in recent years, but remains more than 20% below 2010/11. There has also been a shift in the make-up of the workforce. The number of permanent staff has fallen almost 30%, with 12% of the workforce now temporary agency and contract staff – down slightly from a high of 14% in 2021/22, but much higher than the 2% in 2010/11. ³⁷ Institute for Government analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts, 2010/11– 2024/25.  Interviewees highlighted a loss of experience among specialist court jobs such as listing officers, who are responsible for allocating hearing dates, checking the availability of judges, lawyers and other parties for cases and preparing daily court lists, as well as logging court statistics day to day. ³⁸ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

“HMCTS staff are so poorly paid and it is quite a complex job. You’re not attracting people that will stay, and it takes time to get people trained up on the system – a revolving door of temporary workers does not lend itself to upskilling.” – Interviewee ³⁸ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

After a sharp drop in 2014/15, the number of judges has increased slowly but steadily since around 2015/16, apart from a dip in 2020/21. Nonetheless, in 2024/25 there were still 7% fewer judges than in 2010/11. In the past few years, growth has principally come from an increase in permanent salaried judges rather than fee- paid judges such as recorders – lawyers who sit part-time as judges. The number of salaried judges grew 7% between 2022/23 and 2024/25. ⁴⁰ Institute for Government analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts, 2010/11– 2024/25.  Magistrate numbers fell dramatically from 2010/11 to 2021/22, more than halving (down 54%). They have since begun to recover, but in 2024/25 were still 46% below the number in 2010/11. ⁴¹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Judicial diversity statistics’, 2010/11 to 2024/25.

Demand on magistrates’ courts is slightly below pre-pandemic levels

Magistrates’ courts deal with the vast majority of cases in the criminal courts – more than 90% of cases entering and closed by the courts. The number of cases coming into magistrates’ courts has been rising since mid-2020, after a sharp drop due to the pandemic, and has now returned to around pre-pandemic levels (1% down on 2019). Reliable data is not available before 2019, but the figures we do have suggest there was a moderate decline in the number of cases received by magistrates’ courts from 2012 to 2019. The number of defendants proceeded against, which closely tracks the number of cases, fell 15% from 2011 to 2024 (including those sent on to the crown court for trial or sentencing). ⁴² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

The mix of cases coming into the courts has shifted somewhat over time, with the proportion of defendants being prosecuted for more serious ‘triable-either-way’ or ‘indictable-only’ offences falling from 27% in 2011 to 24% in 2016 and 18% in 2024. ⁴³ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Activity in magistrates’ courts has not recovered from the pandemic and remains well below the 2010s

Despite recent increases in activity, magistrates’ courts are still not closing as many cases as they were before the pandemic. A case is ‘closed’ when there is nothing further for the court to do on it. This could be after sentencing, if a defendant is convicted, or it could be that the charges are dropped and the prosecution does not go ahead. Magistrates’ courts may also close cases by sending them to the crown court for trial or sentencing, while the crown court closes a small number of cases by sending them back to the magistrates’ courts.

In 2024, magistrates’ courts closed 5% fewer cases than in 2019. ⁴⁴ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  The cases closed have also become less complex, on average, in several ways:

• Fewer of the cases closed are more serious triable-either-way or indictable-only cases
• More cases are being handled via the streamlined single justice procedure
• More cases are being sent to the crown court for trial or for sentencing, rather than being dealt with in magistrates’ courts
• Fewer trials are being completed.

From 2019 to 2024, the number of more serious triable-either-way and indictable-only cases closed fell 12% (compared to 5% for all cases). In 2024, 38% fewer defendants in these more serious cases were proceeded against than in 2011. ⁴⁵ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

This decline in activity has happened despite efforts to streamline the process and improve efficiency. An increasing proportion of magistrates’ court cases are being handled via the single justice procedure, ⁴⁶ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  which allows a single magistrate to deal with minor, non-imprisonable offences based on written submissions, rather than in a regular court hearing. They are dealt with very quickly, with many cases decided in less than a minute. ⁴⁷ Kirk T, ‘Magistrates handing out criminal convictions in private court hearings that last just 90 seconds’, The Standard, 23 September 2022, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/single-justice-procedure-magistrates-criminal-convictions-b1026894.html

The single justice procedure was introduced in 2015 and has been the subject of intense controversy in recent years. Numerous cases have been reported on which seem likely to have been dropped, or never charged, if handled through the regular court process – such as seriously ill or recently bereaved people being prosecuted for minor or unintentional offences such as non-payment of a TV licence or having an off-road uninsured vehicle. ⁴⁸ Kirk T, ‘Pressure mounts for rethink on ‘fast track’ justice after more outcry over cases’, The Standard, 12 February 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/single-justice-procedure-fast-track-criticism-lady-carr-alex-chalk-b1138615.html  It is hard to tell how widespread this is, but there has been a substantial fall in the proportion of magistrates’ court cases where proceedings are discontinued or charges are dismissed since the single justice procedure was introduced, from 15% in 2015 to 10% in 2024. ⁴⁹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’, 2025.  However, we cannot tell from the data how many of these offences were dealt with through the procedure. Around three quarters (73%) of defendants dealt with via the single justice procedure do not enter a plea, ⁵⁰ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, January to March 2025’, 2025.  which calls into question whether they are able to participate meaningfully in the justice process.

At the same time, the number of trials in magistrates’ courts has fallen dramatically, halving since 2016 (-51%). For comparison, the number of defendants dealt with has dropped just 10% over this period. ⁵¹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  Some of this may be because more defendants are pleading guilty or choosing to be tried in the crown court. But it nevertheless suggests a serious decline in activity in magistrates’ courts.

From 2016 to 2024, the proportion of people convicted at magistrates’ courts who were committed to the crown court for sentencing rose from 10% to 18%. In 2010, it was just 7%. Some of the increase in 2023 and 2024 appears to be due to changes in magistrates’ courts’ sentencing powers,^* and it has fallen back since sentencing powers were increased again in late 2024. But it follows a long trend of magistrates’ courts becoming increasingly likely to send offenders on to the crown court for sentencing, going back at least to 2010. ⁵² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’, 2025.

_{*    Until May 2022, magistrates’ courts could give a maximum sentence of six months in custody for a single triable- either-way offence, or a year for two or more offences. The Johnson government increased this to 12 months for a single offence or more, but subsequently the Sunak government reduced it back to six months in March 2023. In November 2024, the Starmer government reinstated the 12-month maximum for a single offence.}

This is not because more triable-either-way cases are being tried in magistrates’ courts and just sent to the crown court for sentencing – quite the reverse. The proportion of triable-either-way cases sent to the crown court for trial has also been rising, from 19% in 2016 to 24% in 2024. ⁵³ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’, 2025.  It is possible that triable-either-way offences have become more serious, on average.^{*, 54} Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’, 2025.  Increases in sentence lengths are also likely to be contributing to these changes.

The average custodial sentence for a triable-either-way offence rose from 12 months in 2013 to 14 months in 2016 and 16 months in 2024. ⁵⁵ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’, 2025.  Magistrates can give a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison (previously six months), so as sentences get longer they may increasingly think more cases need the greater sentencing powers of the crown court.

Fewer cases are being closed overall, despite increased reliance on the single justice procedure, and of the cases that are closed, they are disproportionately simple and straightforward, with fewer trials and more cases sent to the crown court for either trial or sentencing. This is all happening in the face of rising demand and a growing case backlog.

_{*    Assessing the average severity of offences is challenging, but the average ‘severity score’, based on the Cambridge Crime Harm Index, for triable-either-way and indictable-only offences proceeded against may have increased since 2016. See Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal justice statistics quarterly: December 2024’ (Outcomes by offence tool).}

Cases coming into the crown court have risen substantially in recent years, but demand is far from record levels

Looking at all cases coming into the crown court, there was a steady and substantial fall in cases received over the 2010s. This largely reflected the decline in police charges (see the Police chapter). ⁵⁶ Rowland C, ‘Police’, Public Services Performance Tracker 2025, Institute for Government, 2025, www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2025/criminal-justice/police  After a slight uptick in 2019, annual receipts stayed fairly flat until 2022,^* and have risen steadily since then, and in 2024 were 9% higher than in 2016. ⁵⁷ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

But the number of cases is only a partial picture of demand. The type of case makes  a big difference to how long it takes to deal with and the demand placed on the court and those working in it. There are three broad case types in the crown court:

• ‘for-trial’ cases. Many of these do not actually result in a trial, as the defendant pleads guilty or the charges are dropped. These are split into triable-either-way (less serious) offences and indictable-only (more serious) offences.
• committals for sentence – cases sent from the magistrates’ court for sentencing.
• appeals from magistrates’ courts.

We define case ‘complexity’ in terms of how much court time a case takes. The average for-trial case takes almost five times longer – in terms of hours in court – to deal with than the average appeal, and seven times longer than the average committal for sentence. Cases where the defendant pleads not guilty and there is a jury trial are by far the most time-consuming. Different offences also take different amounts of court time. Sexual offences, for example, take about twice as long as the average for-trial case, and rape and other serious sexual offences take even longer – in large part because defendants are much more likely to plead not guilty.

There have been other changes that have affected case complexity, including the approach to disclosing evidence, special measures to help vulnerable victims and witnesses give evidence, and growing volumes of digital evidence. ⁵⁸ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  But there is little evidence that these have substantially increased time spent in court: average hearing

hours per case in the crown court fell slightly from 3.6 hours in 2016 to 3.3 in 2024, and the average in for-trial cases has remained steady at around five hours. ⁵⁹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  Instead, much of the burden of these changes appears to fall outside the courtroom, principally on the police and lawyers in preparing case files and getting ready for trial. ⁶⁰ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf ^{, 61} Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  This may be contributing to workforce shortages in court, but does not seem to have a direct effect on court time.

Adjusting for these changes in the case mix, incoming demand on the crown court in 2024 was about the same as in 2016 and lower than in the early 2010s.^{**, 62} Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

_{*    The time it takes from an offence being committed to the case reaching the crown court, as well as the very small proportion of cases that end up in the crown court, means that there was a much smaller ‘pandemic dip’ in cases coming into the crown court than magistrates’ courts or police recorded crime.}

_{**    Data from 2015 and previous years is not directly comparable due to methodology changes, but rough comparisons can be made.}

The average complexity of cases going to the crown court has fallen since 2016, though it was slightly higher in 2024 than immediately before the pandemic. It is important to note this does not account for the relative complexity of cases in the backlog, only those entering the courts.

This has been driven by a big increase in the number of people sent from magistrates’ courts to the crown court for sentencing. These cases now make up more than a third (36%) of all cases in the crown court, although they still only account for about 10% of court time. For-trial cases are also becoming less complex: a slightly smaller proportion of for-trial cases were for serious indictable-only offences in 2024 (32%) than in 2016 (35%). ⁶³ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

The crown court is closing fewer and less complex cases than in 2016

Crown court activity in terms of cases closed has similarly declined over the long term, although in 2024 it was higher than in 2019. The number of cases closed fell in the early 2010s and then much more rapidly from 2016. Rapid rises since 2022 have not been enough to reverse this and in 2024 the number of cases closed remained 5% below 2016 and likely around a fifth below 2010.^{*, 64} Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025, and Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, January to March 2020’, 2020.  This decline in the number of cases closed has happened even as the number of cases coming in the crown court and the number of sitting days have returned to or surpassed 2016 levels.

The drop is even larger when adjusting for the complexity of the cases closed: a 16% fall from 2016 to 2024. ⁶⁵ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  This is because the average complexity of cases closed has fallen over time.^** Courts appear to be prioritising dealing with more straightforward cases, which means that the case backlog is becoming increasingly complex. ⁶⁶ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

_{*    Directly comparable figures are not available for 2010 to 2015, but figures using both the old and new methodology are available for 2016. Assuming the methodology change had an equivalent impact across all years, the decline in cases closed from 2010 to 2024 would be around 22%.}

_{**    This is the same complexity adjustment as applied to cases entering the crown court, and accounts for the offence type (violence, theft and so on) and case type (indictable-only for-trial case, triable-either-way for-trial case, committal for sentence or appeal). It does not account for pleas or whether the case is dropped, or for any changes in complexity unrelated to the offence or case type.}

Additionally, fewer cases closed are ending up with a positive outcome (either a guilty plea or a completed trial) and more charges are being dropped. Of for-trial cases closed in 2024, 17% of defendants had their case dropped, compared to just 10% in 2016. Dropped cases typically take much less time than other for-trial cases, averaging just 1.3 hours in 2024 – 26% of the average across all for-trial cases. Excluding dropped cases, the crown court handled 10% fewer cases in 2024 than in 2016. ⁶⁷ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.
 

Crown court jury trials put much more demand on the system than any other kind of case. In 2024, they made up only 13% of all cases closed, but 65% of hearing hours. The number of trials in 2024 surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but remained more than a quarter (27%) below 2016, despite the fact that sitting days were slightly higher in 2024. This is partly because more trials are being cancelled at the last minute, but not entirely: fewer trials are being scheduled as well. While the average trial is now about 12% longer than in 2016, that is not enough to account for the scale of the decline in trials per sitting day. If the crown court had maintained the number of trials per sitting day it achieved in 2016, it would have heard more than 5,000 more trials in 2024 – 40% more than it did in reality. ⁶⁸ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Poor productivity is holding back efforts to increase activity

The central reason why court activity remains lower than in 2016 is a substantial drop in productivity, in both magistrates’ courts and the crown court. More time is wasted in and around courts, so the increase in court funding and sitting days is not translating to a commensurate increase in capacity.

In the crown court, in 2024, there were only 3.2 hours spent in hearings per sitting day: 13% below pre-pandemic levels and 17% lower than in 2016. ⁶⁹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025 and HMCTS, ‘Management information – March 2025’, 2025.  As a result, the total number of hours sat in 2024 fell well short of the number in 2016 (14%), despite the court sitting for slightly more days.^* The ‘disposal rate’ – the number of cases closed per sitting day – has fallen 8% since 2016. If you adjust for the fact that cases closed today are less complex on average than in 2016, the decline is 19%. ⁷⁰ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025 and HMCTS, ‘Management information – March 2025’, 2025.

_{*    Hearing hours are reported in the year the case closed, rather than the year when they were sat, so there will be a small lag effect when the number of sitting days changes significantly. But there is no sign that the increase in sitting days from 2021 onwards has had any impact on the hearing hours per sitting day in subsequent years.}

Data on hearing hours per sitting day is not available for magistrates’ courts, but the charity Transform Justice runs a ‘CourtWatch’ project, which involves volunteers observing magistrates’ court proceedings in London. Courtwatchers have highlighted the huge amounts of wasted time:

“Courtwatchers were shocked by what they perceived to be the inefficiency of courts. They expected hearings to start on time and to run continuously through the day. They were concerned that the valuable time of the many professionals in the room was being wasted.” – Courtwatch London, Transform Justice, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London’s magistrates’ courts ⁷¹ Ratcliffe F and Gibbs P, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London magistrates’ courts, Transform Justice, 2024, www.transformjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Wild-West-Courtwatching-in-London-magistrates-courts.pdf

There has been a big increase in both magistrates’ courts and the crown court in trials that are ‘ineffective’, meaning they are rescheduled on the day of the trial. This is both a symptom and a cause of poor productivity. In magistrates’ courts, 26% of all scheduled trials in 2024 were rescheduled on the day, up from 20% in 2016 and 23% in 2010. In the crown court, a quarter (25%) of trials in 2024 were ineffective, compared to 15% in 2016 – although this was still an improvement on 2022 and 2023. ⁷² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Ineffective trials waste a lot of time for the defendants, victims and lawyers whose cases are not heard, and can cause long delays before a case can be relisted. There may also be time lost before and after a trial is cancelled, depending on the reason for the delay and how quickly another case can be heard.

Overlisting – when a court cannot fit in all the cases it was scheduled to hear on a certain day – is consistently one of the main reasons for ineffective trials, despite the fact that 20% fewer trials are being scheduled per day than in 2016. Trials rescheduled due to overlisting or another case overrunning accounted for 8% of all scheduled magistrates’ court trials and 6% of crown court trials in 2024, up from 6% and 3% respectively in 2016. At the same time, fewer trials are being scheduled per sitting day. It is unlikely that this is due to a change in average trial lengths, as even in the crown court, these have only increased about 12% since 2016. ⁷² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  Instead, the problem seems to lie in inefficient use of court time.

Workforce shortages, poor court administration and problems with court buildings and technology are all driving low productivity

Shortages of criminal legal professionals cause delays and wasted time

The availability and preparation of lawyers are major sources of wasted court time. In the crown court, more than 10% of scheduled trials in 2024 were rescheduled on the day due to lawyer absence, or one side not being ready or increasing the estimated time needed for the trial. In 2016, this was less than 5%. Almost half of these (4% of all trials) were because the prosecution or defence lawyer was absent, which was practically unheard of before 2021, accounting for just 0.5% of trials in 2016. ⁷⁴ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  We heard from interviewees that the shortage of appropriate lawyers is particularly acute for certain serious cases, especially rape and other serious sexual offences.

In magistrates’ courts, lawyer availability is less of a problem, but poor preparedness is. In 2024, 7% of trials were rescheduled on the day because either the defence or the prosecution was not ready, most commonly the defence (4.5%). The proportion of cases dropped on the day of the trial because there is not enough evidence has also grown, from 7% of all scheduled trials in 2010 to 9% in 2024. ⁷⁵ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  This harms both productivity and the quality of justice.

Poor case preparation often arises from shortages of criminal lawyers. Some delays due to late disclosure of evidence or other factors related to case progression are inevitable, but rapidly growing caseloads and inexperienced lawyers handling more and more serious cases are likely to be driving recent increases in delays. ⁷⁶ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  Very junior lawyers may also be less able to accurately estimate how long a case will take to hear or prepare for, and the CPS inspectorate has suggested that lawyer inexperience is leading to poorer quality legal decision making at the CPS. ⁷⁷ HM Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, HMCPSI Annual report 2023–24, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, 2024, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/24/2024/11/2024-10-28-Annual-report-2023-4-Final.pdf

“It has been clear in all inspections in 2023–24 that the pressures at the front line and the levels of staff caseloads and demands are at the most extreme that we have seen in the 20-plus years of inspection activity.” – HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, Annual Report

Large caseloads mean lawyers are likely to be less familiar with the details of the case; ⁷⁸ HM Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, HMCPSI Annual report 2023–24, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate, 2024, https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/24/2024/11/2024-10-28-Annual-report-2023-4-Final.pdf  frequently, both sides may have no information until the day of the trial or a new lawyer may be drafted in at the last minute. ⁷⁹ Parmenter T and Upton E, ‘Inside the UK’s ‘wild west’ court system where people may have to wait until 2028 for justice to take place’, Sky News, 4 December 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, https://news.sky.com/story/inside-the-uks-wild-west-court-system-where-people-may-have-to-wait-until-2028-for-justice-to-take-place-13265902 ^{, 80} Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

This substantially increases the chance of delays, harms the quality of justice and means it is impossible to have pre-trial discussions between the prosecution and the defence, which may have avoided the need for a trial. Asking for a delay in these cases may be necessary to make sure the case is prosecuted and defended appropriately, but it results in wasted time that could be avoided if the system was not under such pressure. By contrast, there has been a reduction in the share of trials in the crown court rescheduled because a judge is not available in the last year, from 0.6% of scheduled trials in 2023 to 0.4% in 2024. ⁸¹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  This may reflect the successful recruitment of additional judges over 2023/24. As justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood argued that it is the availability of legal professionals that is now the limiting factor on crown court capacity, rather than judicial capacity. ⁸² House of Commons, Hansard, ‘Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days’, vol 763, 5 March 2025, retrieved 30 September 2025, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-03-05/debates/04627A5E-E10E-4D14-98EF-9164949B89F4/CourtsAndTribunalsSittingDays

Poor court administration and listing practices mean courts feel chaotic and inefficient

Courts are widely perceived as chaotic and poorly organised and listing practices are seen as a source of inefficiency. ⁸³ Institute for Government interviews, 2025. ^{, 84} Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  Listing cases for hearings is necessarily complex: it requires understanding how long a hearing will be, who needs to be present, what their availability is, any particular preparation that has to be done, and how it fits in with the whole open caseload of the court. It has become still more complex in recent years due to the growing caseload, changes in legal procedure such as special measures for vulnerable witnesses, and in-year changes to sitting-day allocations.^{*, 85} Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  Inefficiency begets more inefficiency, as the high rate of trials cancelled or rescheduled on the day leads to more cases being listed per day, which then increases both workload for court staff and the likelihood of scheduling conflicts for lawyers, and may further drive up the ineffective trial rate. ⁸⁶ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf

The decline in court staff numbers and the loss of experienced staff, including listing officers, may also be contributing to administration problems. According to interviewees, some court areas have much more effective listing practices and so run more efficiently, with fewer last-minute cancellations. ⁸⁷ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  This can be seen in sharply varying ineffective trial rates, which show a wide range in the proportion of trials that are postponed on the day due to too many cases being listed, from 16.7% in Durham to 0.2% in Sussex in 2024 – although in some cases absolute numbers are very small. ⁸⁸ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

HMCTS is currently trialling a case co-ordinator role in the crown court to try to improve case progression, focusing on preparation for hearings and reducing wasted court time. ⁸⁹ HM Courts and Tribunals Service, HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6879134a2bad77c3dae4ddc8/HMCTS_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_2024-25_Online.pdf  If this role reduces ineffective trials caused by overlisting or either the prosecution or the defence not being ready, this could significantly improve court productivity.

_{*    In 2024/25, the number of sitting days available was repeatedly changed during the year, which made listing more complicated. Some cases that were listed and ready to be heard were delayed until the following financial year to avoid going over the cap of 106,500 sitting days (see Fouzder M, ‘“You are not saving money by cutting sitting days,” LCJ tells MPs’, The Law Society Gazette, 26 November 2024), only for the cap to later be raised, so listing officers had to try to relist cases.}

“It’s a system that is absolutely bursting, that is genuinely on its knees and has been on its knees for so long that it somehow still manages to seem to work… just.” – Interviewee ⁹⁰ Institute for Government interview, 2025.

Lawyers often complain about defendants held in custody not being produced for hearings, typically blamed on prisoner transport services. ⁹¹ Institute for Government interview, 2025.  Available data suggests that a small – although increasing – proportion of trials are cancelled for this reason: 1.2% in magistrates’ courts and 0.6% in the crown court in 2024, up from 0.8% and 0.2% respectively in 2016. But there is no data publicly available on trials delayed, potentially for hours, due to prisoner transport problems.

One interviewee suggested that a big part of the problem comes from the movement of prisoners within the court building, rather than their journey from prison or police custody to court, because chaotic administration and frequent changes to court lists mean court staff often do not know which prisoners are supposed to be where. ⁹² Institute for Government interviews, 2025; Ratcliffe F and Gibbs P, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London magistrates’ courts, Transform Justice, 2024, www.transformjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Wild-West-Courtwatching-in-London-magistrates-courts.pdf  This would not typically be captured in statistics on prisoner transport and would be unlikely to cause a trial to be postponed, but may be a source of substantial delays. Similarly, interviewees also highlighted that poor organisation or lack of staff within prisons causes problems producing prisoners to be transported. ⁹³ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

Crumbling, leaking court buildings and technology failures cause hearings to be delayed and worsen administrative problems and the sense of chaos

Sir Brian Leveson’s recent review into criminal courts found that “major problems remain with maintenance, technology and essential services… with many active courtrooms often out of use due to dilapidation”. ⁹⁴ Ratcliffe F and Gibbs P, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London magistrates’ courts, Transform Justice, 2024, www.transformjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Wild-West-Courtwatching-in-London-magistrates-courts.pdf  Courtrooms or entire buildings are too frequently closed due to leaks and burst pipes; ⁹⁵ Ball J, ‘Justice system on brink of collapse, barrister says’, BBC News, 6 February 2025, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c360rn4xd55o ^{, 96} BBC News, ‘Sheffield courts close after burst water pipe causes flood’, BBC News, 13 January 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-67965019  and fire alarm problems have repeatedly caused trials to be adjourned in courts across the country, including in Kent, ⁹⁷ Sylvester R, ‘Courts in crisis: ‘The chances of acquittal are higher for the rich’’, The Times, 23 November 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/courts-crisis-law-barrister-criminal-justice-system-crime-justice-commission-sw6pq580m  Nottingham ⁹⁸ Barnes L, ‘Court closed after ‘heating and fire alarm issues’’, BBC News, 9 January 2025, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1404y1pk8go  and Birmingham’s Victoria Law Courts – the UK’s largest magistrates’ court, where more than 4,000 courtroom days were lost between May 2022 and January 2024. ⁹⁹ Comptroller and Auditor General, Maintaining public service facilities, Session 2024-25, HC 544, National Audit Office, 2025, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/maintaining-public-service-facilities.pdf  Even where courtrooms are useable, they are frequently too cold, too hot or have dripping ceilings because of maintenance problems, ¹⁰⁰ Sylvester R, ‘Courts in crisis: ‘The chances of acquittal are higher for the rich’’, The Times, 23 November 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/courts-crisis-law-barrister-criminal-justice-system-crime-justice-commission-sw6pq580m  which creates a miserable and discouraging working environment.

Technology problems are also hampering productivity. Basic equipment such as video screens, microphones and Wi-Fi are unreliable, with video links to prisons for remote hearings often dropping out. ¹⁰¹ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  Transform Justice’s CourtWatch project highlighted the large amounts of court and staff time spent dealing with technical problems and trying to access information:

“An enormous amount of time [was] spent trying to navigate admin and computer systems – things that hadn’t worked online, virtual ‘sessions’ not activating, duplicates on common platform… The legal adviser seemed to have to spend a lot of time dealing with tech problems and admin issues.” – Courtwatch London, Transform Justice, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London’s magistrates’ courts ¹⁰² Ratcliffe F and Gibbs P, The Wild West? Courtwatching in London magistrates’ courts, Transform Justice, 2024, www.transformjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/The-Wild-West-Courtwatching-in-London-magistrates-courts.pdf

HMCTS introduced a new digital case management system, Common Platform, in stages from 2016. This was intended to streamline case management and allow everyone working in the courts – HMCTS, the CPS and defence lawyers – access to a shared system. But its initial rollout was extremely challenging. ¹⁰³ Comptroller and Auditor General, Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme, Session 2022-23, HC 1130, National Audit Office, 2025, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/progress-on-courts-and-tribunals-reform-programme-1.pdf  A National Audit Office review in 2023 found that users “felt that benefits from common platform were far outweighed by the negative issues… [which] had caused courts to become less efficient, increasing stress levels and raising quality concerns”. ¹⁰⁴ Comptroller and Auditor General, Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme, Session 2022-23, HC 1130, National Audit Office, 2025, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/progress-on-courts-and-tribunals-reform-programme-1.pdf  Even more damningly, “staff at several courts explained that they were listing fewer cases to allow for the extra time needed to deal with common platform cases”. ¹⁰⁵ Comptroller and Auditor General, Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme, Session 2022-23, HC 1130, National Audit Office, 2025, www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/progress-on-courts-and-tribunals-reform-programme-1.pdf  It is generally agreed that Common Platform is now working better than when it was first introduced, but ongoing problems continue to reduce productivity. ¹⁰⁶ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf

A growing amount of time is wasted on dropped cases

There has been a large increase in dropped cases, which means that more court, prosecutor and defence time is wasted on cases that do not make it to trial. Some cases will inevitably end up being dropped; for example, because a key witness is no longer available or new evidence has come to light. But this is becoming an increasing problem, with almost 13,000 hours of court time spent on dropped cases in 2024, accounting for 4% of hearing hours (up from 2% in 2019 and 3% in 2016). ¹⁰⁷ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  This does not account for the time that lawyers and court staff spent preparing for trial.

Frequently dropping cases may also discourage guilty pleas – which take much less time to deal with – if defendants feel their case has a high chance of being dropped. This may be contributing to guilty pleas now happening later in the justice process: in 2024, there was an average of 4.9 hearings per guilty plea case, compared to 3.8 in 2019 and 3.9 in 2016. ¹⁰⁸ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Case backlogs are causing delays across criminal courts. In the crown court, these fundamentally undermine the quality of justice

The case backlog in the crown court has attracted a lot of public attention, but the open caseload in magistrates’ courts is also high and rising. When Labour came into government in July 2024, it inherited a backlog in magistrates’ courts 30% bigger than at the end of 2019. By June 2025, it had grown another 25%. The backlog is also becoming increasingly complex, with more serious triable-either-way and indictable- only cases making up 19% of receipts in 2024 but 23% of open cases in March 2025 – despite the fact that a growing proportion of these cases is being passed on to the crown court. But relative to the number of cases entering the courts each year, the backlog is much smaller in magistrates’ courts than in the crown court, equivalent to 22% of incoming cases and 23% of cases closed in 2024. ¹⁰⁷ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

The growing backlog has caused significant increases in how long it takes for cases to be resolved in magistrates’ courts, even excluding those cases that get sent to the crown court. It now takes about six and a half months, on average, from an offence occurring to the case being closed in a magistrates’ court – two months longer than in 2010 and a month longer than in 2019.

Much of this increase has come from delays between the offence being committed and the offender being charged. But since 2019 there have been increasing delays later on in the process, between charge and first listing and between first listing and case completion. It now takes almost 10 weeks, on average, from a defendant being charged to the case being closed, up from eight weeks in 2016. ¹¹⁰ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Despite the increase in the number of cases being closed, the crown court backlog continues to grow quarter-on-quarter and is nearly twice what it was just before the pandemic, at 78,329 in June 2025 – up 91% since March 2020. The rate at which the backlog is growing has increased over the past year or so. It was up 10% in the 12 months to June 2025, compared to 7% in both December 2022 and December 2023. Cases in the backlog are also disproportionately complex, because a large proportion of them are expected to require a jury trial. Accounting for this, the backlog is even larger: close to a year’s worth of cases at the current disposal rate (90% of cases closed in the 12 months to March 2025). ¹¹¹ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Average waiting times have fallen slightly as more cases are being closed; the median time waiting for the first substantive hearing for all cases closed fell from 11 weeks in 2023 to 10 weeks in 2024 (a drop of 12%). But it remains 35% above 2019 (seven weeks). The biggest change has come from cases that get dropped. This is now happening more quickly, which is positive, but the wait for a trial or sentencing has stayed fairly constant. There has been only minimal improvement so far in the median waiting time for jury trials, which fell just 3% from 2023 to 2024. In 2024, it was 10 and a half months (45 weeks) – 47% longer than in 2016 and 70% longer than in 2019. The mean waiting time was even longer, at almost 14 months, and has not improved since 2023. ¹¹² Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

Among cases that are still open, five and a half times as many had been waiting more than a year at the end of 2024 as just before the pandemic, and almost nine times as many had been waiting at least two years. Despite the cases coming into the courts being less complex on average, the proportion of cases dealt with in under six months decreased from 71% at the end of 2016 to only just over half (52%) by June 2025. ¹¹³ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.

These delays call into question the functioning of the criminal justice system, particularly the crown court. ¹¹⁴ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  Defendants face months or years under suspicion, sometimes on remand or prevented from working or seeing their children. ¹¹⁵ Dugan E, ‘‘Lives on hold’: a day in the crown court where cases are delayed for years’, The Guardian, 9 December 2024, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.theguardian.com/law/2024/dec/09/court-delays-shortage-barristers-judges-england-wales  Victims similarly face long waits to get justice, and many withdraw from the process altogether so they can move on with their lives. ¹¹⁶ Murray S, Welland S and Storry M, Justice delayed: The impact of the Crown Court backlog on victims, victim services and the criminal justice system, Victims’ Commissioner, 2025, https://victimscommissioner.org.uk/document/justice-delayed-the-impact-of-the-crown-court-backlog-on-victims-victim-services-and-the-criminal-justice…  Witness testimony becomes increasingly unreliable and sentencing more complex, with the offence sometimes having taken place years before. Without major action, the situation will only deteriorate as the backlog grows.

Proposed restrictions to jury trials are not necessary to turn around performance in criminal courts

The scale of the backlog in courts and the evident failure to meet demand caused the courts minister, Sarah Sackman, to declare in July 2025: “We must have radical structural reform.” ¹¹⁷ House of Commons, Hansard, ‘Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions’, vol 770, 9 July 2025, retrieved 30 September 2025, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2025-07-09/debates/E03E9092-8179-4F60-B9C4-4CEF70353EEA/TrialByJuryProposedRestrictions  This followed the publication of phase one of the independent review into criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson and commissioned by the then justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in December 2024. ¹¹⁸ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  Phase one focused on options for structural reform, while phase two (currently ongoing) is considering productivity and efficiency in criminal courts.

The principal reforms proposed in phase one of the Leveson review centred on reducing the number of jury trials, by three means:

• restricting some triable-either-way offences so that they can only be tried in magistrates’ courts and defendants cannot elect to have a crown court trial
• setting up a ‘Crown Court Bench Division’, where cases would be heard by a judge and two magistrates, rather than a judge and jury
• introducing judge-only trials for some serious and complex cases, especially complex fraud.

Leveson explicitly argues that these changes are necessary to prevent the criminal justice system from collapsing and that improving productivity would not be enough to avert disaster: “No amount of efficiency gains alone could solve all the problems. The system is too broken.” ¹¹⁸ Independent review of the criminal courts, Independent review of the criminal courts: Part I, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf  The length of delays in the courts does pose a fundamental risk to justice. But the courts have coped with similar levels of demand in the past, and could do so again.

Courts are not spending an unprecedented amount of time on jury trials: total hearing hours for not guilty pleas in the crown court fell 22% from 2016 to 2024. ¹²⁰ Institute for Government analysis of Ministry of Justice, ‘Criminal court statistics quarterly, April to June 2025’, 2025.  If courts were operating at 2016 efficiency levels, the backlog would have fallen slightly in 2024. Ramping up staff and infrastructural capacity to achieve that would be challenging, but so would setting up a new division in the crown court. The government may want to make a principled argument for reducing access to jury trials on the grounds of cutting trial times, saving money or reducing delays more quickly, but it is not unavoidable.

Phase one of the Leveson review made further recommendations to reduce demand on criminal courts, including diverting more cases from the court system through out- of-court resolutions for lower level crimes, expanding the use of deferred prosecution and reducing the right of appeal from magistrates’ courts. These proposals have strong advantages. Out-of-court resolutions would ease pressure on magistrates’ courts, potentially freeing them up to deal with more serious cases rather than sending them to the crown court. ¹²¹ Independent Sentencing Review, Independent Sentencing Review: Final report and proposals for reform, 2025, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/682d8d995ba51be7c0f45371/independent-sentencing-review-report-part_2.pdf  There is also good evidence that out-of-court resolutions, including deferred prosecution, can reduce reoffending and improve victim satisfaction with the justice system. ¹²² Gibson C, Out of court disposals: A review of policy, operation and research evidence, Sentencing Academy, 2021, www.sentencingacademy.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Out-of-Court-Disposals.pdf ^{, 123} Gibbs P, ‚ Why avoiding prosecution leads to less crime’, Transform Justice, 12 January 2021, retrieved 13 October 2025, www.transformjustice.org.uk/news-insight/why-avoiding-prosecution-leads-to-less-crime

These proposals would have positive effects beyond just reducing demand on the court system, and should be implemented. But unless the government thinks there are real advantages to radically restricting jury trials beyond just saving time, it should wait for Leveson’s second report on productivity and efficiency in the courts and make serious efforts to improve these before pressing ahead.

HMCTS lacks reliable data on core aspects of the court system, making it hard to understand demand and performance

There have been some major problems with data on criminal courts in the past year, some of which are still ongoing. Data publication was paused for several months in 2024 because of issues with data quality, and even though publication has resumed, some specific datasets have continued to be revised significantly, and revised time series before 2019 (in magistrates’ courts) and 2016 (in the crown court) are not available. ¹²⁴ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.

There are also key gaps in what data exists and is publicly available. For example, the extremely high proportion of magistrates’ court defendants who enter no plea means it is impossible to tell from the available data whether the decline in magistrates’ court trials is because fewer people need a trial, or because capacity has fallen. Publishing figures on the number of defendants entitled to a trial would make it possible to understand changes in plea rates much more meaningfully. There is also no published data on spending and funding by type of court, which makes it extremely difficult to understand value for money. But there have been some welcome improvements in  this area, particularly earlier this year with the publication of more data on the single justice procedure, which has previously been a very opaque part of the system.

However, the more fundamental problem than unavailable data is a lack of trust in the data that does exist among key stakeholders. ¹²⁵ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  The MoJ carried out significant quality assurance on the revised data on cases received, closed and outstanding in 2024 and is continuing data quality work on magistrates’ court data. But there is still nervousness about the accuracy outside the headline measures. Revisions to magistrates’ court data are ongoing. Some figures that have not been revised, such as statistics on the production of prisoners by prisoner escort services, are nonetheless widely mistrusted, because those working in the courts feel they do not reflect their day-to-day experiences. ¹²⁶ Institute for Government interviews, 2025.  Without an accurate understanding of what is happening in the courts, based on data people in the system feel they can trust, it will prove challenging to improve system performance.