Justice denied: Government failing to take urgent action on crown court backlogs, PAC warns

Government appears to have simply accepted that excessively high Crown Court backlogs will continue to grow. In a report published today, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is not taking the urgent action required to bring down backlogs from an unprecedented high, but is tinkering at the edges, reacting to each new issue that affects the courts, without planning for long-term solutions.

The MoJ accepted during the PAC's inquiry that justice delayed is justice denied. Concerningly, however, it intends to wait for the results of Sir Brian Leveson's Independent Review of the Criminal Courts before starting to plan the fundamental changes it knows are needed. Without these changes, Government acknowledged to the PAC that the backlog of 73,105 cases would continue to grow. Waiting for the Leveson Review, which will not finally report till Autumn 2025, will delay reforms by many months. The PAC calls on the MoJ to set out a plan of actions it can start now.

The PAC's recommendations come in the context of an ongoing devastating impact on victims of crime and their families caused by the backlogged system, particularly for victims of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO), and violent crimes. The PAC's inquiry heard that RASSO prosecutions take over two years on average to come to trial, with many finding the court process as traumatic as the crime itself and others withdrawing from the prosecution process due to court delays. The report calls in particular for a reduction in the number of hearings in cases of serious sexual and violent offences that are delayed or postponed on the day scheduled, as it is such circumstances that distress victims the most.

The report further finds that the population of defendants on remand waiting for their cases to be heard is at its highest level for fifty years. One in twenty of the remand population, some of whom will be found not guilty, had been on remand for more than two years. The PAC's inquiry heard that some people awaiting sentencing are spending so long on remand that upon sentencing they are released from court, having already served the length of their sentence. The report calls on the Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice to urgently discuss how to reduce remand numbers to 2019 levels, which would free up 8,000 vitally needed prison places.

The pressure on the courts system is attributed by MoJ to the consequences of the recruitment of over 20,000 additional police officers since 2019, leading to more crimes being prosecuted, and to a shift to more complex cases that take longer to conclude. The PAC notes that this increase in demand for Crown Court time was predictable. Despite MoJ knowing in advance that Government was planning on greatly increasing the number of police, and receiving funding specifically to meet the consequent rise in new criminal cases, it failed to adequately forecast the scale of the increase nor prepare the Crown Court for the increase in workload. The PAC's report recommends MoJ should make better use of the data available to it to help prepare the courts system for its future caseload.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “The Government agrees with this Committee that 'justice delayed is justice denied'. For a country where the common law originated, we should aspire to have the best functioning criminal justice system in the world. All parts of the system must act optimally together. It is therefore disappointing that the Crown Courts backlog is now at a record high of 73,000, compared to a record low of 33,290 in March 2019 pre-COVID.

“This can have particularly severe consequences for some victims and their families. For example, victims of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) can wait for three years or more for these cases to come to trial. In 2024, 59% of victims of adult rape dropped out of the justice system because research shows they could not bear the trauma any longer. The number of ineffective trials currently stands at a staggering 25%.

“The remand population has almost doubled from 9,602 in 2018 to 17,600 in September 2024 (20% of the entire prison population). 770 prisoners have been on remand for over two years. These are shocking statistics involving sometimes innocent people which should be carefully scrutinised to see how the system could be improved. All in all, our report is a terrible indictment of our criminal justice system and the Government urgently need to reorganise it to aspire to that world class standard for which the UK used to be renowned.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations 

We are concerned that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has simply accepted that the backlog, already excessively high, will continue to grow and that it will now wait for the results of the Leveson Review before starting to plan the fundamental changes it knows are needed to bring the backlog down. In September 2024, the backlog stood at 73,105 cases, and MoJ and HMCTS acknowledge that without fundamental change this number will continue to grow. The Crown Court is unable to keep pace with the inflow of new cases. The rate of new cases is increasing due to the recent recruitment of over 20,000 additional police officers and an increase in the proportion of complex cases in the overall caseload. MoJ is also unable to predict when things may begin to improve. MoJ is waiting for the outcome of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts (the Leveson Review) announced in December 2024, which will not report on options for long-term reform until the late Spring 2025. MoJ has taken, and continues to take, some measures to mitigate the rising backlog, including measures implemented through the 2021 Criminal Justice Action Plan. However, for the fundamental reforms needed to arrest and reverse the current trend, MoJ seems over-reliant on the future report of the Leveson Review, which will delay the implementation of reforms by many months.

Recommendation 1.

1. a) In its Treasury Minute response, MoJ should set out a plan of actions it can start now to address the backlog in the Crown Courts, building on the Criminal Justice Action Plan, whilst it waits for the Leveson Review.
2. b) Alongside this, MoJ should rapidly investigate options for how it might implement the reforms that the Leveson Review is considering, so that it can move to implementation swiftly upon the review's conclusion.

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 trauma, and leading many to withdraw from cases. In the year up to June 2024, 59% of victims of adult rape cases dropped out of the justice process pre-charge, which research by the Victims' Commissioner attributes to victims' unwillingness to prolong their trauma through long court cases that may not even lead to a conviction. The proportion of cases involving sexual offences and violence has increased greatly over the last 10 years. By September 2024, there were 11,574 open sexual offence cases in the Crown Court and 3,291 adult rape cases. There are measures that MoJ can and is taking to mitigate the impact of delays, including additional investment of £41 million in victim support services and working with the judiciary on prioritising RASSO cases, but more remains to be done to alleviate the impact of the backlog on the most vulnerable victims.

Recommendation 2.

1. a) MoJ, working with the judiciary, should try hard to reduce the number of hearings in cases of serious sexual and violent offences that are delayed or postponed on the day scheduled, as it is such circumstances that distress victims the most.
2. b) MoJ should continue to protect the additional funding it has secured for victim support, and work with organisations providing support to look for ways to enhance this vital service.

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 numbers of new cases coming to the Crown Court, which it uses to inform its policy-making decisions. MoJ recognises that the increasing Crown Court backlog is due to the rising rate of new cases resulting from an increase in the number of police officers, and to the increasing proportion of more complex cases. Despite MoJ knowing in advance that government was planning on greatly increasing the number of police, and receiving funding specifically to meet the consequent rise in new criminal cases, it failed to adequately forecast the scale of the increase nor prepare the Crown Court for the increase in workload. It will not have helped that for two years between July 2021 and July 2023 the Criminal Justice Board, which brings together partners from across the criminal justice system to share information and plan collaboratively, did not meet. We were disappointed to learn that MoJ expects that the rate of new cases will continue to outstrip the Crown Court's ability to hear cases system over the next year, although it would not be drawn on how high it forecasts the backlog will be in a year's time.

Recommendation 3.

1. a) MoJ should make better use of the data available to it to improve its approach to forecasting and understanding of future Crown Court cases.
2. b) MoJ and HMCTS should use its improved forecasts to more quickly plan and implements changes to the courts system - its processes, people and infrastructure - to better meet the future caseload.

The remand population is at its highest number for 50 years, and the length of time some defendants on remand wait for their cases to be heard is disrupting their lives and their families' lives, and adding to prison overcrowding. The remand population has increased sharply in recent years, reaching 17,600 in September 2024 (20% of the prison population), the highest level in 50 years, up from 9,602 in 2019 (11% of the prison population). It is unacceptable that some people are held on remand for this length of time, particularly as some will be found not guilty. More cases in the backlog awaiting trial swells the remand population, adding to prison capacity pressures and making it even harder for HM Prison and Probation Service to manage the prison population. The NAO reported that in September 2022, 32% of the remand population had been held on remand beyond the custody time limit of 6 months, and 5% had been on remand for more than two years. We are concerned that MoJ cannot provide more up-to-date information on the number of people who have been on remand beyond their custody time limits.

Recommendation 4.

1. a) MoJ, led by the Lord Chancellor, should urgently discuss with the Lady Chief Justice how to reduce remand numbers to the 2019 level, which would free up 8,000 vitally needed prison places.
2. b) MoJ and HMCTS should gather and publish more granular data on the remand population, to show how long people are spending on remand and how this population is changing, to better understand the impact long waits have on defendants and the outcomes of their cases, and to inform the development of services that better support those on remand and their families.
3. c) MoJ and HMCTS should urgently review how the number of people on remand for over two years can be reduced to the bare minimum.

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 scheduled. There has been a marginal improvement since 2023 (the proportion of ineffective trials was then 27% compared to 25% more recently). While the improvement is welcome, the proportion of ineffective trials remains significantly higher than the pre-pandemic rate, which was consistently around 15%. The number of ineffective trials due to the unavailability of barristers or solicitors remains much higher than before the pandemic, and while the recent increase in the number of criminal barristers is welcome, we are not convinced that recent increases in legal aid fees have completely reversed the downward trend in legal professionals working in criminal law. We heard of other reasons for ineffective trials, some of which would seem to be straightforward to resolve, such as defendants on remand arriving late to court, poor case preparation, and a significant backlog of maintenance across the Crown Court estate.

Recommendation 5. Alongside its Treasury Minute response, MoJ should write to the Committee to set out:

• Its understanding of the causes of ineffective trials and the impact each has.
• Whether professional capacity is a significant factor affecting ineffective trials.
• What the impact has been on ineffective trial rates of changes it has made, for example, increases in legal aid fees.
• What further actions are required and by whom to address the causes of ineffective trials.

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, raising concerns over MoJ's ability to put a convincing and costed bid to the current Spending Review. MoJ received £477 million in the 2021 Spending Review to support recovery across the criminal justice system, including help to reduce the Crown Court backlog. MoJ received another £644 million a year by 2024-25 to expand capacity in the criminal justice system, including to manage increased numbers of new cases. The criminal justice system is complex, and the backlog in the Crown Court is affected by many factors including the rate at which new cases come in, judicial staffing levels, physical court capacity and the length of time cases take to conclude. However, with the current Spending Review and the Leveson Review, which is expected to make recommendations for fundamental reform to the judicial system, we would expect MoJ to be able to articulate more clearly how it previously used its resources to tackle the backlog. We also note that the longer it takes to hear cases, and the more they are delayed, the more expensive they become, both in terms of financial and social costs; there is therefore a clear incentive for all to fund the maximum available number of sitting days.

Recommendation 6. Alongside its Treasury Minute response, MoJ should write to the Committee to clearly set out:

• What it has spent in total since 2021 on reducing the backlog in the Crown Courts and how the additional funding was used.
• The actions and interventions that money was spent on.
• What it assesses has been the impact of that additional investment, including identifying the most cost-effective interventions.

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 issues.MoJ paused publication of Crown Court caseload data between June and December 2024 because it had found errors in its published data. Investigation by MoJ and HMCTS concluded that processing errors, introduced following the roll out of Common Platform (the new digital case management system for the criminal justice system), meant that data in relation to some Crown Court cases was inaccurate. Following work to rectify the data processing issues and correct errors in its published data, MoJ and HMCTS assured us that they now have a significant level of confidence in the accuracy of Crown Court data. Nevertheless, we remain concerned that similar errors exist in caseload data elsewhere in the criminal justice system. We are encouraged to learn that HMCTS is looking very hard at other ways that digitisation can improve the functioning of the courts, including the potential to use AI to improve the management of cases.

Recommendation 7. In its Treasury Minute response, MoJ should:

• Set out how it has assured itself that other datasets within the criminal justice system are accurate and are not affected by the same issues that reduced the accuracy of Crown Court data.
• MoJ should set out what scope it sees for further digitisation or the use of AI to enhance the efficiency of the courts and the timely administration of justice.