Crown Court backlog exacerbated by post-pandemic productivity slump, says new IFS research

Friday, 6 June 2025 00:01

The Crown Court of England and Wales – the court that deals with the most serious offences – had around 75,000 outstanding cases at the end of 2024. That is 11% more than a year earlier, and almost twice as high as at the end of 2019. This backlog has jumped since the pandemic, and continues to rise, despite a considerable increase in court resources. The number of sitting days (i.e. the number of days that judges ‘sit' in court each year to hear cases, determined and...Request free trial