Court statistics (quarterly): April to June 2013
This report presents the latest statistics on type and volume of cases that are received and processed through the court system of England and Wales in the second quarter of 2013 (April to June). This report also provides a narrative on annual trends. These statistics focus on three main categories: civil, family and criminal matters.
Applies to England and Wales
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Civil (excluding family) cases
- The courts dealt with 351,000 new claims and 11,000 hearings or trials. These represent a reduction of around 28% and 36% respectively in caseload figures since the number of hearings and trials peaked in 2007.
- Consistently, between 3 and 3.5% of all claims issued go to hearing or trial.
- There was an average of 58 weeks between a claim being issued and the claim going to trial. This represents an increase of 10% since the low of 52 weeks in 2008.
Family cases
- The number of cases that started in family courts in England and Wales remained at around 70,000 in Q2 2013 with the largest proportion (45%) being for divorce applications.
- The average time for the disposal of a care or supervision application continued to drop to 41 weeks (down 21% from Q2 2012).
- The average duration for private law disposals where both parties were represented was 23 weeks (up 28% from Q2 2012). However, 79% of these disposals had start dates before 1 April 2013.
Criminal cases
- There was a 15% increase in the number of adult indictable or triable-either-way cases completing at the magistrates’ courts compared to the previous quarter. Despite this, the time taken for cases to complete fell by 4 days – coinciding with the removal of committal hearings in magistrates’ courts on 28th May 2013.
- This removal of committal hearings in magistrates’ courts lead to a 27% increase in ‘committed for trial’ receipts at the Crown Court compared with the previous quarter.
Also being published are detailed breakdowns of the headline court caseload and timeliness statistics, broken down by court or Local Justice Area. More information can be found at open.justice.gov.uk.
The bulletin is produced and handled by the ministry’s analytical professionals and production staff. In addition to Ministry of Justice professional and production staff, pre-release access to the provisional court statistics of up to 24 hours is granted to the following postholders: Ministry of Justice: Secretary of State, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Minister of State (Policing and Criminal Justice), Permanent Secretary, Director General of Finance and Public Services, Head of Analytical Services, Chief Executive, Chief Statistician, Policy Advisor (Civil Justice), Policy Advisor (Public Law), Policy Advisor (Private Law and Matrimonial Justice), Press Officers and Relevant Special Advisers.
Her Majesty’s Court Service: Chief Executive, Director of Civil, Family and Tribunals, Deputy Director of Civil and Family, Director of Crime, Head of Civil Operations Branch, Head of Family Performance & Management Information , Head of Crown Court Improvement Branch, Head of Criminal Enforcement, and Jurisdictional and Operational Support Officer (Magistrates).
Updates to this page
Published 26 September 2013Last updated 24 November 2014 + show all updates
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Tables moved here from another page
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Addition of Court caseload statistics
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First published.