Criminal court statistics quarterly: January to March 2020
Type and volume of cases received and processed through the criminal court system of England and Wales, including statistics on case timeliness. Also includes statistics on the use of language interpreter and translation services in courts and tribunals, England and Wales.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
This is the quarterly Q1 2020 criminal courts statistics publication.
The statistics here focus on key trends in case volume and progression through the criminal court system in England and Wales. This also includes:
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Management information concerning the enforcement of financial penalties in England and Wales;
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Experimental statistics on ‘the use of language interpreter and translation services in courts and tribunals;
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Experimental statistics on Failure to Appear Warrants at magistrates’ courts in England and Wales.
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Preliminary management information for court workload and trial efficiency to May 2020.
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Consultation on the proposed change to the way in which criminal court statistics process and publish our Crown Court data.
The Crown Court information release is published as management information on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website. This has been affected by the changes to the administrative systems at Crown Court and as such has not been updated for Q1 2020.
Additional data tools and CSVs have also been provided.
Statisticians comment
“This report covers data to the end of March 2020, so court activity towards the end of this period has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly measures like outstanding cases which are measured at the end of the reference period.
Figures published today show that outstanding cases, which were already rising in the Crown Court, have also risen sharply in the magistrates’ court – although courts continued to carry out urgent business and make more use of remote audio and video technology, the impact of COVID-19 is clear to see. Workload and trial efficiency estimates at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court illustrate this: disposals fell, while both outstanding cases and trial vacations increased sharply. Other published measures are less clearly affected in the current release, because they are calculated at the point that a case completes in the courts.
Alongside the National Statistics we are providing more timely high-level, provisional management information to support public understanding of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recovery on the criminal courts systems.
It is expected that the limited operation of the criminal courts during the COVID-19 pandemic and the gradual reintroduction of jury trials at the Crown Court from 18th May 2020 will continue to have an impact on many of the published measures in future releases of Criminal court statistics quarterly.”
Criminal court statistics (quarterly), April to June 2020
The next criminal court statistics publication is scheduled for release in September 2020.
Pre-release
In addition to Ministry of Justice (MOJ) professional and production staff, pre-release access to the quarterly statistics of up to 24 hours is granted to the following postholders:
Ministry of Justice
Permanent Secretary; Director General, Policy, Communications and Analysis; Director, Criminal Justice Policy; Deputy Director, Criminal Courts Policy; Criminal Court Reform Lead; Jurisdictional and Operational Support Manager; Head of Data and Analytical Services; Chief Statistician; 5 Press Officers.
Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunals Service:
Chief Executive, HMCTS; Deputy Chief Executive, HMCTS; Deputy Director of Legal Services, Court Users and Summary Justice Reform; Head of Operational Performance; Head of Criminal Enforcement team, HMCTS; Head of data and management information, HMCTS; Head of Management Information Systems; Head of Communications; Head of News; Jurisdictional Operation manager and Head of Contracted Services and Performance for HMCTS Operations Directorate
Home Office
1 Senior Policy Official and 1 Statistician.