Criminal court statistics quarterly: July to September 2019
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. In addition to the regular content, this release includes experimental statistics on Failure to Appear (FTA) Warrants issued in magistrates' court in England and Wales.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
This is the quarterly Q3 2019 criminal courts statistics publication.
Changes to the administrative systems at the Crown Court that completed in September 2019 have resulted in discontinuities in the published series, most notably for estimates of outstanding cases, vacated trials and end-to-end timeliness. The change does not affect any data related to the magistrates’ courts and other Crown Court measures are largely unaffected by the change. For further information see the Guide to Criminal Court Statistics.
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.
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 Q3 2019.
Additional data tools and CSVs have also been provided.
Key findings
- Overall receipts into the magistrates’ courts increased by 4%, due to a 14% increase in summary motoring cases, whereas receipts for ‘trial cases’ fell to a series low in Q3 2019. The volume of outstanding cases remained broadly in line with levels seen since Q2 2016.
- The number of receipts into the Crown Court has increased 5% compared to the same quarter in 2018, whilst the number of disposals has fallen by 4% over the same period.
- A provisional estimate of outstanding cases shows a 3% increase on the previous quarter.
- The average waiting time for all case types at the Crown Court fell to a series low of 5.9 weeks in Q3 2019. This is a decrease of half a week compared to Q3 2018 (6.4 weeks) and less than half of the peak seen in Q2 2015 (13.0 weeks).
- For cases completing at the magistrates’ court, the average number of days from offence to completion increased due to increases from offence to charge.
- The total value of financial impositions outstanding in England and Wales was £1.18 billion, up 9% on the previous year and 1% on the previous quarter.
- Language interpreters: the number of completed language interpreter requests in Q3 2019 (42,637) increased 9% compared to the previous year, while the success rate remained at 97%.
- Failure to Appear (FTA) warrants: in the 12 months to September 2019 just over 71,000 FTA warrants were issued; this was 4% fewer than in 2016 and 22% fewer than in 2010.
Criminal court statistics (quarterly), October to December 2019
The next criminal court statistics publication is scheduled for release in March 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.