Court delays continue to paint a gloomy picture with multi and fast track claims taking over 18 months to reach trial, the latest statistics reveal.

The performance of some individual courts has been labelled ‘shocking’ by a consumer group, who found delays at one court were running at two years and three months.

Ministry of Justice figures for the latest quarter show that both small claims and multi/fast track claims are taking longer than they did in 2022 to reach trial.

It took an average of one year (51.9 weeks) between a small claim being issued and the claim going to trial in January to March 2023, almost a week longer compared to the same quarter in 2022.

For multi and fast track claims it was 79.9 weeks, 6.3 weeks longer than January to March 2022.

During the same period, there were 11% more trials (15,000) than in the same period last year.

The Association of Consumer Support Organisations said the figures on small claims and fast/multi track claims represented the worst on record for the datasets available since 2009.

It pointed out that this was despite the total annual number of claims being submitted reducing from 2,029,258 in 2019 to 1,537,759 in 2022 - a reduction of 500,000 or 24%.

Separate research conducted by the ACSO with Express Solicitors found that, on average, it takes 353 days to wait for the court to hear a case. 

Matthew Maxwell Scott

Maxwell Scott: 'There is no clear strategy to resolve these issues'

They found a postcode lottery still applies to civil courts, with court delays in Dartford running at 829 days while in Blackpool delays were at 79 days. 

The south east is the worst performing region with an average wait of 462 days, while the North east is the best with an average wait of 251 days.

Matthew Maxwell Scott, executive director of ACSO, said: ‘The MoJ’s own statistics underline that there is a very long road ahead to rescue our civil justice system. 

‘What is so disappointing is that there is no clear strategy to resolve these issues, let alone published targets to bring delays down to an acceptable level. Where is the plan? 

‘We urge the MoJ to put more resources into reducing the backlog, including setting concrete targets to ensure there is accountability as well as clarity. Ministers have gone missing in recent years; we hope the new justice secretary makes this a top priority.’

 

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