The number of cases handled by magistrates has fallen by 16% in a decade as more defendants are dealt with out of court, according to a report published this week.

The report for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies shows that around 1.64 million cases were dealt with in the magistrates' courts in 2008 – 310,000 fewer than the number dealt with in 1998.

The report puts the decline in work down to the summary justice exercised by police and prosecutors in the form of cautions and out-of-court penalties. The steepest decline in caseload has been in summary motoring offences, which have fallen by 24%. However, despite its falling workload and staffing cuts, the report found that expenditure on the magistrates’ court rose 17% from 1998 to 2008, to £717.43m.

CCJS research director Roger Grimshaw said: ‘With an annual billion-pound bill for the criminal courts arriving in the government’s intray, many magistrates’ courts are earmarked for closure, but we hear little about the massive expansion of cases decided by police and prosecutors.’