Earlier this year, the quarterly criminal court statistics were delayed over 'quality concerns' (Obiter has a few court quality concerns of our own, though they’re more hardware related than software). The January to March stats were due to be published in late June, with another set, covering April to June, in September.

So far, nada.

The Ministry of Justice has been vague about exactly what ‘concerns about the quality of key data inputs’ were. Now it sounds as if the they are more serious than first admitted. In a written parliamentary question this week, Andy Slaughter MP asked if the stats due in June, September and December would be published by the end of the year.

Technically, a simple yes or no would be all that was needed in reply. But justice minister Heidi Alexander felt the need to go further. 

‘In June and September 2024, the Ministry of Justice made the decision to cancel publication of the quarterly Official Accredited statistics on the criminal courts, following concerns about the quality of criminal court performance data,' she replied. 'That initial work highlighted some necessary changes to court processing systems to enable robust and accurate data to be produced.’

You can almost hear the IT consultants sucking through their teeth and going into a monologue about cowboys. 

Alexander continued: ‘These data fixes are being implemented alongside work to align the Ministry of Justice official accredited statistics and HMCTS management information methodologies. This will benefit users by providing greater transparency and coherence in court data.’

Heroically, she assured Slaughter: ‘This work is a departmental priority and is underway to deliver an updated data series (including those missing quarters) as soon as possible when we are confident it meets the required level of accuracy. The government looks forward to updating the house on the action we are taking soon.’

We suspect that Slaughter, who as a long standing member - and now chair - of the justice select committee is no stranger to ministerial waffle, is looking forward to it, too. 

 

Topics