Reducing the backlog in criminal courts

This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.

Forty-Third Report of Session 2021–22

Author: Committee of Public Accounts

Related inquiry: Reducing the backlog in criminal courts

Date Published: 9 March 2022

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Contents

Introduction

The Ministry of Justice (the Department) is headed by the Lord Chancellor and is accountable to Parliament overall for the effective functioning of the court system. Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), an agency of the Department, provides the system of support, including infrastructure and resources, for administering criminal, civil and family courts in England and Wales and tribunals nationally. The judiciary, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, is constitutionally independent from government. In the year to 30 June 2021, the criminal courts dealt with 1.24 million cases, including more than 90,000 in the Crown Court where the most serious cases are heard. Cases enter the system when a defendant is charged with an offence and are allocated a court date through a process called ‘listing’, which is a judicial function. The Department and HMCTS cannot intervene in the progress of an individual case.

Conclusions and recommendations

1. Unacceptable delays to justice for victims, witnesses, and defendants is unlikely to be addressed by the Department’s meagre ambition to reduce the Crown Court backlog by less than 8,000 cases by March 2025. The number of cases in the Crown Court waiting to be resolved has nearly doubled since March 2019, from an all-time low of 33,290 to 59,928 cases in September 2021. Since March 2020 alone, the number of cases waiting longer than a year has increased by more than 340%. The Department’s plan is to reduce the backlog by less than 7,000 cases, to 53,000 by March 2025. We remain unconvinced of the Department’s intentions to reduce waiting times in the Crown Court, given the slow pace of recovery. In January 2022, after we had taken evidence in December, the Department announced that magistrates will be able to hand out longer prison sentences. The Department expects this will reduce the number of cases that magistrates need to send to the Crown Court for sentencing.

Recommendation: The Department should fully explore with the judiciary what reasonable expectations can be set around how long it should take for a case to be completed in the Crown Court and write to us with its findings within the next six months.

2. Victims of rape and serious sexual offences are facing unacceptable delays to justice that compound and extend their suffering and lead to too many cases collapsing. The number of such cases waiting longer than a year has increased by more than 400% since the onset of the pandemic. As victims are made to wait longer for their cases to be heard, their lives are put on hold and their trauma is prolonged. As waiting times increase, so does the risk the victim withdraws from the process and the case collapses. While the proportion of cases collapsing in the courts in this way has reduced recently, the scale of victim attrition in other stages of the criminal justice process is unacceptably high. We are encouraged that the Department is putting more money into victim support services, doubling investment from £92 million in 2019–20 to £185 million by 2024–25. It also has plans to increase the number of independent sexual violence advisors (ISVAs), whose support to victims halves the likelihood of a victim withdrawing from the process. In June 2021, the Department set out a range of other actions it would take in its end-to-end rape review, and published a progress update in December 2021, but cannot yet say what impact these actions are having on the number of rape and serious sexual offence cases waiting in the backlog.

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out its plan to assess the impact of its measures to support victims of rape and serious sexual offences and its progress on recruiting ISVAs.

3. We are not convinced that the Department can recruit enough judges to deliver on its ambition to reduce the Crown Court backlog. Reducing the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 relies on increasing the number of days that the Crown Court hears cases, from 100,000 in 2021–22 to 105,000 in 2022–23, then 106,500 in both 2023–24 and 2024–25. This requires a significant increase in the number of judges, for which the Department’s plan does not seem credible. Its plans are predicated on successfully recruiting 78 full-time, salaried circuit judges. This is despite only filling 52 of 63 positions during the previous recruitment round. The resulting dependence on deploying criminal barristers and solicitors as part-time judges, as well as increasing the work load of part-time judges, to make up shortfall reduces much-needed capacity within the legal profession to prosecute and defend cases. We are concerned that the need to significantly improve the diversity of the judiciary will be overlooked in the Department’s efforts to boost the number of judges.

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out what specific actions it will be taking to ramp up recruitment while improving diversity in the judiciary.

4. We remain unconvinced that the prison system will cope with the likely increase in prisoners given the planned increase in police officers and the Department’s work to reduce the backlog in criminal courts. In October 2019 the government announced it would recruit 20,000 additional police officers by 2023, which the Department expects will lead to a significant increase in cases entering the courts, and in turn custodial sentences. In July 2021, the Department reported a gap of 4,000 prison places by the end of 2023, even once it had factored in 18,000 additional places as part of its current prison build programme. It has since secured funding for 2,000 more prison places, accounting for only half of the shortfall. We are concerned that the Department’s plans allow for no contingency and resilience that might be needed if, for instance, police recruitment leads to more cases entering the courts than expected or there are delays in its prison building programme. We have reported before on the Department under-delivering on its promises to create new prison places and on the staggering backlog of maintenance work required to keep existing prisons fit for purpose. We have also been critical before about the effectiveness of cross-government approaches to reducing re-offending; sustained progress in this area will be a vital part of the equation if the prison system is going to cope.

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out how it is building resilience across the criminal justice system and, crucially, how it will ensure there are enough prison places to meet the expected demand from increased police recruitment and faster recovery in criminal courts.

5. Vulnerable users and people from ethnic minority backgrounds are potentially impacted disproportionately by efforts to tackle the Crown Court backlog, which the Department and HMCTS have not done enough to understand. Since the start of the pandemic, HMCTS significantly increased the number of hearings held remotely using video technology. However, it only published its formal evaluation of remote hearings on 10 December 2021, nearly two years into the pandemic. The limited coverage of the experiences of those with disabilities or accessibility difficulties painted a mixed picture, which HMCTS is still reviewing. A third of people requesting reasonable adjustments felt their requests were denied. There is insufficient data on ethnicity for the Department to assess its recovery plans or the pandemic’s impact on different groups. The Department is continuing to work on improving the ethnicity data it collects.

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response the Department and HMCTS should set out their plans to specifically evaluate the experience of victims, witnesses and defendants—particularly those deemed vulnerable and from ethnic minority backgrounds—in criminal courts.

6. We recognise the long overdue move towards bringing data on the criminal justice system together, although it is not clear how the Department will use this to improve performance. In December 2021, the Department published a national scorecard and an adult rape scorecard that bring together data on performance across the criminal justice system, including on the size of the backlog, timeliness and victim attrition. The Department plans to also produce local scorecards at the police force level. In a complex system with multiple organisations, the use of scorecards to drive performance risks creating perverse incentives as organisations focus disproportionately on the metrics that the Department has selected to publish. The Department and HMCTS do not yet have the data they need to fully understand and manage the flow of cases. Both are relying on a new case management system to address these gaps, although HMCTS has currently paused the roll-out of this system.

Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Department should set out how the data it has developed and published will lead to improvements in performance and victims’ experiences.

1 Capacity in the criminal courts

1. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Ministry of Justice (the Department) and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service about the backlog in the criminal courts.1

2. In the year to 30 June 2021, criminal courts dealt with 1.24 million cases, including more than 90,000 in the Crown Court, which hears the most serious cases. Cases enter the system when a defendant is charged with an offence and are allocated a court date through a process called ‘listing’, which is a judicial function. The backlog includes all cases awaiting trial, being tried and those awaiting sentencing.2

3. The Department is accountable to Parliament overall for the effective functioning of the court system. The Department funds an agreed number of sitting days that determine on how many days the courts can hear cases. HMCTS is an agency of the Department and provides the system of support, including infrastructure and resources, for administering criminal, civil and family courts in England and Wales and tribunals nationally. The judiciary is constitutionally independent from government.3

4. By the end of June 2021, there were around 61,000 cases waiting in the backlog in the Crown Court, and more than 364,000 in the magistrates’ courts. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the work of the criminal justice system and necessitated extensive changes in criminal courts to keep judges, court staff, and users safe. This caused the backlog, particularly in the Crown Court, to rise sharply.4

Plans to address the backlog of cases

5. In the year leading up to the pandemic, the number of cases in the Crown Court backlog increased by 23%, from an all-time low of 33,290 in March 2019 to 41,045 in March 2020. The Department told us that the mix of crimes being prosecuted changed in 2019–20 and it did not have enough sitting days to meet the increase in cases coming to court. HMCTS accepted that there was little contingency built into the allocation of sitting days in 2019–20, although the Department and HMCTS reviewed the data on court receipts part-way through the year and increased the allocation as a result.5

6. The onset of the pandemic meant that Crown Courts closed for two months and, once they reopened, they needed to implement social distancing to operate safely. As a result, the Crown Court backlog has continued to rise, increasing a further 48% from March 2020 to 60,692 cases in June 2021. The Department told us that its plan is to reduce the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025, a reduction of less than 8,000 cases. The Department told us that it has the money to fund this plan, following the outcome of the 2021 Spending Review.6

7. As the backlog has increased, so has the time that defendants, witnesses and victims have waited for their case to be completed. Between March 2020 and June 2021, the number of cases waiting longer than a year increased by 302%, from 2,803 to 11,379.7 The Department told us that it is focusing on reducing waiting times as well as the size of the Crown Court backlog, and that this will require improvements in productivity and the rate at which courts can complete cases. The Department said it needs to be careful that this focus on reducing waiting times does not create perverse incentives, for example by avoiding the more difficult cases.8 HMCTS told us that the local judiciary in each area has a great understanding of how long each case will take to complete and accepted that there was more it could do to bring these data together.9

Recruiting and retaining staff

8. The Department’s plan to reduce the Crown Court backlog to 53,000 cases relies on increasing the number of sitting days from 100,000 in 2021–22 to 105,000 in 2022–23, then 106,500 in both 2023–24 and 2024–25.10 HMCTS told us that it has the court staff that it needs to meet these plans.11 But the Department needs to recruit more judges to meet this increase, and has faced difficulties recruiting the numbers it needs. In the last recruitment round, it filled 52 of 63 available positions for full-time, salaried circuit judges. It said it is hoping to recruit a further 78 full-time judges, which will meet the additional demand it expects as well as the shortfall from the last recruitment round.12

9. In the meantime, the Department is relying on using part-time judges (recorders) to provide the additional judicial capacity it needs. It recruited 104 crime recorders in the last recruitment round, and is looking to expand numbers further significantly. The Department told us that currently recorders are not working as many days as it expected, and so is working with the judiciary to encourage recorders to work more days.13 Increasing the amount of work that recorders undertake as judges means they have less time in their substantive roles as criminal barristers and solicitors. The Bar Council, Law Society and Criminal Bar Association all reported there are already severe pressures in recruiting and retaining criminal barristers and solicitors.14

10. In 2017, the Lammy review into how ethnic minorities are treated in the criminal justice system noted the importance of recruiting a diverse judiciary, and recommended a national target to achieve a representative judiciary by 2025.15 In 2020, the judiciary published its diversity and inclusion strategy to improve the representation of underrepresented groups within the judiciary.16 While discussing its plans in the session to boost judicial numbers, the Department did not reflect on what is needed to maintain and improve the diversity of the judiciary.

Prison places

11. The Department expects that the demand for prison places will increase significantly. Its plans to increase the number of days that the Crown Court hears cases, and the resultant reduction in the backlog, will likely mean more people being convicted and sent to prison. The recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers by 2023, announced by the government in October 2019, will also mean more cases coming to court and likely more people sent to prison.17

12. In July 2021, the Department estimated that its court recovery plan and the increase in police officers would result in a shortfall of 4,000 prison places by the end of 2023, over and above the 18,000 additional prison places that HM Treasury had already agreed to fund as part of the Department’s prison build programme.18 In the 2021 Spending Review, the Department secured funding for 2,000 more prison places, bringing total funding to £3.8 billion to deliver 20,000 new prison places by the mid-2020s, including six new prisons.19 The Department said that its strategy is to not only have enough prison places but to have the right types of prisons and in the areas where it most needs them, though it accepted it may not achieve this until the medium to long term.20

13. The Department described how it is tightly managing the prison build programme to ensure there is sufficient capacity, including closely monitoring the delivery of new prison places against the demand for those places. The Department told us that HM Treasury and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority are also closely involved, and that it has set up a delivery board to manage its portfolio of programmes.21

14. We have reported previously on matters concerning the expansion and maintenance of the prison system. For example, in September 2020 we found that the Department had delivered just 206 new prison places, against a commitment of 10,000 new-for-old places by 2020.22 In March 2021, we reported that the 2019 Spending Review settlement included only £315 million for maintaining the prison estate, against a maintenance backlog valued at nearly £1 billion.23 We have also reported previously on the Department’s efforts to reduce re-offending, which the Department recognises is the best way to tackle crime. In September 2020, we concluded that its efforts were being put at risk by the absence of a cross-government strategy.24

2 Impact on court users

Vulnerable and disadvantaged users

15. Since the start of the pandemic, the Department and HMCTS have significantly increased the use of hearings held remotely using video technology, and plan to continue to use them to reduce the backlog in the courts.25 We asked what impact the increased use of remote hearings has had on different groups of victims and witnesses, particularly those with cognitive impairment, mental health conditions or neurodiverse conditions. HMCTS published its formal evaluation of remote hearings on 10 December 2021, but said that the feedback from court users that are disabled or with accessibility difficulties was limited by the small number within its survey sample. The feedback it did receive was mixed, for example users felt safer in their own environment but found it difficult to access the support that they needed from their advocate or support services.26

16. The Department told us that the use of remote hearings is at the discretion of the judge in each individual case, and that everybody is entitled to have their reasonable adjustments considered by the judge. However, a third of people who requested reasonable adjustments said their request was not granted. The Department said that it will look into these issues further to ensure that participants’ needs are taken into account. HMCTS told us it will take several more months to work through the detail of the evaluation and revise its approach if needed.27

17. We also asked about the impact of the pandemic on black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals, particularly given that the Department has faced difficulties collecting and analysing data on ethnicity in the past. Since the Lammy review in 2017 into the experiences of ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system, the Department said that while it had made significant improvements in standardising the ethnicity data collected across the system, there are still large gaps and it does not have the data it needs to know the true impact of the pandemic. The Department said it is working to improve how it measures and evaluates the impact, although HMCTS said that its recent work has been focused on civil and family courts and tribunals rather than criminal courts. On remote hearings, HMCTS said it did collect data on ethnicity in its evaluation and found no significant variation in experiences between different ethnic groups.28

Rape and serious sexual offences

18. The Department explained that victims of rape and serious sexual offences had been particularly affected by the pandemic. These difficult and complex cases are more likely to need a jury trial, which need space to accommodate the jury. It was more challenging to hear jury trials during the period when social distancing was in place given the additional space needed to hear trials safely.29 As a result the number of such cases waiting longer than a year increased by 435% between March 2020 and June 2021.30 Since March 2021, the number of rape and serious sexual offence cases in the backlog actually fell, though the Department accepted the number needs to come down much further.31 The Department published its end-to-end rape review in June 2021 which set out actions to increase the number of rape and serious sexual offence cases being prosecuted and convicted, which could add further pressure on the courts.32 The Department said that it was too early to assess the impact of its rape review on cases in the backlog.33

19. The Department explained how the longer victims wait for their case to be heard in court, the greater the risk the victim withdraws their support of the process and the case collapses.34 It told us that the proportion of cases collapsing through victim or witness attrition fell in the last quarter, to 1.2% of cases between April and June 2021. However, the rates of victim and witness attrition are large and increasing in other parts of the criminal justice process: some 29% of cases collapse because of victim and witness attrition between the crime being recorded and the police deciding whether to proceed with the case, and a further 16% of cases collapse between the police referring the case to the Crown Prosecution Service and a defendant being charged.35 The Bar Council expressed particular concern about the increasing time for the Crown Prosecution Service to charge rape cases.36

20. Several organisations wrote to us to describe the trauma and impact on victims having to wait longer for their cases to be heard.37 In the evidence session, the Department set out some of the actions it is taking to better support victims. It is increasing what it spends on victim support services from £92 million in 2019–20 to £185 million by 2024–25, including funding for rape support centres and sexual violence support services.38 It has launched a consultation on improving victims’ experiences of the justice system.39 It is also increasing the number of independent sexual violence advisers (ISVAs) to 1,000 by 2024–25. The Department told us that ISVAs support victims from earlier on in the process and have been shown to reduce by 50% the likelihood of a victim withdrawing their support.40

Data to understand the system

21. The Department told us that having good data across the criminal justice system is a crucial first step in achieving the right outcomes and bringing the courts backlog down. In December 2021, the Department published two scorecards—one covering all crime and one covering adult rape—that bring together data on performance across the criminal justice system, including on the size of the backlog, timeliness and victim attrition. The Department said that through publishing these data it is seeking to improve transparency and assess what is happening within each part of the system, for example where victims are most likely to withdraw from the process.41 It is also planning to publish local scorecards at the level of individual police forces, and acknowledged it needs to be careful that publishing and using these data does not threaten the operational independence of the police, Crown Prosecution Service or judiciary.42 The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said that these data should not be used to punish partners in the criminal justice system but instead enable them to deliver improvements and share best practice.43

22. We asked HMCTS what progress it had made on implementing Dr Natalie Byrom’s recommendations on digital justice and data.44 HMCTS told us it had set up a senior data governance panel to provide advice on the accessibility of data and will announce in early 2022 what data it intends to publish and make available. In its written submission, the Legal Education Foundation expressed frustration at the lack of progress on implementing Dr Byrom’s recommendations.45 In particular, HMCTS’s progress has been limited by not currently collecting all the data that it wants. When complete, HMCTS said that its reform programme and new digital case management system—the Common Platform—will address the key gaps in its data.46 HMCTS told us it has rolled out the Common Platform to 44% of Crown Courts. It has experienced some problems with the system, including slow processing at particular points, so HMCTS has paused the rollout while it addresses these issues and carries out a formal review. It said that this pause would also give it time to build back the confidence of HMCTS staff and others using the system. HMCTS told us there was contingency built into its plan and so should not affect the timing for completing the rollout.47 However, we have reported previously on delays to HMCTS’s reform programme. In July 2018, we reported that HMCTS had pushed its expectation for completing the rollout of the Common Platform from July 2018 to July 2020.48

23. We asked the Department what it is doing to improve data flows across different parts of the criminal justice system. The Department told us that joining up data across the system is a priority.49 It has recruited an additional director of analysis and is recruiting a director-general of performance strategy and analysis to improve its grip on data as well as a director-general of service delivery and change to lead on delivery in digital transformation.50 The Department said that it is also a focus of a criminal justice action group that brings together permanent secretaries of the Department, the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service.51 HMCTS added that it is also investing in a team to analyse data, both for managing HMCTS and to feed into the Department’s broader data capabilities.52

Formal minutes

Monday 28 February 2022

Members present:

Dame Meg Hillier, in the Chair

Dan Carden

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Mr Mark Francois

Kate Green

Antony Higginbotham

Craig Mackinlay

Kate Osamor

Nick Smith

James Wild

Reducing the backlog in criminal courts

Draft Report (Reducing the backlog in criminal courts), proposed by the Chair, brought up and read.

Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraphs 1 to 23 read and agreed to.

Summary agreed to.

Introduction agreed to.

Conclusions and recommendations agreed to.

Resolved, That the Report be the Forty-third of the Committee to the House.

Ordered, That the Chair make the Report to the House.

Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. 134.

Adjournment

Adjourned till Wednesday 2 March at 1:00pm.


Witnesses

The following witnesses gave evidence. Transcripts can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.

Monday 13 December 2021

Antonia Romeo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice; Jerome Glass, Director General Policy and Strategy Group, Ministry of Justice; Andrew Baigent, Chief Financial Officer, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals ServiceQ1–121


Published written evidence

The following written evidence was received and can be viewed on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website.

RBC numbers are generated by the evidence processing system and so may not be complete.

1 Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (RBC0006)

2 Bar Council (RBC0007)

3 Criminal Bar Association (RBC0010)

4 HM Inspectorate of Probation; HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate; HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services; and HM Inspectorate of Prisons (RBC0001)

5 Just for Kids Law (RBC0008)

6 Law Society of England and Wales (RBC0002)

7 Legal Education Foundation (RBC0009)

8 Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) (RBC0005)

9 Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire (RBC0004)

10 Transform Justice (RBC0003)


List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament

All publications from the Committee are available on the publications page of the Committee’s website.

Session 2021–22

Number

Title

Reference

1st

Low emission cars

HC 186

2nd

BBC strategic financial management

HC 187

3rd

COVID-19: Support for children’s education

HC 240

4th

COVID-19: Local government finance

HC 239

5th

COVID-19: Government Support for Charities

HC 250

6th

Public Sector Pensions

HC 289

7th

Adult Social Care Markets

HC 252

8th

COVID 19: Culture Recovery Fund

HC 340

9th

Fraud and Error

HC 253

10th

Overview of the English rail system

HC 170

11th

Local auditor reporting on local government in England

HC 171

12th

COVID 19: Cost Tracker Update

HC 173

13th

Initial lessons from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

HC 175

14th

Windrush Compensation Scheme

HC 174

15th

DWP Employment support

HC 177

16th

Principles of effective regulation

HC 176

17th

High Speed 2: Progress at Summer 2021

HC 329

18th

Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies

HC 181

19th

Protecting consumers from unsafe products

HC 180

20th

Optimising the defence estate

HC 179

21st

School Funding

HC 183

22nd

Improving the performance of major defence equipment contracts

HC 185

23rd

Test and Trace update

HC 182

24th

Crossrail: A progress update

HC 184

25th

The Department for Work and Pensions’ Accounts 2020–21 – Fraud and error in the benefits system

HC 633

26th

Lessons from Greensill Capital: accreditation to business support schemes

HC 169

27th

Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme

HC 635

28th

Efficiency in government

HC 636

29th

The National Law Enforcement Data Programme

HC 638

30th

Challenges in implementing digital change

HC 637

31st

Environmental Land Management Scheme

HC 639

32nd

Delivering gigabitcapable broadband

HC 743

33rd

Underpayments of the State Pension

HC 654

34th

Local Government Finance System: Overview and Challenges

HC 646

35th

The pharmacy early payment and salary advance schemes in the NHS

HC 745

36th

EU Exit: UK Border post transition

HC 746

37th

HMRC Performance in 2020–21

HC 641

38th

COVID-19 cost tracker update

HC 640

39th

DWP Employment Support: Kickstart Scheme

HC 655

40th

Excess votes 2020–21: Serious Fraud Office

HC 1099

41st

Achieving Net Zero: Follow up

HC 642

42nd

Financial sustainability of schools in England

HC 650

1st Special Report

Fifth Annual Report of the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts

HC 222

Session 2019–21

Number

Title

Reference

1st

Support for children with special educational needs and disabilities

HC 85

2nd

Defence Nuclear Infrastructure

HC 86

3rd

High Speed 2: Spring 2020 Update

HC 84

4th

EU Exit: Get ready for Brexit Campaign

HC 131

5th

University technical colleges

HC 87

6th

Excess votes 2018–19

HC 243

7th

Gambling regulation: problem gambling and protecting vulnerable people

HC 134

8th

NHS capital expenditure and financial management

HC 344

9th

Water supply and demand management

HC 378

10th

Defence capability and the Equipment Plan

HC 247

11th

Local authority investment in commercial property

HC 312

12th

Management of tax reliefs

HC 379

13th

Whole of Government Response to COVID-19

HC 404

14th

Readying the NHS and social care for the COVID-19 peak

HC 405

15th

Improving the prison estate

HC 244

16th

Progress in remediating dangerous cladding

HC 406

17th

Immigration enforcement

HC 407

18th

NHS nursing workforce

HC 408

19th

Restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster

HC 549

20th

Tackling the tax gap

HC 650

21st

Government support for UK exporters

HC 679

22nd

Digital transformation in the NHS

HC 680

23rd

Delivering carrier strike

HC 684

24th

Selecting towns for the Towns Fund

HC 651

25th

Asylum accommodation and support transformation programme

HC 683

26th

Department of Work and Pensions Accounts 2019–20

HC 681

27th

Covid-19: Supply of ventilators

HC 685

28th

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s management of the Magnox contract

HC 653

29th

Whitehall preparations for EU Exit

HC 682

30th

The production and distribution of cash

HC 654

31st

Starter Homes

HC 88

32nd

Specialist Skills in the civil service

HC 686

33rd

Covid-19: Bounce Back Loan Scheme

HC 687

34th

Covid-19: Support for jobs

HC 920

35th

Improving Broadband

HC 688

36th

HMRC performance 2019–20

HC 690

37th

Whole of Government Accounts 2018–19

HC 655

38th

Managing colleges’ financial sustainability

HC 692

39th

Lessons from major projects and programmes

HC 694

40th

Achieving government’s long-term environmental goals

HC 927

41st

COVID 19: the free school meals voucher scheme

HC 689

42nd

COVID-19: Government procurement and supply of Personal Protective Equipment

HC 928

43rd

COVID-19: Planning for a vaccine Part 1

HC 930

44th

Excess Votes 2019–20

HC 1205

45th

Managing flood risk

HC 931

46th

Achieving Net Zero

HC 935

47th

COVID-19: Test, track and trace (part 1)

HC 932

48th

Digital Services at the Border

HC 936

49th

COVID-19: housing people sleeping rough

HC 934

50th

Defence Equipment Plan 2020–2030

HC 693

51st

Managing the expiry of PFI contracts

HC 1114

52nd

Key challenges facing the Ministry of Justice

HC 1190

53rd

Covid 19: supporting the vulnerable during lockdown

HC 938

54th

Improving single living accommodation for service personnel

HC 940

55th

Environmental tax measures

HC 937

56th

Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund

HC 941


Footnotes

1 C&AG’s Report, Reducing the backlog in criminal courts, Session 2021–22, HC 732, 22 October 2021

2 C&AG’s Report, paras 2, 1.6

3 C&AG’s Report, para 1

4 C&AG’s Report, paras 3, 6

5 Qq7–10; C&AG’s Report, paras 5, 1.10–1.11

6 Qq19–20; C&AG’s Report, para 6

7 C&AG’s Report, para 7

8 Qq33–37

9 Q91

10 Qq23

11 Qq15–18

12 25, 69, 113

13 Qq25; 70

14 The Bar Council (RBC0007), The Law Society (RBC0002), The Criminal Bar Association (RBC0010)

15 The Lammy Review: An independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System, September 2017

16 Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, Judicial Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2020–2025, November 2025

17 Q73; C&AG’s Report, para 3.15

18 C&AG’s Report, para 17

19 Qq73–78

20 Q81

21 Qq74–77, 80

22 Committee of Public Accounts; Improving the prison estate; 15th Report of Session 2019–21, HC 244, 11 September 2020

23 Committee of Public Accounts; Key challenges facing the Ministry of Justice; 52nd Report of Session 2019–21, HC 1190; 24 March 2021

24 Committee of Public Accounts; Improving the prison estate; 15th Report of Session 2019–21, HC 244, 11 September 2020

25 Qq59–61; C&AG’s Report, para 2.12

26 Qq59–60

27 Qq59–61

28 Qq62–68

29 Q38

30 C&AG’s Report, para 9

31 Q41

32 Q39

33 Q42

34 Q42

35 Qq27–32

36 The Bar Council (RBC0007)

37 Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire (RBC0004), The London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (RBC0005), Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (RBC0006)

38 Q38

39 Q26

40 Qq38, 49

41 Qq22, 33

42 Qq94–97

43 Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (RBC0004)

44 Q99; Dr Natalie Byrom, Digital Justice: HMCTS data strategy and delivering access to justice, Report and recommendations, October 2019

45 Legal Education Foundation (RBC0009)

46 Qq99–100

47 Q82

48 Committee of Public Accounts; Transforming courts and tribunals; 56th Report of Session 2017–19, HC 976, 20 July 2018

49 Q87

50 Qq84, 101–102

51 Q84

52 Q87