Criminal court statistics quarterly: October to December 2018
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.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
This is the quarterly Q4 2018 criminal courts statistics publication.
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’.
The Crown Court information release is published as management information on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website
Key findings
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The magistrates’ courts workload continues to fall, with receipts (354,644) at the lowest quarterly levels since 2012 - down 2% on the previous quarter and 1% on the previous year. This is broadly in line with trends in police charges and proceedings at magistrates’ courts, both of which have fallen of late.
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The volume of cases received by the Crown Court fell by 4% between Q3 and Q4 2018, while the number of cases disposed remain relatively stable. Cases disposed remained higher than those received, meaning that outstanding cases fell and are now at the lowest level since 2000.
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For cases completing at the Crown Court, the average number of days spent from first listing to completion has remained stable since the start of 2017 (around 177 days). The pre-court stage tends to account for the longest period of time and grew between 2011 and 2017. This is likely to be due in part to an increase in low volume, high harm historical sexual offences over recent years.
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In Q4 2018, the total value of financial impositions outstanding in England and Wales was £1.1 billion. The amount of outstanding financial impositions has increased markedly from the start of 2015 and has almost doubled since.
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The success rate for completed language and interpreter service requests fell slightly to 96%.
Criminal Court statistics annual, June 2019
The next criminal court statistics quarterly will include the same content as previous annual publications.
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
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; Minister of State for Justice; Ministry of Justice spokesperson in the Lords; Lord Chief 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; Attorney General’s Office; 8 Press Officers and 10 Private Secretaries.
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