Top mandarins at the Ministry of Justice appear to have accepted that cost-cutting to limit court sitting days has gone too far after the rise in the backlog of crown court cases.
Susan Acland-Hood, chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, told the Commons’ public accounts committee that “having seen the number of cases tick up we are reviewing the sitting day allocation”.
She said a review would be carried out by the ministry in conjunction with judges.
Sir Richard Heaton, the ministry’s permanent secretary, told the committee that the volume of work coming into crown courts was “beginning to tick up in the last quarter” and there was “beginning to be evidence that some classes of cases are probably waiting too long”.
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