The Treasury’s settlement with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), this week, included an extra £337m for the criminal justice system in England and Wales, of which £275m aims to ‘manage the downstream demand impact of 20,000 additional police officers and reduce backlogs in the Crown Court caused by COVID-19’.
An extra £105m will be spent on improvements to the court estate. An extra £40m will support victims of crime, including victims of domestic abuse. An extra £119m will support the wider justice system in responding to COVID-19, of which £76m goes to tackle backlogs of cases at the Family Court and employment tribunals, and £43m will help ensure courts and prisons resist the spread of Coronavirus.
Chair of the Bar Council, Amanda Pinto QC, described the extra funding as ‘a ray of hope in terms of fixing the many problems our justice system faces’.
She said: ‘It is a sign that this government understands the importance of investing in the entire justice system from start to finish. This injection of funding will make a difference in the short-term, and a number of today’s announcements reflect what the Bar Council recommended to the Treasury.
‘But it must not be a flash in the pan: to tackle the significant challenges in the courts and wider justice system, including the backlogs in the criminal courts, which are the inevitable consequence of decades of under-investment, the government must now ensure the system is sustainable in the long-term to ensure access to justice for everyone.’
Law Society president David Greene said: ‘We called for extra funds to make the justice system sustainable. We are pleased the chancellor has listened and adopted our recommendations.
‘Justice in this country was in a dire situation already before the pandemic, and is under pressure now like never before, so the £275m pledged to reduce persistent Crown Court backlogs has come not a moment too soon.’
Greene highlighted figures published by legal information provider LexisNexis, whose Gross Legal Product Index quantifies legal demand growth and the impact of COVID-19.
According to the Index, criminal lawyers have a ‘starkly negative’ outlook. Criminal litigation is down by 18% and Crown cases and trial volumes are down almost 30% since 2017, while the volume of appellants has fallen by 27% and appeals by more than 30%. Magistrates’ cases have fallen by 9% while court activity is down because of social distancing requirements.
Between 2010 and 2020, 38% of the criminal legal aid provider base disappeared, meaning criminal lawyers had less resilience in the face of the pandemic and were hit particularly hard.
Greene welcomed the Treasury investment, which would help ‘in the short term’, and said it would be essential to move at pace on the Criminal Legal Aid Review to give firms confidence to hang on through the downturn.
He said: ‘Without a sustainable criminal legal aid profession victims and defendants will be unable to access the legal advice they rely on.’
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