In our March 2022 report on reducing the backlog in criminal courts, we reported there were 59,928 Crown Court cases awaiting trial in September 2021, increasing from 33,290 cases since March 2019 (an increase of 80%). We concluded that the government was unlikely to succeed in addressing the unacceptable delays victims, witnesses and defendants faced in having cases heard. We found that victims of rape and serious sexual offences faced delays which compounded their suffering and led to too many cases collapsing. We were also unconvinced that the prison system would be able to cope with the likely increase in prisoners given the planned increase in police officers and the government’s efforts to reduce the criminal case backlog.52 We asked the Department about its analysis of the impact of the Programme on the wider criminal justice system, specifically the potential for it to add a further 729,000 cases to a courts system struggling to manage a significant backlog of cases. The Department told us that it was working closely with the Ministry of Justice on this matter. It explained that the criminal justice system had received a funding increase in the recent Spending Review to deal with some of the consequences of the increase in police officer numbers.53 49 Qq 61–62 50 Qq 65, 90, C&AG’s Report, Figure 16 51 Qq 62–64 52 Committee of Public Accounts, Reducing the backlog in criminal courts, HC 643, Forty-Third Report of Session 2021–22, 9 March 2022, paras 1–4 53 Q 91; C&AG’s Report paras 3.14–3.15 The Police Uplift Programme 17