Forty-Third Report - Reducing the backlog in criminal courts

Select Committee
Public Accounts Committee HC 643 9 March 2022
Report Status Government responded
Conclusions & Recommendations 23 items (5 recs)
Source View on Parliament website
Government Response (AI assessment · 23 of 23 classified)
Accepted 10
Accepted in Part 1
Acknowledged 6
Deferred 4
Not Addressed 2
Government response
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty Third report from Session 2021-22 · published 27 May 2022
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Recommendations & Conclusions

4 results
5 Recommendation Deferred
Vulnerable users and people from ethnic minority backgrounds are potentially impacted disproportionately by efforts to...
Recommendation
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 … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government will evaluate the experience of victims, witnesses and defendants in criminal courts as part of the HMCTS reform evaluation, with findings anticipated in Autumn 2024, and will work with partners to improve data collection, while monitoring relevant metrics, including exploring additional ones, to better understand the experience of victims from all backgrounds.
HM Treasury
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15 Conclusion Deferred
Since the start of the pandemic, the Department and HMCTS have significantly increased the use...
Conclusion
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 … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government will consider the experience of criminal court users as part of the HMCTS reform evaluation, with findings anticipated in Autumn 2024, and will work with partners to improve data collection, while monitoring relevant metrics, including exploring additional ones, to better understand the experience of victims from all backgrounds.
HM Treasury
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16 Conclusion Deferred
The Department told us that the use of remote hearings is at the discretion of...
Conclusion
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 … Read more
Government Response Summary
The government will consider the experience of criminal court users as part of the HMCTS reform evaluation, with findings anticipated in Autumn 2024, and will work with partners to improve data collection, while monitoring relevant metrics, including exploring additional ones, to better understand the experience of victims from all backgrounds.
HM Treasury
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17 Conclusion Deferred
We also asked about the impact of the pandemic on black, Asian and minority ethnic...
Conclusion
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 … Read more
Government Response Summary
HMCTS will consider the experience of criminal court users as part of the evaluation of HMCTS reform, with findings anticipated in Autumn 2024; the MoJ will also work to improve data collection on ethnicity across the criminal justice system.
HM Treasury
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