UK’s Ambition to Slash Criminal Court Backlog Out of Reach, Watchdog Says
- Bottleneck of UK court cases at record high, NAO says
- On average cases taking 683 days from offense to completion
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The UK criminal court system, suffering from years of underfunding, has the highest backlog of unheard cases on record undermining government efforts to reverse a trend that’s spiraled in recent years.
The National Audit Office said Friday that Ministry of Justice policies aimed at reducing the Crown Court bottleneck of 67,573 cases to 53,000 by March 2025 is no longer achievable. Outstanding cases are currently 78% higher than they were in 2019, and 11% higher than they were in 2021.