Hunt for efficiencies

The government’s chronic neglect of our courts remains a fertile source of social media angst. Justice ministers claim to be on the side of victims – but take a look at what the Victims’ Commissioner has to say about that. 

Anecdotal evidence of infrastructural atrophy abounds. Roofs leak, toilets fester, doors hang off hinges, briefs swelter, judges seethe. Is the UK morphing, as some now contend, from being a developed to a developing economy? The administrative state no longer works properly, for simple want of resources.

I am not telling you anything you don’t know. But with Austerity 2.0 looming amid the ongoing chaos at Westminster, a reprise of the numbers is doubly alarming. It’s worse than you thought.

Analysis by the Institute of Government, in association with accountancy body CIPFA, provides an irrefutable counterpoint to the bromides that periodically emanate from the Ministry of Justice.

From 2010/11 to 2017/18 spending by HM Courts & Tribunals Service plunged by almost a quarter. At the same time, its assets were being enthusiastically stripped through a fire sale of large chunks of the estate.

The Treasury stepped in during the pandemic, providing an extra £78m for cleaning, temporary courts and extra technology in 2021/22 alone. But this is pocket change. Total spending in the last financial year was still well below the 2010/11 budget in real terms – despite a record backlog and the desperate need to process more cases.

‘Tough on crime’? Not so much. The number of court cases has been in constant decline since 2014/15. Just as well, perhaps, in terms of capacity. But that fall is attributed to 20,000 fewer police officers. Those excitable polemicists who allege that burglary and car crime are now effectively decriminalised may have a point.

Last year the government trumpeted the largest funding increase in more than a decade for the justice system. Twelve percent. This is running to stand still. Inflation is running at 10.1%. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (if he endures) will ask all departments for ‘efficiency savings’. Don’t be surprised if Justice, for so long Whitehall’s Cinderella, becomes even more ‘efficient’ very soon.