A five-year strategy must be agreed between the judiciary, government and HM Courts Service to revive a civil justice system that has been ‘sleep-walking into a crisis’, a heavy-hitting report has warned.

Sir Henry Brooke, former vice-president of the Court of Appeal, also floated the idea of a temporary £10 surcharge on all civil claims to pay for IT investment in the courts.

Brooke was commissioned by the previous Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, to consider whether the civil courts should be unified – abolishing the High Court in its present form – an idea Lord Phillips and Lord Woolf first floated in 2004.

Brooke concluded there was a risk that a unified court would end up reproducing the present system in a different guise without achieving worthwhile improvements. He was particularly concerned that unification might damage the status and standing of High Court judges.

However, he made 24 recommendations to improve the way the courts are organised, central to which is the five-year strategy.

Brooke said the capital was suffering most: ‘Problems affecting the administration of civil justice in London at multi-track level are, by a very easy margin, the most deep-seated and intractable of all the problems I encountered.’

A judiciary spokeswoman said the report has been welcomed by the new LCJ and the Judicial Executive Board. A working group will report after the Easter vacation.