Courts to be ranked

Criminal defence solicitors face financial penalties and incentives as part of a government initiative to improve the efficiency of the courts, the Lord Chancellor indicated this week.

Speaking at the Delivering Justice conference in London, Lord Falconer - who is also Secretary of State at the Department for Constitutional Affairs - said that from October, performance tables will illustrate how each of the 42 criminal justice areas in England and Wales are performing in terms of ineffective trials and timeliness.

He said: 'I am appalled that, of 212,000 trials each year, 63,000 do not go ahead on time and witnesses have a 50% chance of not giving evidence on the day that they should.'

He added: 'We will identify the best and promote their solutions throughout England and Wales.'

Lord Falconer said that steps to be taken included creating more certainty of trial dates; creating procedure rules to ensure parties take responsibility for making cases go forward; and rewarding lawyers for timely and proper case preparation.

He said that repeated failure would also lead to action, although it is not yet clear what this would entail.

Richard Almond, a partner with London firm Victor Lissack & Roscoe and president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, told the conference that it would be unfair for law firms to face financial penalties as other parties failing the system - such as the Crown Prosecution Service - would not suffer similar sanctions.

Jeremy Fleming