Newly published civil justice statistics suggest the government is managing to speed up the resolution of claims going through the county court. But the figures also show that some of this improved performance could be down to the changing nature of claims, with fewer complicated cases and an increase in simpler money claims.
The statistics for October to December 2025 show the median time taken for small claims was 36.1 weeks (6.4 weeks faster compared with the same quarter in 2024) and for fast, intermediate and multi-track claims it was 57.4 weeks (9.3 weeks faster than October to December 2024).
The figures suggest that the post-Covid trend of increasing delays in the civil justice system is being turned around.
The House of Commons justice committee described the county court system last summer as ‘dysfunctional’ and suffering from systemic delays and entrenched inefficiency.
The government has said it dealt with the problems through the recruitment of up to 1,000 judges and tribunal members last year across all courts and tribunals, funding 74,300 sitting days in the civil courts for 2025/26 and holding more remote hearings. It has also hailed the digitisation of the system to remove paper processes and improve user experience.
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Drilling deeper into the latest statistics suggest other factors that have contributed to the reducing delays. The number of judgments rose 7% to 297,000 in October to December 2025, compared with the same period in 2024; 94% of these were default judgments which can be dealt with more quickly.
There was a small drop in the number of claims defended while at the same time the number of claims going to trial rose by 6%.
Of the 388,000 claims during the period, 85% were money claims which tend to be disposed of more easily. The number of more complex issues such as personal injury claims fell 37% to 10,000, while mortgage and landlord possession claims were down by 14% to 30,000.
The Association of Consumer Support Organisations also pointed out that the Ministry of Justice recently changed from headlining mean or average waits to median or more typical ones, therefore those facing particularly long delays are excluded from the numbers.
Matthew Maxwell-Scott, ACSO’s executive director, said: ‘Three successive quarters of improvements in the median waits represents progress but on a like-for-like basis things seem to way off where they were before Covid struck.’
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