Judicial statistics: committals for trial in Crown Court rose to 80,000; guilty pleas up too

Average waiting times for civil trials were slashed by more than two months last year, according to figures released last week - despite a rise in the number of claims set down for trial for the first time since before the Woolf reforms to civil procedure were introduced in 1999.


Judicial statistics released by the Department for Constitutional Affairs revealed that the average time between the issue of a claim and the start of trial in the Queen's Bench Division (QBD) dropped from 164 weeks in 2003 to just 97 last year.


However, the number of QBD cases set down for trial rose 6% to almost 2,000, having previously dropped for more than five consecutive years. More than 65% of QBD court judgments related to personal injury or clinical negligence cases, with almost 60% of these for sums of £50,000 or more.


Anthony Maton, executive committee member of the London Solicitors Litigation Association and litigation partner at McGrigors in London, said: 'The drop in waiting times for cases is something that we have started to notice. There is a lot less litigation coming to trial, and many more claims are being settled by mediation. The QBD in particular deals with more of the knockabout commercial work that has been more affected by these trends. As the number of claims did actually rise in 2004, there might also be more improvement in the efficiency of the courts.'


Claims issued in the county courts rose by around 1% to 1.6 million claims, with the average time from issue to trial dropping by six weeks to 53. Mortgage repossession orders rose by 14% to 46,409 claims, while 46,100 claims were dealt with through small claims procedures.


In the Crown Court, committals for trial rose 1% to almost 80,000, while there was a 4% increase in guilty pleas to 42,185. The average waiting time for defendants on bail rose by just under a week to 16 weeks, or 14 weeks for those held in custody.