'Sufficient resources' will be necessary if the government wants to bring the Crown court backlog down to 53,000 by March 2025, the director of public prosecutions has said. Giving evidence to the House of Common justice select committee yesterday, Max Hill KC hinted that the 'aspirational' target will be missed.

Hill said that 74,587 cases were live (between charge and trial) at the end of September. Asked if the government’s target of bringing down the backlog to 53,000 by March 2025 was achievable, he replied: ‘A large number of things would need to align for that to take place. It’s certainly achievable to return to the backlog below 50,000. That’s where the system was, at 43,000, in February 2020. But to achieve that now, at a baseline of almost 75,000, a number of things would have to happen.’

The number of judicial sitting days would have to rise. ‘That would require an increase in judicial capacity, full time or part time,' Hill said. 'Where that’s part time, that means experienced barristers in the main making themselves available to sit as part-time judges, recorders. That would mean they would not be available to prosecute for us. Many of the most senior prosecuting advocates are Crown court recorders. That would drive a resourcing issue for the CPS. And we would need to keep up with sitting days if they were to rise.’

Hill was in favour of being aspirational about the backlog. ‘But, as and when anyone sets an aspiration to arrive at a certain goal by a certain date, there are a number of things that would need to align. One of them would be sufficient resourcing to make that happen.’

The Ministry of Justice has since clarified to the Gazette that CPS backlog statistics count the number of defendants and HM Courts & Tribunals statistics count number of cases. The latest available figures published by HMCTS show that there were 61,212 outstanding cases in the Crown court in August.

Hill told the committee that the best the CPS could do to cut the backlog is drive its own efficiency and time limits of decision-making. ‘The only way to do that is to increase the size of the Crown Prosecution Service. This requires resource.’

He said the fees paid to prosecution advocates need to match the fees that will now be paid to defence advocates as a result of the government’s revised funding offer to end the criminal bar’s strike.

‘We don’t ask the prosecutors are paid a penny more than those who defend. But we do say they must be paid the same. The resolution on the defence graduated fee scheme now means there’s more money in defending than prosecuting and we need to have parity there as well.'

On the current economic climate and impact of potential budget cuts, Hill said: 'If we are not able to maintain the budget that we were given in the spending round of 2021, and we are therefore not able to maintain the expansion in our numbers within that budget envelope, I think it will be cataastrophic for our work, it will be catastrophic in terms of the impact on the backlog. In simple terms, I will not be able to say to CPS staff, "just work even harder". I have said that already.'