Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many open family cases there are in each Designated Family Judge area for (a) public and (b) private family law; and what proportion of those cases in each area involve litigants in person in (i) 31 March 2011, (ii) 31 March 2016 and (iii) 31 March 2019.
Answered by Mike Freer
The information requested is provided in the data tables below and is taken from HMCTS administrative data systems.
We have not been able to provide figures for 2011 as this data was not recorded centrally before 2014.
Count of the Private and Public Law Open Caseload as at the 31st March 2016 broken down by representative 1,2 | ||||||||
| Public Law3 Open Caseload | Private Law Open Caseload | ||||||
DESIGNATED FAMILY JUDGE AREA | Both Applicant and Respondent were represented | Applicant only represented | Respondent only represented | Neither Applicant nor Respondent Represented | Both Applicant and Respondent were represented | Applicant only represented | Respondent only represented | Neither Applicant nor Respondent Represented |
Birmingham | 188 | 58 | 1 | 9 | 203 | 321 | 124 | 435 |
Blackburn/Lancaster | 264 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 151 | 185 | 78 | 196 |
Bournemouth and Dorset | 114 | 17 | 0 | 2 | 53 | 86 | 41 | 118 |
Brighton | 141 | 41 | 0 | 3 | 90 | 171 | 93 | 283 |
Bristol (A, NS and G) | 194 | 38 | 1 | 0 | 116 | 141 | 90 | 201 |
Carlisle | 75 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 33 | 52 | 20 | 75 |
Central London | 302 | 93 | 6 | 6 | 224 | 375 | 150 | 606 |
Cleveland and South Durham | 167 | 35 | 0 | 2 | 107 | 98 | 45 | 117 |
Coventry | 130 | 21 | 0 | 3 | 106 | 116 | 53 | 171 |
Derby | 101 | 18 | 0 | 1 | 76 | 77 | 51 | 96 |
Devon | 169 | 39 | 0 | 1 | 103 | 127 | 79 | 158 |
East London | 290 | 96 | 0 | 2 | 267 | 379 | 183 | 630 |
Essex and Suffolk | 209 | 66 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 221 | 158 | 337 |
Guildford | 60 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 70 | 67 | 47 | 138 |
Humberside | 124 | 32 | 0 | 2 | 64 | 103 | 53 | 182 |
Leicester | 128 | 27 | 0 | 1 | 87 | 88 | 63 | 146 |
Lincoln | 67 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 73 | 40 | 70 |
Liverpool | 371 | 101 | 1 | 5 | 210 | 263 | 158 | 448 |
Luton | 81 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 47 | 100 | 52 | 158 |
Manchester | 326 | 136 | 1 | 4 | 249 | 321 | 154 | 466 |
Medway and Canterbury | 193 | 51 | 1 | 2 | 59 | 93 | 46 | 220 |
Milton Keynes | 97 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 48 | 63 | 40 | 96 |
North Wales | 87 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 85 | 54 | 60 | 70 |
North Yorkshire | 42 | 11 | 0 | 1 | 64 | 56 | 29 | 85 |
Northampton | 121 | 37 | 0 | 0 | 38 | 57 | 48 | 155 |
Northumbria and North Durham | 392 | 77 | 0 | 5 | 191 | 220 | 113 | 270 |
Norwich | 92 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 89 | 38 | 116 |
Nottingham | 129 | 23 | 0 | 2 | 108 | 135 | 102 | 159 |
Peterborough and Cambridge | 109 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 69 | 30 | 101 |
Portsmouth (Hampshire and IOW) | 154 | 30 | 0 | 1 | 140 | 200 | 110 | 301 |
Reading | 201 | 34 | 0 | 2 | 160 | 211 | 109 | 263 |
Royal Courts of Justice | 25 | 21 | 2 | 1 | 214 | 460 | 36 | 164 |
South East Wales | 211 | 31 | 1 | 2 | 165 | 172 | 110 | 227 |
South Yorkshire | 236 | 47 | 0 | 1 | 134 | 168 | 97 | 264 |
Stoke on Trent | 123 | 28 | 1 | 2 | 101 | 122 | 81 | 161 |
Swansea | 111 | 33 | 1 | 0 | 133 | 87 | 64 | 65 |
Swindon | 54 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 66 | 103 | 54 | 145 |
Taunton | 92 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 28 | 43 | 23 | 60 |
Truro | 47 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 50 | 46 | 30 | 71 |
Watford | 110 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 90 | 66 | 170 |
West London | 277 | 74 | 0 | 2 | 208 | 296 | 167 | 424 |
West Yorkshire | 308 | 39 | 0 | 5 | 215 | 296 | 135 | 276 |
Wolverhampton | 213 | 58 | 0 | 0 | 139 | 186 | 67 | 174 |
Worcester | 71 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 68 | 74 | 44 | 86 |
(blank) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Grand Total | 6996 | 1659 | 17 | 77 | 5062 | 6757 | 3431 | 9154 |
Count of the Private and Public Law Open Caseload as at the 31st March 2019 broken down by representative 1,2 | ||||||||
| Public Law3 Open Caseload | Private Law Open Caseload | ||||||
DESIGNATED FAMILY JUDGE AREA | Both Applicant and Respondent were represented | Applicant only represented | Respondent only represented | Neither Applicant nor Respondent Represented | Both Applicant and Respondent were represented | Applicant only represented | Respondent only represented | Neither Applicant nor Respondent Represented |
Birmingham | 181 | 60 | 0 | 4 | 252 | 368 | 162 | 607 |
Blackburn/Lancaster | 338 | 91 | 0 | 0 | 162 | 271 | 152 | 477 |
Bournemouth and Dorset | 83 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 89 | 63 | 165 |
Brighton | 177 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 134 | 167 | 101 | 339 |
Bristol (A, NS and G) | 225 | 56 | 0 | 0 | 169 | 236 | 170 | 430 |
Carlisle | 89 | 22 | 1 | 1 | 61 | 49 | 32 | 114 |
Central London | 309 | 116 | 0 | 8 | 270 | 406 | 245 | 543 |
Cleveland and South Durham | 240 | 59 | 0 | 6 | 107 | 127 | 75 | 178 |
Coventry | 180 | 40 | 0 | 2 | 115 | 127 | 98 | 239 |
Derby | 246 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 117 | 110 | 81 | 157 |
Devon | 172 | 44 | 0 | 1 | 170 | 192 | 167 | 289 |
East London | 346 | 128 | 0 | 5 | 432 | 594 | 371 | 1068 |
Essex and Suffolk | 223 | 79 | 2 | 4 | 212 | 340 | 218 | 664 |
Guildford | 96 | 43 | 0 | 1 | 106 | 105 | 79 | 291 |
Humberside | 144 | 46 | 2 | 7 | 48 | 122 | 79 | 287 |
Leicester | 132 | 39 | 0 | 5 | 127 | 177 | 105 | 275 |
Lincoln | 98 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 84 | 126 | 72 | 155 |
Liverpool | 418 | 156 | 0 | 5 | 244 | 379 | 245 | 689 |
Luton | 55 | 22 | 0 | 2 | 60 | 91 | 55 | 181 |
Manchester | 466 | 180 | 0 | 6 | 301 | 457 | 261 | 828 |
Medway and Canterbury | 170 | 51 | 1 | 1 | 132 | 166 | 119 | 370 |
Milton Keynes | 109 | 29 | 0 | 1 | 53 | 73 | 43 | 223 |
North Wales | 107 | 29 | 2 | 1 | 91 | 87 | 50 | 93 |
North Yorkshire | 39 | 9 | 0 | 2 | 86 | 114 | 71 | 150 |
Northampton | 123 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 48 | 71 | 52 | 193 |
Northumbria and North Durham | 440 | 168 | 1 | 7 | 288 | 377 | 282 | 627 |
Norwich | 141 | 51 | 0 | 0 | 85 | 122 | 82 | 203 |
Nottingham | 165 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 133 | 164 | 112 | 300 |
Peterborough and Cambridge | 127 | 22 | 1 | 1 | 93 | 103 | 75 | 193 |
Portsmouth (Hampshire and IOW) | 207 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 164 | 237 | 168 | 507 |
Reading | 237 | 33 | 0 | 1 | 192 | 232 | 176 | 441 |
Royal Courts of Justice | 14 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 143 | 390 | 27 | 130 |
South East Wales | 243 | 51 | 0 | 6 | 245 | 257 | 188 | 416 |
South Yorkshire | 337 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 181 | 198 | 160 | 390 |
Stoke on Trent | 194 | 49 | 1 | 0 | 132 | 159 | 89 | 244 |
Swansea | 141 | 18 | 0 | 4 | 225 | 154 | 98 | 144 |
Swindon | 83 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 56 | 81 | 54 | 160 |
Taunton | 63 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 57 | 48 | 53 | 116 |
Truro | 56 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 60 | 53 | 53 | 114 |
Watford | 85 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 99 | 121 | 84 | 303 |
West London | 346 | 63 | 0 | 1 | 298 | 458 | 265 | 744 |
West Yorkshire | 347 | 123 | 2 | 5 | 309 | 442 | 252 | 539 |
Wolverhampton | 337 | 57 | 1 | 3 | 207 | 240 | 143 | 319 |
Worcester | 58 | 22 | 0 | 2 | 104 | 96 | 59 | 105 |
Grand Total | 8387 | 2233 | 14 | 93 | 6730 | 8976 | 5586 | 15000 |
This is Management Information; the data is taken from a live management information system and can change over time and may differ from previously published data. | ||||||||
| ||||||||
2. A party is considered 'applicant-represented' if at least one applicant has a recorded representative, and likewise for respondents. | ||||||||
3. The majority of Public law applicants are public bodies with access to their own legal resources - however, this legal representation is often not recorded. To address this, we introduced a methodology which assumes that all public body applicants have legal representation. | ||||||||
Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system. | ||||||||
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the (a) annual saving to the Legal Aid fund of removing passporting through the means test for those earning more than £500 per month who are in receipt of Universal Credit and (b) additional annual cost to the Legal Aid fund of passporting homeowners in receipt of Universal Credit through the capital assessment part of the means test.
Answered by Mike Freer
The new legal aid means test will comprise a wide range of closely inter-related policy elements to be delivered simultaneously. This includes introducing a £500 monthly earnings threshold for UC recipients who are currently passported through the income assessment for civil legal aid, as well as limiting the passporting of UC recipients through the civil legal aid capital assessment solely to those who are non-home owners. Taking all these policy elements into account, will lead to additional spending in steady state for civil legal aid of up to £24 million per year. Whilst not all policy elements apply equally to the criminal legal aid scheme, the comparable impact on annual steady state spending for criminal legal aid rises up to £5 million. These ranges assume that all recipients of legacy welfare benefits have been transitioned onto UC. Legal Aid Means Test Review - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what is the annual cost for the Legal Aid Agency to process escape fee claims; what proportion of escape fee claims are rejected; and what the value to the Legal Aid fund of rejected escape fee claims was in each of the last three years.
Answered by Mike Freer
The term ‘escape fee claim’ is used in connection with various types of legal aid work which is funded by way of fixed or standard fee, where the legislation in place allows a claim at hourly rates to be made in circumstances where the actual cost of work done escapes a set threshold. There are various types of escape fee claims. In this context we have interpreted your request as pertaining to civil Controlled Work claims billed using an EC-CLAIM1 and to crime claims billed used a CRM-18 or CRM-18a as these are explicitly described as being escape fee claims.
Information relating to the annual cost of processing escape fee claims is not centrally held. The unit cost of processing an escape fee claim is not specifically tracked or recorded by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), nor is the administrative spend on processing escape fee claims recorded separately to general legal aid administrative spend. Staff engaged in the assessment and payment of escape fee claims may not exclusively be engaged in these functions and as such it is not possible to calculate an estimate of costs based on staff salaries.
For civil escape fee claims the proportion of escape fee claims that were rejected in each of the last three years is set out in the table below:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
16.72% | 15.47% | 13.2% |
Please note that the above figures are based on Management Information manually collated by the LAA. Although every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete, it is important to note that the data has been extracted from data sets which require a degree of manual input. As a consequence, the data can change over time and care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when data is used.
No criminal escape fee claims have been rejected in the last three years.
Information relating to the value to the legal aid fund of rejected claims is not centrally held. Claims are rejected in instances where there is some inaccuracy in the bill or where information or supporting documents are required. Claims are returned to the legal aid provider who will make the necessary amendments or supply any additional information so that these may be re-submitted to the LAA for payment.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what is the (a) annual cost to the public purse for the Legal Aid Agency to process applications for exceptional case funding and (b) value of exceptional case funding claims that have been (i) granted and (ii) denied in the each of the last three years.
Answered by Mike Freer
The information requested is not held centrally.
The unit cost of processing an application is not specifically tracked or recorded by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), nor is the administrative spend on Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) recorded separately to general legal aid administrative spend. Details about volumes of ECF applications, broken down by category, for every year since 2013 can be found in legal aid statistics published by the Ministry of Justice [see tables 8.1 and 8.2]: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023
Legal Aid Expenditure is tracked by the form of service it is provided under i.e. whether it is advice and assistance provided under Legal Help or Controlled Legal Representation or representation in proceedings provided as Civil Representation. ECF can be provided under either form of service. These costs are paid via a number of different billing platforms, not all of which have the functionality to isolate ECF costs from other civil costs. It is therefore not possible to disaggregate the value of ECF cases from the value of other civil in-scope cases. Expenditure under the ECF scheme therefore forms part of the overall civil legal aid expenditure as detailed in tables 5.3 and 6.5 of the published legal aid statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-april-to-june-2023.
The LAA would not hold any information regarding the value of claims where it has refused an application for funding under ECF. The value of the claim would only be apparent at the conclusion of the case after a bill was submitted to the Legal Aid Agency. If legal aid under ECF is not granted, no bill is submitted.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what is the annual (a) cost of the Legal Aid Agency’s audit and compliance activities and (b) value of the funds recovered from legal aid providers as a result of the Legal Aid Agency’s audit and compliance activity.
Answered by Mike Freer
Information relating to element (a) of the question is not centrally held. The cost of time spent, and expenditure associated with audit and compliance functions is not specifically tracked or recorded by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). Staff engaged in audit and compliance activity may not exclusively be engaged in these functions and as such it is not possible to reliably calculate an estimate of costs based on staff salaries.
The LAA estimates that in the financial year 2022-2023 it recovered £4.56 million as a result of audit and compliance activities. This is based on audit and compliance activity relating to Controlled Work, Crime Lower including police station attendance and duty solicitor advice and Prison Law claims which are typically paid prior to review by the LAA. For Civil Representation and Crime Higher the LAA has robust assessment processes in place which form part of the billing processes rather than audit and compliance activity. Other recoveries can be made as a result of routine case management processes such as quality control procedures, which the LAA would not classify as distinct audit or compliance activity. In the same period the LAA processed over 1.7 million claims totalling £1.83 billion pounds.
Audit and compliance activity does not solely lead to financial recoveries. This activity also helps to improve providers’ understanding of and compliance with contracts and legal aid legislation, supports identification of process improvement opportunities, and provides confidence in the positive performance of providers.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many litigants in person there have been in the family courts in each year since 2013.
Answered by Mike Freer
Information on the legal representation status of applicants and respondents is published in Family Courts Statistics Quarterly, within the Family Court Tables: April to June 2023, Table 11. Please see link below.
Family Court Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposals put forward by the Senior President of Tribunals that employment cases be heard by a single judge by default on the judicial diversity of Employment Tribunals.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Senior President of Tribunals (SPT) will become responsible for the future arrangements for panel composition once the provisions of the Judicial Review and Courts Act (2022) are brought into effect. We intend to enact this delegation of powers later this year. Following this, any decisions made on the matter of panel composition will be informed by the consultation published earlier in the year, in which views on his proposals were sought.
As such, the final proposals on Employment Tribunal panel composition will be a matter for the Senior President of Tribunals. We understand that the SPT intends to publish a response to the consultation in due course, once the measures have been brought into effect. Judicial diversity is a key priority for the Ministry of Justice. As a member of the Judicial Diversity Forum, we work closely with the judiciary, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the Legal Services Board and the legal professions to promote diversity in the judiciary across each jurisdiction.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the latest status is of proposals of the Senior President of Tribunals to have Employment Tribunal cases heard by a single judge by default.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Senior President of Tribunals (SPT) will become responsible for the future arrangements for panel composition once the provisions of the Judicial Review and Courts Act (2022) are brought into effect. We intend to enact this delegation of powers later this year. Following this, any decisions made on the matter of panel composition will be informed by the consultation published earlier in the year, in which views on his proposals were sought.
As such, the final proposals on Employment Tribunal panel composition will be a matter for the Senior President of Tribunals. We understand that the SPT intends to publish a response to the consultation in due course, once the measures have been brought into effect. Judicial diversity is a key priority for the Ministry of Justice. As a member of the Judicial Diversity Forum, we work closely with the judiciary, the Judicial Appointments Commission, the Legal Services Board and the legal professions to promote diversity in the judiciary across each jurisdiction.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 June 2023 to Question 188260 on Magistrates' Courts: ICT, how many and what proportion of defendants have appeared without legal representation in magistrates’ courts where the Common Platform has been used by (a) court and (b) the alleged criminal offence of the defendant in each of the past three years.
Answered by Mike Freer
Common platform first started receiving criminal cases in September 2020.
The total number of defendants whose cases have been handled on Common Platform is 456,597 of which 231,223 had no legal representation recorded on the case. It is important to note that this data includes Single Justice Service Cases.
The attached spreadsheet breaks down defendants by a) court and b) by criminal offence and are for the period September 2020 – June 2023.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 June 2023 to Question 188261 on Crown Court: Standards, to provide this data by each Crown Court.
Answered by Mike Freer
The a) mean and b) median length of time taken from (i) receipt at Crown Court to main hearing, (ii) main hearing to completion and (iii) receipt at Crown Court to completion for all offences can be found in the attached table. Timeliness data broken down by Crown Court are not available prior to 2014.
The latest published data is available to March 2023 and shows that timeliness estimates at the Crown Court continue to increase. This was a result of cases completing including trials impacted by the Criminal Bar Association action and in some cases, the suspension of jury trial during the pandemic.