Magistrates: Labour Turnover

(asked on 13th October 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of retention rates of magistrates.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 23rd October 2023

The Ministry of Justice actively monitors overall recruitment and attrition rates for the magistracy as part of the collation and publication of the Judicial Diversity Statistics. To preserve judicial independence, leadership of the magistracy is a matter for the judiciary. The Judicial Office conducts a leaving survey for those who are resigning from the magistracy, which it reviews annually.

Since 2019/ 2020, the number of leavers each year from the magistracy has decreased annually from a level of 1440 leavers in 2019/20 (10.9% of the magistracy) to 743 leavers in 2022/23 (5.6% of the magistracy). Since March 2022 797 magistrates over the age of 70 have also chosen to be reinstated following the increase of the judicial mandatory retirement age to 75.

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