Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of whether the number of judges recruited in each year is sufficient to meet the needs of the Tribunal Service.

In April 2014 there were 6,084 people eligible to sit on Tribunal Panels. These comprise Judges and Members, of which 2,053 are Judges. The data is drawn from the Judicial Office’s database and is based upon an individual’s primary appointment, which is where they sit for the majority of their time.

Judges and Members can also hold more than one post across Tribunal chambers. In addition the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, provides the Senior President of Tribunals the power to assign Judges between Tribunal chambers. This gives him the ability to meet pressures from fluctuating workload and allows the Tribunals to deal with work with greater flexibility.

Where a shortfall in requirements is identified, which cannot be met within existing resource levels, external judicial recruitment will be requested. Judicial recruitment is the responsibility of the Judicial Appointments Commission and details of current and planned recruitment is published on their website which can be found at https://jac.judiciary.gov.uk/

Current judicial resource levels are considered to be sufficient to deal with workload volumes across HMCTS.