Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has taken steps to improve data collection on pleas and remand decisions in magistrates’ courts.

As part of the HMCTS Reform Programme’s introduction of the Common Platform digital case management system, we are focusing on various issues including improving data collection for magistrates’ courts. Common Platform will provide a national single approach to recording and sharing remand decisions, pleas or verdicts at each stage of a defendant’s journey through the criminal justice system in both the Magistrates’ and Crown Court jurisdiction, in court and in as near to real-time as possible. This is something which has not been previously possible on the separate systems that have existed.

Management information from the single source of Common Platform can in turn be interrogated from these results to better support HMCTS operations, or in response to specific questions around volumes or trends in defendants’ choices after new legislation is enacted. In addition, having one single platform means any legislative changes can be made available nationally in one action.