Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of staff shortages in His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service on delays to criminal trials in Wiltshire.

Staffing allocations are in line with current workload across the courts in Wiltshire, although recruitment can be an issue, particularly in Swindon where the competition in the job market is high. That said, administrative staff at both the Crown Court and magistrates’ courts in Wiltshire are at or near compliment. A shortfall in legal advisers in the magistrates’ courts in Wiltshire has had an impact on trial timeliness. To mitigate the impact of reduced sittings, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has implemented a detailed plan to address the position, and a rolling programme to recruit trainee legal advisers to support magistrates’ court capacity is part of this. There is currently legal adviser capacity to sit 54 crime courts per week and this is expected to rise in line with the planning, stabilising at 65 courts per week in 12-months time. In addition, the measures implemented to address the situation will see a dedicated trial blitz in late 2025 and which is supported by inter-agency collaboration.