The quarterly Civil Justice statistics for April to June 2023 have just been published by the Ministry of Justice (“MOJ”) which indicate lengthy waits for litigants to reach their day in Court.

 

The mean time taken for Small Claims to go to trial was 52.3 weeks and for Fast or Multi Track, the mean time taken was 78.2 weeks. When compared to timescales in 2019, this is 15.7 weeks longer for Small Claims and 19.1 weeks longer Fast and Multi Track Trials.

 

This means that litigants have had to wait up to and over a year to attend trial following issue. Delays like this can be damaging to cases because documents can be lost and recollections wane over time.

 

Claims made at the County Court are 12% higher than April to June 2022 with 419,000 Claims lodged. Of these, 89% were money and damages claims.

 

There has also been a steep decline in allocation to tracks, which the MOJ attributes to the closure of the County Court Money Claims Centre and transfer of work to the Civil National Business Centre.

 

As the Civil National Business Centre recovers performance and if issued claims continue to increase, delays could grow further which could raise concerns over access to justice.

 

We will continue to monitor the statistics and provide an update when we can.