| Synopsis: |
The Crown Court operates from around 500 courtrooms at almost 100 locations across England and Wales. In 2007, it received 135,000 criminal cases, including the most serious cases such as murder and rape (up 6 per cent from 2005). Some Crown Court locations in London and parts of the South East are running at, or close to, full capacity, which can increase waiting times affecting victims, witnesses and other parties in a court case. At some locations HM Courts Service has used magistrates' courtrooms to reduce the shortage of Crown Court rooms. It has also transferred blocks of cases between different locations. HM Courts Service is planning to spend GBP 120 million to increase the number of Crown Court rooms by 30 (6 per cent) over the next three years. HM Courts Service should improve its assessment of future Crown Court workload and finalise a standard way of assessing the court rooms needed to meet that workload. For 2009-10 onwards, HM Courts Service has established a new staffing model - the first since 2004-05 - for determining staff levels. It is also working with the Ministry of Justice to improve learning and development programmes for Crown Court staff.Improvements are needed to the two main Crown Court IT systems: the case management system - CREST - is 20 years old and is no longer supported by the manufacturer, bringing operational risks; and the XHIBIT system, which provides real time information on the progress of trials and records results, needs greater flexibility to respond to changes in legislation. XHIBIT is not currently able to accommodate new or revised forms when they are introduced. |