Court statistics for England and Wales

This briefing explains where to find and how to interpret statistics on criminal and civil courts in England and Wales. It covers magistrates’, Crown, and civil courts and tribunals.

The latest figures show that:

• The annual criminal court caseload has been steadily declining over the last ten years. In 2020 it fell sharply as a result of the pandemic before rising in 2021 to a slightly lower level than it had been pre-pandemic.
• In 2023, magistrates’ courts in England and Wales received 1.37 million cases and Crown courts received 105,000 cases.
• Both the magistrates’ and Crown court have an ongoing backlog of cases which has risen in recent years. At the end of December 2023, there were 370,700 outstanding cases in magistrates’ courts, which was lower than the peak of around 422,000 cases in mid-2020.
• The Crown court had 67,600 outstanding cases at the end of December 2024, which was the highest end-of-quarter total ever recorded.
• The length of time between offence and completion of a criminal case rose in every year from 2010 to 2021 before falling slightly in the most recent two years. The median waiting time from offence to completion of cases in the magistrates’ court in 2023 was 182 days.
• In 2023, civil courts received 1.7 million claims and in 2021 (the latest available total) family courts started 266,000 cases.
• Waiting times for almost all types of civil and family cases were longer in 2023 than five years previously (the exception being financial remedy cases in the Family court).
• Complete tribunal statistics are only available up to 2020/21, in which year 305,000 cases were started. An interim estimate of outstanding cases as of March 2024 put the number at 653,000.

Court statistics for England and Wales are reported separately for different types of court: criminal, civil, and family. These statistics are published quarterly and annually and provide information about caseload and performance by tier of court. Tribunals statistics are also published separately, in a quarterly and annual release (by financial year).

This briefing summarises the statistics on:

• Court caseload
• The impact of COVID-19 on the courts
• Effectiveness of trials/ hearings
• Waiting times for trials/ hearings
• Legal representation of defendants and claimants
• Court workforce, including the number of judges and magistrates.
• Judicial diversity
• Courts expenditure.

An Excel file is provided containing the underlying data to charts.