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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
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1 results foundAuthor: Adisa, Olumide Title: Access to Justice: Assessing the Impact of the Magistrates' Court Closures in Suffolk Summary: Executive Summary In the last 8 years, the Ministry of Justice have closed over 90 regional courts in the UK as part of its rationalisation strategy to achieve economic efficiency of its estates. In Suffolk, two out of three courts in Suffolk were closed as a result. The Lowestoft Magistrates’ Court and Bury St Edmunds Magistrates’ Court (hereafter BSEC) were both closed by the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS in September and October 2016 respectively. With only one magistrates' court serving the whole of the county, various stakeholders in criminal justice agencies and the legal community have expressed concerns that access to justice could be compromised. Some believe that the HMCTS may have underestimated the difficulties that the court closures are having on court users, particularly those that live further away from Ipswich. “Court closures have been happening over the past few years. However, with ease of transport improving this made sense. But to have only one court in Ipswich is likely to make it difficult for those who are at a considerable distance from Ipswich to access it. It must be costing these people more to get to the Ipswich court.” - Member of the judiciary Suffolk’s Public Sector Leaders commissioned the University of Suffolk in March 2017 to investigate the impact of the court closures on those most affected, particularly on those having to travel long distances. While the impact assessment was conducted between March 2017 and May 2017, the research period was extended to November 2017 to allow additional time to include court data from the HMCTS. For comparison purposes, the research defined the pre-closure period as October 2015 – March 2016 and the corresponding post-closure period as October 2016 – March 2017. The study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to answer a set of broad research questions. Two unpublished consultation response reports sent to the HMCTS on the impact of the court closures by key stakeholders were used to contextualise some of the research findings. Verified quantitative local court data drawn locally and centrally from the HMCTS was used to provide information on the impact of the court closures. The research conducted interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders who represent the interests of various court users. These stakeholders work within the criminal justice system and were selected using purposive sampling. As part of the research, the researcher undertook court observations and spent about 20 hours at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court over the course of four weeks. Additionally, a half-day visit at Ipswich Crown Court was spent observing court proceedings (with permission granted by Ipswich crown court judges). Some of these observations formed the premise of our exploratory conversations with members of the judiciary. Through stakeholder interviews and focus groups, the researcher collected accounts from various stakeholders and verified comments that were made about a particular agency or the court with available factual data. The researcher also compared and contrasted views as a way to triangulate and to draw out themes about what the key impact of the court closures have been. For the convenience of the participants, telephone interviews were conducted in some cases. These conversations with stakeholders revealed that people viewed the case allocation of Lowestoft cases to Great Yarmouth Magistrates’ Court favourably, due to the proximity of Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. Therefore, the researcher focused the research primarily on the BSEC closure and in understanding its impacts, if any. The data from the interviews and focus groups with key stakeholders suggests that there have been negative and positive impacts to the court closures. The positive impacts have been largely beneficial to the courts, probation services, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). However, particularly in the case of the CPS, we are not certain whether these benefits have been outweighed by the costs of centralisation. From the discussions, it is clear that certain groups of people (defendants, defence witnesses, and defence advocates) are perceived to have experienced more negative impacts of the court closures than court users on the prosecution side. From the quantitative analysis, the research has found that for some, the court closures have led to a doubling of generalised costs (including travel time impacts). The quantitative data from the courts revealed some pertinent questions in relation to: access to justice, the sustainability of IMC workloads, and the efficiency of the justice system as a whole. While the intention was not to make recommendations on how the current provision could be improved, stakeholders were keen to share how the issues brought on by the court closures could be improved. It is interesting to note that generally the HMCTS’ plan to expand the use of virtual courts and use of technology to resolve accessibility and efficiency issues prompted legitimate concerns from members of the judiciary, probation and defence advocates, particularly around the issue of risk and vulnerability. Overall, the mixed-method evidence revealed that: The court closures are aggravating issues already present in the system. These issues, brought on by court reforms in relation to Legal Aid, and the furtherance of the digitalisation agenda across criminal justice system agencies are to an extent contributing to non-appearances, low morale of criminal defence professionals, inefficiencies in court procedures, and dis-engagement from the judicial system. There are far greater generalised time costs for court users residing further away from Ipswich. The court closure consultations conducted by HMCTS revealed that travel time impacts was one out of the three issues that were of a key concern for respondents. However, this study goes further in using a sophisticated model to provide a close approximation of the generalised (monetary and non-monetary) costs that court users coming from remote rural and rural communities are likely to incur in attending court, taking into consideration approximate points of origin and destination. There is a need for greater clarity regarding the alternative provision proposals to improve accessibility. The key message here is that this alternative provision plan needs to take into consideration the diverse needs of court users in Suffolk, as there are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions. The layout of the court building has made it challenging to meet the needs of all court users, particularly criminal justice professionals. Additionally, the only lift in the building is located in the public side, which has implications for witnesses with mobility challenges. No modifications have been undertaken to the court facilities at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court to meet the needs of all court users in Suffolk. Our conversations with the court staff revealed that no modifications were required as a consequence of the court closure so none has been undertaken, although routine maintenance work have been carried out (for example, toilet and kitchen refurbishment, heating and ventilation and security). The court closures have led to a loss of informal 'human' relationships between the court and the defence advocates working on behalf of their clients. Prior to the closures, defence advocates at BSEC felt able to better advocate for their clients because they had a closer working relationship with their local court officials who were just a few metres away. The court closures are weakening access to "local justice knowledge" due to the Magistrates not being able to sit in their local courts. Data provided by the courts suggests that the closures have not affected the number of sitting magistrates adversely, but the IMC confirmed that they lost some magistrates from West Suffolk when the courts closed but recruited over 10 magistrates based in and around Suffolk stakeholders, following the closures. The release of HMCTS court data by Ipswich Magistrates’ Court enabled the completion of the report. However, the approval and release process introduced a significant delay in the research timelines. The local ‘Failure to Appear’ data and trial performance information from Ipswich Magistrates’ Court enabled an assessment of the research questions: “has the rate of non-appearances increased following the closure of the regional courts, and are more warrants now been issued by the courts as a consequence?”; and “can the new structure for delivering summary justice cope with the increased demand now being placed upon it? How much have waiting times increased?” While non-appearances have been a persistent issue in the courts even before the closures, the research examined the courts' failure to appear warrants data by defendant’s location before and after the closure to identify any changes in the warrants data. Quantitative data from the courts revealed that preceding the closures, warrants issued for defendants based in BSE were only 2.7% (n=184), but post closure for the same area, warrants issued were 12.8% (n=304). For Sudbury-based defendants, pre-closure warrants data was about 1.6% (n=184), while post-closure this was 4.6% (n=304), highlighting that geographical accessibility of a court likely matters in the context of the closures. Additionally, warrants issued preceding closure for Ipswich-based defendants was 54.9% (n=184) while post-closure this was 33.6% (n=304). Defendants based out of the area represented about 17.9% of warrants issued pre-closure (n=184); and post-closure was 27.6% (n=304). Additionally, the average numbers of days from charge to first listing before closures was 34 days (October 2015 – March 2016), and 42 days after the closures (October 2016 – March 2017). First listing to completion data revealed that the process at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court took an average of 25 days pre-closure and 24 days post-closure, suggesting that the closures have not affected processing times. Having said that, the proceedings at Magistrates’ Courts is only one aspect of the criminal justice process. The length of time victims are waiting to receive justice has implications for the whole justice system and requires further investigation. Particularly for either way and indictable cases, where the court data revealed that processing times from offence to completion more than doubled in the post-closure period, compared to the pre-closure period. Trial performance data from HMCTS’s One Performance Truth database suggests a slight improvement in efficiency at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court following the court closures: trial effectiveness was 44% for Ipswich Magistrates’ Court pre-closure, and cracked rate is 40%, while post-closure, this was about 47% and cracked rate was 35%. Workload data revealed that workloads at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court have actually been decreasing over the post-closure period compared to the corresponding pre-closure period. Contextually, the courts revealed that the cases being sent to Ipswich Magistrates’ Court by the prosecution have been on the decline. One reason could be the increasing use of out-of-court disposals by the police, but this has emerged as an area of further investigation. Generally, all the participants agreed that access to justice is a key principle that needs to be preserved in any judicial system and that it is vital to identify those groups that are most affected by the court closures. It is for this reason that the research has been commissioned, not to make recommendations per se but to provide an evidence-base that will enable policymakers to extend the discussion on improving sustainable access to justice in Suffolk, in ways that are fair to all. Across the interviews, there were various concerns expressed on the impact of the court closures and suggestions about how alternative provision could help mitigate some of the accessibility issues. We present some of these ideas in this report’s Appendix B. Details: Suffolk, UK: University of Suffolk, 2018. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 12, 2019 at: https://www.uos.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Research%20Report%20Access%20to%20Justice%20FINAL.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.uos.ac.uk/news/access-justice Shelf Number: 154095 Keywords: Access to Justice Court Closures Court Data Courts Crown Prosecution Service Defense Advocates HMCTS Impact Assessment Magistrate Courts Magistrates Ministry of Justice Suffolk Trial Performance Data Virtual Courts |