As barristers in England and Wales vote to strike, there are almost 60,000 cases waiting to be heard in the Crown Court. Barristers have voted to go on an indefinite, uninterrupted strike from Monday, September 5, the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has announced.
That’s on top of industrial action that is due to start on August 30, meaning their last working day will be Friday, August 26. The strike is expected to delay thousands of cases, adding to an already large backlog.
There were a total of 58,653 outstanding Crown Court cases in England and Wales at the end of March 2022, figures from the Ministry of Justice reveal. That’s down from a peak of 60,970 cases in June 2021.
However, the backlog of cases had been down to as low as 33,281 in December 2018, having been slashed from 56,148 cases in December 2014. As the backlog increases, so too does the amount of time cases are waiting to go to trial.
A record 4,022 cases have been waiting for over two years as of March 2022. That’s compared to just 685 in March 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In March 2019 there were 957 cases that had been in the backlog for over two years, and in March 2018 there were 1,073 cases. A total of 11,558 cases have been waiting between one and two years as of March this year, compared to 2,360 cases in March 2020. There have also been 12,790 cases that have been waiting between six months and a year, compared to 8,023 before the pandemic.
The dispute centres around the amount of money barristers are paid for legal aid work. The government is set to introduce a 15% increase in fees from the end of September.
However, the increase will only apply to new cases, meaning that the new rates won’t apply to those in the backlog. That means barristers are unlikely to benefit from the increased rate until late 2023/24. The CBA also feels that it is necessary to increase the rate by 25%.
