Ministers have rejected a plea from the victims’ commissioner to bring back the Courts Inspectorate.
The HM Inspectorate of Courts Administration, which set up in 2003 to inspect the systems that support the crown, county and magistrates' courts in England and Wales, ceased operations in 2010 after a review by the Cabinet Office which found the independent body was no longer needed.
Helen Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, asked the government to “urgently to restore an independent courts inspectorate to ensure accountability, transparency, and a relentless focus on victims’ rights” in her report Justice delayed: The impact of the Crown Court backlog on victims, victim services and the criminal justice system, published in March.
Baroness Newlove said the reinstatement of a courts inspectorate would ensure that “the operation of the Court Service is subject to rigorous independent scrutiny” and improve the transparency and efficiency of court processes.
This was one of three recommendations in the report – which contained 19 recommendations in total – that were highlighted as being “key” to tackling the Crown Courts backlog crisis.
Responding to Newlove’s report on 25 April, Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and violence against women and girls, said restoring the courts inspectorate“would cost valuable resources and restrict our ability to continue to invest in improving and modernising our courts and tribunals, for little benefit”.
Explaining his reasoning, Davies-Jones said the review of the Inspectorate of Courts Administration in 2010 – part of a comprehensive review of public bodies – had “found it unnecessary to have an independent body to inspect a purely administrative system, and that the running costs at the time did not represent good value for money”.
“More importantly, judicial independence dictates that no inspectorate should have scope to scrutinise judicial decisions,” he said.
Davies-Jones said that since 2010, HM Inspectorate of Prisons has taken on responsibility for inspecting court custody and carries out the inspection of three court custody areas each year. He added that its inspections are complemented by lay observers – independent members of the public appointed by the justice secretary to monitor those held in court custody.
And the minister added that HM Courts and Tribunal Service, which is responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales, “has robust internal systems and management processes”. Similar reasoning was given in 2012, when the courts inspectorate was formally abolished, by then-justice minister Thomas McNally, who said HMCTS had “developed and put in place more sophisticated and robust ways of carrying out audits, which has mitigated the need for independent inspection of court administration systems”.
Newlove warned in her report that the court backlogs have “reached unprecedented levels, leaving victims trapped in a cycle of delay, frustration, and despair” and said “a system in crisis demands systemic change”.
“Yet, despite the scale of the crisis, there is no independent body to oversee court processes or victim communication,” Newlove said. “This must change.”