Accredited official statistics

Criminal court statistics quarterly: October to December 2024

Published 27 March 2025

Applies to England and Wales

Main Points

Magistrates’ court: increase in open caseload	Case receipt volumes at the magistrates’ courts remained above disposals - true since Q2 2023. As a result, the open caseload increased to 309,838 at the end of December 2024.
Crown Court: increase in open caseload	Receipts continued to increase and reached a series high (since 2016). Disposal volumes have increased but they remain below receipts. As a result, the open caseload continued to increase and reached a series peak of 74,651.
Crown Court: increase in average age of open case	The median age of open cases and number of cases open for a year or more both increased compared to the previous quarter.
Ineffective trial rates remain stable	The ineffective trial rate at both the magistrates’ courts (22%) and Crown Court (25%) have settled at higher levels than those seen before 2020.
Time from offence to completion at the magistrates’ court increased 3%	The median time from offence to completion at the magistrates’ court increased 3% on the previous year - estimates remain above levels seen prior to 2020.
Timeliness for offence to completion at the Crown Court cases fell	The median time from offence to completion at the Crown Court continued to fall, down 7% on the previous year – estimates remain well above levels seen prior to 2020.

The technical guide to ‘Criminal court statistics’ and ‘Language interpreter and translation services in courts and tribunals’ can be found at the links below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-guide-to-criminal-court-statistics

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/guide-to-language-interpreter-and-translation-services-statistics

Statistician’s comment

This report covers the period to the end of December 2024.

This is the second release of data following the implementation of the “One Crown” project which has aligned definitions, methodologies and data processing for all published Crown Court measures across MOJ and HMCTS.  Following an external quality review in December, the data have undergone a review by the Office for Statistics regulation which agreed with the earlier review to find significant confidence in the data and retain the Accredited Official Statistics status of this release.

As part of the “One Crown” implementation, we have continued to improve our Crown Court methodology and align HMCTS and MoJ processes.  We have reviewed and improved all remaining headline Crown Court measures.  This approach ensures that we continue to release robust, trustworthy and high value data.  The impact of change is small, and trends are largely unchanged.  Further detail concerning each change and the impacts on published series are available in the consultation document.

The demand on the criminal courts continues to grow with receipt volumes increasing at both the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court.  Receipts in the last year are higher than they have been across the series and are 13% higher than the previous year.

Disposals volumes have increased but remain below receipts at both magistrates and Crown courts resulting in the open caseload continuing to grow.  At the Crown Court the open caseload continued to report a series peak, reaching 74,651 cases at the end of December 2024.

In the latest period trial effectiveness has remained stable and timeliness has fallen back from series peaks – both remain above pre-COVID levels seen in 2019.

1. Changes to note

Data quality review

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) have carried out a review of the quality of criminal court statistics.

The OSR are confident in the quality of the criminal court statistics and are satisfied that we have provided sufficient assurances to users about the quality of Crown Court data. As a result the publication has retained its accredited official statistics status.

The OSR identified two recommendations that we will address to enhance the quality of the statistics. We will work with the OSR to take forward an action plan to deliver these ahead of the June 2025 release.

One Crown consultation

As previously communicated to users, we are carrying out a further consultation regarding the methodologies and definitions used to create the published Crown Court statistics.

We have made considerable progress and achieved our aim to move all remaining published Crown Court measures onto the One Crown pipeline. This includes agreeing common definitions between MOJ and HMCTS as well as developing the underlying data for all remaining published measures. This release provides all Crown Court measures from the One Crown pipeline for the first time.

There are a number of relatively small changes to the methodology to the published series resulting in some small changes across many of the published series, though trends remain largely unchanged. This includes trials (effective, cracked and ineffective), plea, plea stage, waiting time, hearing time and end-to-end timeliness.

The largest revision can be seen in the published plea stage and plea hearings data. This follows the identification of an issue in how we assign the stage at which a guilty plea was received. We have worked closely with HMCTS analysis and operations to resolve the issue and improve the accuracy of the measure. This has increased the volume of guilty pleas entered prior to trial and reduced the volume of pleas entered on the day of trial (“cracked”). It does not affect the volume of cracked trials overall.

The changes seek to align more closely with the way that cases are treated operationally and how court users will see the case in the Common Platform case management system. These changes also ensure that we maintain an accurate and robust timeseries with the ‘legacy’ systems.

We will review user feedback to consider the presentation and breakdown of Crown Court measures ahead of the next release in June 2025.

Full details of the changes and estimated impacts statistics including comparisons to the previous methodology are available alongside this report and can be found in “Further consultation on “One Crown” changes to the Crown Court data processing in Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly (CCSQ).”

Changes to magistrates’ open caseload estimates

The magistrates’ caseload data presented in this release has been revised following work that HMCTS have undertaken on a transformation programme to modernise its data and management information (MI).

During this work, HMCTS found evidence that the magistrates’ courts open caseload data is significantly overstated. This is due to a variety of issues identified in the data derived from the legacy case management system, Libra.

HMCTS carried out a bulk clean-up of data held on the legacy LIBRA system, leading to an initial reduction in the December 2024 published statistics of around 80,000 open criminal cases.

At the time we anticipated a further 20,000-30,000 cases would be removed from the open caseload and following further work by HMCTS the open caseload has been further revised down by around 17,000 cases (5% of the open caseload in September 2024).

With improved data quality reporting now in place we expect to see further revisions in slower time. The revisions represent an improvement in methodology, and a further improvement in accuracy of the magistrates’ caseload data.

2. Criminal cases in the magistrates’ courts

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Open caseload at the magistrates’ courts increased slightly

Receipts into the magistrates’ courts fell by 2% on the previous year, while disposals increased by 3%. Despite this, disposals remained below receipts and as a result the open caseload increased by slightly on the previous quarter (<1%) and 14% on the previous year.

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Figure 1: Magistrates’ courts caseload, Q1 2019 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table M1)

Magistrates’ court caseload

As noted in section 1, HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) reviewed the way that the magistrates’ court open caseload was captured, and we previously revised the caseload series back to 2019. A smaller revision has been made to the latest data to improve the methodology and further improve the accuracy of the caseload estimates.

Receipts and disposals have both tended to rise from series lows in Q2 2020 when the initial measures were put in place to manage the immediate risks of the COVID-19 pandemic in courts^{[footnote 1][footnote 2][footnote 3]}. The latest levels remain slightly below those seen in 2019 prior to the pandemic.

• While receipts into the magistrates’ court in the latest year are higher than a year ago, receipts in the latest quarter decreased by 2% compared to same period in the previous year and were largely unchanged on the previous quarter. Despite an overall decrease on the previous year there were notable increases in summary non-motoring (12%) and ‘for trial’ cases (12%).

• Disposals at the magistrates’ court in the latest quarter increased by 3% on the previous year and 8% on the previous quarter – this is due to a sharp increase in summary non-motoring disposals, up 27% on the previous quarter and accounting for 38% of all disposals (a series peak).

• At the end of December 2024 there were 309,838 open cases at the magistrates’ courts. This represents a slight increase on the previous quarter (308,426) and a 14% increase on the previous year (271,962). There was a 26% increase in the volume of open “for trial” cases, up from 58,174 to 73,567 at the end of December 2024.

Trial efficiency at magistrates’ court

Trial efficiency measures at the magistrates’ courts remain largely unchanged on the previous quarter - 40% were effective, 37% cracked and 22% ineffective.

The ineffective trial rate has stabilised following the initial increases seen across 2020 and remain above pre-COVID levels (15-17%).

Figure 2: Magistrates’ courts listed trials and ineffective trial rate (%), Q1 2014 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table M2)

3. Criminal cases in the Crown Court

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Continued increase in the open caseload at the Crown Court

Despite a seasonal quarterly fall, receipts continued to increase compared to the previous year. Disposal volumes have increased but they remain below receipts. As a result, the open caseload continued to increase to a new series peak of 74,651.

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Consultation on “One Crown” changes to the Crown Court data processing

We have changed the way that we measure some of the Crown Court statistics. There are some small methodological changes and data improvements which have been made to these estimates compared to the previously published statistics. The impact of these changes is mostly small and does not affect the published trends.

The revised data is currently available back to 2016 – we will look to expand this back to cover the previously published timeseries to 2014 in future releases of the statistics.

Full details of the changes and the impact these have on previously published series can be found in the supporting technical guidance which is being released alongside the statistics: ‘Further consultation on “One Crown” changes to the Crown Court data processing in Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly (CCSQ)’

Crown Court caseload

The increased throughput from the magistrates’ courts as part of the initial recovery from the pandemic response saw the volume of receipts at the Crown Court exceed pre-COVID levels in late 2020. Following a slight decline, receipts have tended to increase since 2023, surpassing levels seen immediately pre-COVID and those seen in 2016.

There were 29,485 cases received into the Crown Court in Q4 2024. This is the highest Q4 (October – December) value seen across the series since 2016 and represents an 8% increase on the previous year.

In 2024, there were 121,579 cases received into the Crown Court, this is the highest annual total reported across the series since 2016 and is 13% higher than volumes seen in 2023 (107,433).

• The latest increase in demand at the Crown Court was seen more in “for trial” (11%) than “sentence” (6%) or appeal cases (-16%).

• There were increases in receipts for all offence groups (excluding possession of weapons) compared to the previous year, with violence against the person (9%), sexual offences (15%) and drug offences (9%) contributing most to the overall increase.

• Violence against the person offences continue to be the largest contributing offence group with 8,378 receipts in the period – this represents an increase of 42% compared to Q4 2019 and now accounts for 28% of all cases received in the quarter.

There were 28,143 cased disposed at the Crown Court in Q4 2024, this is the highest Q4 (October – December) value seen across the series. The latest disposal volumes are up 7% on levels seen in the previous year (26,257) and well above those seen in Q4 2019 (23,132).

In 2024, there were 113,885 cases disposed of at the Crown Court, this is the highest annual total reported since 2016 (120,143) and is 12% higher than volumes seen in 2023 (102,022).

• The largest proportionate increase was seen for “sentence” cases which increased by 13% on the previous year, whereas “for trial” cases increased by 5%.

• Increases in disposal volumes are seen for all offence groups (excluding drug offences) compared to the previous year. Like the trends in case receipts there has been a notable and consistent increase in violence against the person cases.

Figure 3: Crown Court caseload, Q1 2016 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table C1)

The open caseload reflects the workload in the courts at any time. It will never be zero, as it reflects the volume of cases that are active in the courts at a particular point, including those cases that have been recently received, those close to being disposed, those which are complex and take time to complete and those that may be delayed. The open caseload fell between 2016 and 2019, and at the end of 2019 it stood at 38,049.

At the end of December 2024 there were 74,651 open cases at the Crown Court, this is a series high and continues increases seen since Q1 2023.

The open caseload increased by 2% on the previous quarter (73,172 cases) and 11% on the previous year (67,317 cases).

• The largest increases in the open caseload compared to the previous year were seen for violence against the person (21%) and sexual offences (18%).

• The increases in open caseload volumes can be seen for all regions, with the South East reporting the largest open caseload at the end of December 2024 (16,114 cases).

Age of open caseload – official statistics in development

The age of an open case is calculated from receipt at Crown Court to the end of the reporting period. The average age of an open case increased markedly from series lows in 2019 but both median and mean measures have fallen back from series peaks in 2021 and 2022.

In Q4 2024 the median age of all open cases was 165 days, this represents a 7% increase in the previous quarter (154 days) and remains markedly above levels seen in 2019 (90 days).

At the end of December 2024 there were 16,813 cases that had been open for a year or more – 3% higher than the previous quarter (16,308) and close to the series peak seen in September 2022 (16,883).

Figure 4: Average age of open cases at the Crown Court, Q1 2016 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table O1)

Figure 5: Proportion of open cases at the Crown Court by grouped age, Q1 2016 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table O3)

Trial effectiveness at Crown Court

There were 6,933 trials listed to start in Q4 2024 – a decrease of 6% on the same quarter in the previous year. The proportion of trials which commence as planned (effective) remained stable at 43%, this has been fairly consistent for the last two years but it remains below rates seen pre-COVID which average around 50%.

Similarly, the percentage of trials that are not required (cracked) and which are rescheduled (ineffective) remained in line with the previous quarter (31% and 25% respectively). There has been a step-change in the ineffective trial rate on levels seen prior to 2020 (ranging around 13-19%) and rates have stabilised at these higher levels.

Figure 6: Crown Court listed trials and ineffective trial rate (%), Q1 2016 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table C2)

Guilty plea rate

Guilty plea rate is the number of defendants in cases which have been disposed who entered a guilty plea to all counts as a proportion of all those who entered a plea. The guilty plea rate increased sharply following the immediate COVID-19 response and the suspension of jury trials. More recently it has fallen back to pre-COVID levels, in Q4 2024 the guilty plea rate was 61%, broadly in line with levels seen since the start of 2023.

The number of defendants dealt with following a not guilty plea is unchanged on the previous year. Whereas there has been an increase in defendants whose case is dropped – up 5% on the previous year (from 3,185 in Q4 2023 to 3,343 in Q4 2024).

Average waiting time at the Crown Court

Waiting time is the duration between case receipt and first main hearing. The waiting time estimates are a ‘lagged’, backwards looking measure counted at the point of disposal. The median waiting time for defendants dealt with was 9 weeks in Q4 2024, this is unchanged on the previous year but remains above pre-COVID levels (7 weeks in Q4 2019).

Average hearing time at the Crown Court

The hearing time estimates are a ‘lagged’, backwards looking measure’ counted at the point of disposal. Hearing time is the duration of all hearings for a completed case. Both median and mean hearing times for all cases completed at the Crown Court have fallen on the previous year, down 5% and 10% respectively.

The median hearing time of ‘for trial’ cases where a not guilty plea was entered is unchanged on the previous year but increased 5% on the previous quarter from 10.7 to 11.2 hours.

4. Timeliness

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Timeliness continued to fall at the Crown Court

The median time from offence to completion for cases completing at the Crown Court in the latest quarter fell by 7% compared with the same quarter in the previous year to 326 days. Despite falls the latest estimate remains well above pre-COVID levels (254 days in Q4 2019).

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The timeliness measures are based on defendants whose cases have completed and as such are ‘backwards’ looking measures of timeliness between offence and completion at the relevant criminal court jurisdiction.

Single Justice Procedure timeliness

In the latest quarter there were 219,552 defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ courts via the Single Justice Procedure (SJP). This represents 68% of all defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ and is up 15% on the previous year - representing the highest quarterly volume seen since SJPs were introduced.

The median duration from offence to completion for defendants dealt with via SJP in the quarter was 193 days, a 3% increase on the same period in the previous year (187 days), largely due to increase seen in the time from offence to charge or laying of information (up 5%).

Magistrates’ courts timeliness

Timeliness at the magistrates’ courts measures the time from an offence being committed through key stages of the criminal justice system including charge or laying of the information, first listing and the subsequent completion of a defendant’s case at the magistrates’ court.

Figure 7: Average number of days from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the magistrates’ courts by stage, Q1 2014 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table T3)

The median duration from offence to completion at the magistrates’ courts stabilised following falls from series highs of around 200 days seen in late 2020 and early 2021. The latest estimates increased 3% on the previous year, from 183 days in Q4 2023 to 189 days in Q4 2024.

• ‘Pre-court’: the median time from ‘offence to charge’ increased by 9% from 129 days to 140 days, whilst time from ‘charge to first listing’ was unchanged on the previous year at 32 days.

• ‘At court’: the median estimate remained stable at 0 days, where the first listing and completion occur on the same day. The mean duration fell slightly to 24 days – this follows sharp increases seen over the COVID period and a peak of 50 days in Q4 2020.

Crown Court timeliness (“End-to-end”)

End-to-end timeliness measures the time from an offence being committed through key stages of the criminal justice system including charge, passage through the magistrates’ courts and subsequent completion of a defendant’s case at the Crown Court. The estimates are created by linking magistrates’ courts and Crown Court data outputs to create an ‘end-to-end’ defendant journey across key stages of the criminal justice system.

The median duration from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court has fallen back from series highs – with a decrease of 7% from 350 days in Q4 2023 to 326 days in Q4 2024. The latest estimate remains well above pre-COVID levels (254 days in Q4 2019).

Figure 8: Average number of days from offence to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court, Q1 2014 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table T4)

• ‘Pre-court’: the median time from ‘offence to first listing’ has tended fall back from a series peak in Q3 2021 (158 days) and the latest quarter continues this trend falling 7% on the previous year from 124 days to 117 days.

• ‘At court’: the median time from first listing at the magistrates’ courts to completion at the Crown Court continued to fall. The latest estimate (147 days) represents a 9% fall on the previous year (161 days) but remains above levels seen in 2019 (113 days in Q3 2019).

The median time from charge to completion for defendants dealt with at the Crown Court in Q4 2024 was 160 days. This has tended to fall back from peaks seen in 2021 and the latest estimate represents a fall of 8% on the previous year (174 days). Despite the falls, the latest estimate remains well above levels seen prior to 2020.

• In ‘for trial’ cases where a not guilty plea was entered, the median duration from charge to completion was 424 days – this is down 3% on the previous year (from 437 days) but levels have stabilised close to the series peak (452 days in Q2 2023).

• For guilty pleas the median duration was 166 days – this represents a fall of 8% on the previous year (180 days) but remains above levels seen prior to 2020 (133 days in Q4 2019).

5. Official statistics in development: Language interpreter and translation services

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Completed language service requests rose to a series peak

There were 53,133 completed requests in Q4 2024, up 11% on the previous year and the success rate increased to 96%.

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Completed service requests

The volume of completed service requests in Q4 2024 was 53,133, this has maintained the relatively high demand seen for interpreter and translation services since 2023 and represents an increase of 11% on same period last year.

The number of unfulfilled requests has fallen sharply (64%) to 1,333 – this follows a spike seen in the previous two quarters with a peak of 3,722 in Q3 2024.

As a result of this decrease, the overall success rate in Q4 2024 increased to 96% - back to levels seen prior to the last two quarters which were affected by the June 2024 booking portal update, aimed at improving responsiveness, caused unexpected issues, that although resolved quickly, temporarily impacted fulfilment rates earlier in 2024.

The number of cancelled requests has increased sharply in the latest period, up by 51% on the previous year from 10,020 in Q4 2023 to 15,113 in Q4 2024.

Figure 9: Number of completed language service requests and overall success rate, Q1 2014 – Q4 2024 (Source: Table L1)

Complaints and complaint rate

The number of complaints had tended to remain low since Q2 2020, however there was a sharp increase in the latest period. There were 455 complaints made in Q3 2024. This represents an increase of 83% on the previous quarter (248) and has more than doubled on the previous year (189). The overall complaint rate was 0.9% in the latest period and has remained below 1% since Q3 2020.

‘Off-contract’ requests

‘Off-contract’ requests are those which are procured outside of the contracted services where fulfilment cannot be achieved by the supplier.

MoJ have undertaken a review of the off-contract data collection methods. Improvements to the collection have resulted in a more robust but higher baseline of activity than previously reported. This is considered a necessary change that improves data integrity and more accurately reflects the off-contract request volumes.

The development in this data series reflects the MoJ’s commitment to continuous improvement and best practice - ensuring more reliable insights into booking activity in future. The improved data is available from April 2024 currently and we will seek to revise the back series in future to reflect the improvements.

There were 3,589 ‘off-contract’ requests in Q4 2024, this represents a decrease of 11% on the previous quarter (4,030).

6. Further information on criminal courts data

The data presented in this publication are from live administrative databases. Therefore, previously published data is liable to be updated in the latest bulletin, following any further data cleaning or the incorporation of additional cases not available in the extracts used to produce previous bulletins.

Accompanying files

As well as the bulletin, the following products are published as part of this release:

• Technical guides providing background information and standalone quality guide.

• A set of overview tables, covering each section of this bulletin.

• Pivot tools and underlying data which feature further breakdowns of published data.

Accredited official statistics status

Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in March 2025.^{[footnote 4]} They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled as accredited official statistics.

It is the Ministry of Justice’s responsibility to maintain compliance with the standards expected for accredited official statistics. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with the Authority promptly. Accredited official statistics status can be removed at any point when the highest standards are not maintained, and reinstated when standards are restored.

Official statistics in development status

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing a development; they may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Until September 2023, they were called ‘experimental statistics’. Official statistics in development are developed under the guidance of the Head of Profession for Statistics (HoP). The goal is to develop statistics that can, in due course, be produced to the standards of the Code.^{[footnote 5]}

Future publications

Our statisticians regularly review the content of publications. Development of new and improved statistical outputs is usually dependent on reallocating existing resources. As part of our continual review and prioritisation, we welcome user feedback on existing outputs including content, breadth, frequency and methodology. In particular, see the financial enforcement section of this publication for some future planned changes. Please send any comments you have on this publication including suggestions for further developments or reductions in content to the contacts listed below.Please send any comments you have on this publication including suggestions for further developments or reductions in content to the contacts listed below.

Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Tel: 0203 334 3536

Website: Media Enquiries

Other enquiries and feedback about these statistics should be directed to:

Email: criminal_court_sta@justice.gov.uk

Next update: 27th June 2025

URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics

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Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from criminal_court_sta@justice.gov.uk

1. https://www.judiciary.uk/guidance-and-resources/coronavirus-covid-19-message-from-the-lord-chief-justice-to-judges-in-the-civil-and-family-courts/ ↩

2. https://www.judiciary.uk/announcements/review-of-court-arrangements-due-to-covid-19-message-from-the-lord-chief-justice/ ↩

3. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-face-to-face-hearings-as-courts-reopen ↩

4. https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/review-of-the-quality-of-criminal-court-statistics-for-england-and-wales/ ↩

5. https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/ ↩