Justice Committee blames government failures for magistrate shortages
Failures in government planning have left England and Wales short of magistrates, according to a Justice Committee report published today.
The shortfall in magistrate numbers is “as frustrating as it was foreseeable” and it has taken a near-crisis to prompt government action, the report said.
It is calling on the government to develop an overarching strategy to recruit and train sufficient magistrates and fund the system adequately.
In October 2016 the Committee published a report identifying serious recruitment and training problems.
It called for the development of a national strategy as a matter of priority.
Magistrates are volunteers who sit in court in panels of three and may sentence offenders to up to six months in prison.
Their numbers have fallen from more than 25,000 in 2012 to around 15,000 in last year.
The new report raises issues around morale, recruitment, training and court closures.
It also recommends the government make it easier for working people who want to volunteer to be magistrates to get time off work to do so.
And it suggests the government consider increasing magistrates sentencing powers to up to 12 months, which could help reduce congestion in the Crown Court and reduce delays in sentencing offenders.
Committee chair Bob Neill said: “Magistrates and the criminal justice system as a whole have been badly let down by the failure of the government to take action and provide appropriate funding to tackle the major issues we flagged in our 2016 report. Many of those issues remain.
“Morale is not improving, despite the minister’s efforts to reassure us. The court closure programme has made things worse and the shortage of magistrates could have been avoided had the government adopted our initial recommendation on recruitment.
“The action promised three years ago has failed to materialise, and we again call for an appropriate national strategy. Merely identifying the magistracy as a component within the Government’s wider strategy for the judiciary is inadequate to recognise the distinctive and pivotal role of 15,000 magistrates working as unpaid volunteers within the criminal justice system.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The magistracy plays a vital role in our justice system and we are working hard to increase numbers, with more than a thousand new magistrates joining the bench last year. We’ve also recently launched a national recruitment process designed to speed up applications and increase these numbers even further.
“We will carefully consider the findings of the report and respond fully in due course.”