JUDICIARY RESEARCH
Data and Outcomes
Data drives outcomes when reliable evidence informs a decision, the change is evaluated, and the findings improve practice.
Court delay: the published baseline
England and Wales · Crown Court · Snapshot at 30 June 2026
Ministry of Justice release: 24 September 2026 · Reviewed: 2 October 2026
About 29.3% of open cases were at least a year old.
Judiciary 250 calculation: 23,706 ÷ 80,829 × 100, rounded to one decimal place.
Case age runs from receipt at the Crown Court to the reporting date. It is not the time to complete a trial. These figures predate the National Listing Framework and cannot establish its impact. The release revises earlier open-caseload figures upward by less than 1%; use a consistent release when comparing periods.
Connecting court performance with human outcomes
The following is Judiciary 250’s measurement framework for research and institutional discussion. These are measures to examine, not reported USU results or a live court dashboard.
| Area | What to examine | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Waiting time | Median and 90th-percentile days between clearly defined stages. | Compare equivalent case types and distinguish open cases from completed cases. |
| Hearing reliability | Hearings that proceed as scheduled, with reasons for changes. | Record the number of scheduled hearings as the denominator. |
| Meaningful participation | Ability to attend, understand the process, and prepare. | Use accessible, voluntary feedback; report response rates and missing data. |
| Human consequences | Changes in well-being, care responsibilities, work, and family disruption. | Minimize sensitive data and separate reported experience from causal findings. |
| Evidence and continuity | Evidence unavailable after delay; changes of judge and recorded reasons. | Use qualified review and case context before drawing conclusions. |
| Fairness and access | Differences in waiting and participation across relevant groups. | Account for case mix and suppress small groups that could identify people. |
From evidence to improvement
Define the question and baseline, document the change, then compare like with like. Record staffing, workload, case mix, missing information, and other changes that could affect results. Use comparison groups or stronger evaluation designs where feasible. Publish uncertainty, adverse effects, and corrections as well as gains.
A useful outcome is a fairer, more dependable experience supported by evidence. A lower number on its own does not explain whether a person was heard or whether a decision was sound.
Read the court-scheduling discussion