Civil justice system still failing consumers, say ACSO and Express Solicitors

Civil court delays have remained stubbornly high over the last 12 months, according to new research carried out by law firm Express Solicitors on behalf of the Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO).

The findings come on the day the government’s latest civil justice statistics were published.[1] The data shows that the mean time taken for small claims to go to trial was 50.6 weeks in the second quarter of the year, just two weeks less than the same period in 2023. Meanwhile the time taken for multi/fast track claims to go to trial increased by 1.2 weeks on average, to 79.3 weeks, over the same period. 

Both mean times represent a slight improvement on the previous two quarters, however they are still far below where they were in the final quarter before the pandemic, when the mean waits were 31.1 and 60.9 weeks. 

The Express/ACSO data suggest the overall delay in getting multi-track cases heard in England and Wales has fallen by 11 days in the past 12 months, from an average of 353 days in 2022/23 to 341 days in 2023/24. 

ACSO says there is no cause for celebration. “Access to justice is still hugely delayed, therefore access to justice is still being denied,” said Matthew Maxwell Scott, executive director of ACSO.

“It takes a very long time indeed for the court to hear a case. While all the media and political attention has understandably been focused in recent weeks on criminal justice, it is in civil justice, where most citizens access the law, where performance has been particularly dire for many years.” 

A postcode lottery still applies to our civil courts, according to ACSO, with the Express Solicitors data showing the South East taking the unwelcome position of worst-performing region for the second year running, with people waiting an average 423 days to have their case heard. 

The South West has seen the worst yearly drop, falling from fourth overall to eighth out of the ten regions. In 2022/23 the average delay there was 296 days, but that has worsened to more than a year, at 383 days. 

The best performer remains the North East, in equal first place alongside the East Midlands but still with an average 296-day wait for justice.

In its research, Express examined a total pool of 7,500 cases to find 326 multi-track claims that met the requirements for the study. These cases were researched and analysed to get a clearer picture of the bottle necks for civil justice.

Maxwell Scott said: “The data underlines that there is a very long road ahead for the new government to rescue civil justice. The Ministry of Justice must work much harder to reduce the backlog by improving court infrastructure and processes to improve access to justice for UK citizens.”

Data table for civil justice delays: England and Wales 

Source: Express Solicitors 

Maxwell Scott added that while the data represented the experience of one national law firm, it is a fair reflection of the scale of the overall problem, because “this is a universal complaint from every single one of our members.” 

He said: “We hope the new Justice Select Committee will look into this with urgency. The previous committee’s inquiry into the operation of the civil courts was derailed by the general election, giving no time for MPs to hold ministers and officials to account.” 

James Maxey, CEO of Express Solicitors, said: “This is the third year that we have completed the court delays data analysis. There has been a slight improvement since moving to a digital platform but the delays are still way below the claimed performance level. Claimants stuck in the UK civil justice system, left waiting for their claims to be determined deserve much better.

“Despite changes which forced the majority of claimants to use the MoJ’s digital service to bring their claims, the data shows that the time spent waiting for the claim to be allocated to a local court is unacceptable. Unbelievably, part of the delay is caused by printing the claim documents off the digital platform onto paper and posting it out to the local court. The local court then has to confirm receipt of the court file and set a date for the CCMC hearing, but this takes time.”

Maxey added: “We have chased progress on claims where there has been radio silence, only to be told that the paper court file cannot be located and we have had to reconstitute the court file and send it to the local court for the claim to proceed. Calling the Civil National Business Centre is made as difficult as possible, with call waiting over an hour. When the call is eventually answered we are often told that no information is available and simply wait to hear further from the court.

“This is not an efficient system that is fit for purpose for use by our clients. One would hope that the incoming government will recognise the shortcomings and afford the civil justice system the urgent attention that it desperately needs.”

Note: The delay is calculated by measuring the time elapsing between issuing and serving the claim form, (having paid any court fee as appropriate), and the first costs and case management conference taking place.  The CCMC is a procedural hearing for the court to identify and understand what the real issues in dispute are and to consider whether they can be narrowed before Trial. The Judge will thereafter make a costs and case management order usually through to Trial. We believe this is an appropriate way to measure the delay, because it is done at the initiative of the Court and forces the parties to the table. Of course, there are often more than one CCMCs during the process, and plenty of cases do proceed to Trial, but we maintain that this remains one of the best ways to compare like-for-like court delays across England and Wales.