Commenting on the Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly for the final quarter of 2025 showing the time taken for civil cases to reach the courts, the Association of Consumer Support Organisations (ACSO) has cautiously welcomed a third successive quarter of apparent improvement but warned that serious problems remain.
The figures in the final quarter of last year highlighted by officials are 36.1 weeks for small claims versus 39 weeks for July to September 2025 and 57.4 weeks for multi/fast track versus 60 weeks previously.
However, this masks a significant challenge with the data, as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) recently changed from headlining mean or average waits to median or more typical ones, therefore those facing particularly long delays are seeing their cases excluded from the numbers.
Looking at the average waits, which take account of all cases, delays are still well above where they were in the equivalent three months for 2019, which was the last full quarter before the pandemic. In October to December 2025, the average numbers were 47.3 weeks for small claims and 71.1 weeks for multi/fast track. In October to December 2019, the equivalent figures were 37.1 and 60.9 weeks respectively.
Matthew Maxwell-Scott, ACSO’s executive director, said: “Three successive quarters of improvements in the median waits represents progress but on a like-for-like basis things seem to way off where they were before Covid struck.
“In order for these statistics to be credible, the MoJ needs either to stick to one set of numbers or provide the missing data for median waits, as these only go back to 2022.
“Even looking at the more favourable interpretation, people are waiting more than a year when it comes to more serious cases and around nine months for a small claim. But the experience for many claimants will be far worse than this and they may understandably not be very impressed by the government’s statistical gymnastics here.
“Perhaps we are all guilty of not spotting the spin sooner, but it’s now up to officials to come clean and present the data in a more transparent way. We would also hope the Justice Select Committee will consider this as it reviews the government’s progress into meeting the recommendations of its 2025 report into the County Court.”
The date for October to December 2025 can be found here.