Publication: Criminal courts backlog

May 25, 2023 by Auditor General
Publication cover: Criminal courts backlog

The criminal trial backlog that built up during the Covid-19 pandemic has been significantly reduced but waiting times for the most serious crimes have doubled.

Main report - PDF 806Kb

All files

Easy read summary - PDF 656Kb Animation transcript - RTF 99Kb News release - PDF 120Kb

Videos

Key facts from our report

A transcript of this video is available to download with the other files on this page.

Images

Exhibit 1a: Criminal Courts Covid-19 timelineExhibit 1a
Exhibit 1b: Criminal Courts Covid-19 timelineExhibit 1b
Exhibit 2: The criminal justice system CriminalExhibit 2
Exhibit 3: RRT spendingExhibit 3
Exhibit 4: The number of outstanding scheduled trials in criminal courts since April 2020Exhibit 4
Exhibit 5: Outstanding scheduled trials for summary casesExhibit 5
Exhibit 6: Outstanding scheduled trials for solemn casesExhibit 6
Exhibit 7: Conversion rates from cases coming to court to an evidence-led trialExhibit 7
Exhibit 8: Average number of weeks to evidence-led trial across all criminal court types before and after Covid-19Exhibit 8