MAGISTRATES COURTS//THE ODYSSEY SINCE 2013

Everyone (including Christopher Nolan) knows that travel through the four dimensions of space time is at a constant velocity of 186,000 miles per second. However, there is a trade-off: the faster you move through space the slower you move through time. At exactly the speed of light time itself stands completely still.  That`s essential understanding for astrophysicists but notwithstanding their IQ  those of my generation appreciate all too clearly that the velocity of time also  increases with the age of the observer. What happened a year ago feels as if it happened a few months previously and those events that were kick started a decade or more ago seem to have been around just a few years. And so it is with this blog.  It began on this site in 2013 with just a few dozen page views and now daily five figure numbers are a regular occurrence. The 13th anniversary of that first post is imminent.  My thoughts go back to that year when I was a presiding magistrate as to the major changes which have taken place in what can be loosely termed as the institution of the "magistracy".  

The October 2010 Spending Review, delivered by George Osborne, set departmental budgets for the four years to 2014–15. The March 2011 Budget (Kenneth Clarke's "first budget" as Lord Chancellor) reporting on that October 2010 Spending Review put the MoJ's spending falling from £8.3bn in 2010 to £7bn by 2014, a cut of roughly 23%.  In 2010 there were 320 magistrates courts in England and Wales.  That review resulted in the closure of 93 magistrates courts between 2010 and 2014. Today there are just over 150 magistrates' courts across England and Wales.

One of the many arguments against the closure of so many courts was that justice would no longer be local.  Countering that assertion by many MPs the Ministry of Justice had insisted that  90% of court users would be able to reach a court within one hour by public transport, later softened so the government would only assess whether users could reach a court by public transport at all between 7.30am and 7.30pm.  The House of Commons Justice Committee formally recommended a travel standard of no more than one hour by public transport for at least 90% of magistrates court users; a guarantee the MOJ has refused to endorse. 

Alongside the reduction in courts, age related cohorts of retiring magistrates went unreplaced. There were 25,170 magistrates in 2012 falling to 13,340 by 2023 and now around 14,576–14,636 with a national recruitment programme active. They work in association with just under 400 District and Deputy District Judges. 

The 2010 closure programme was projected to save at least £15m a year in courts running costs plus £22m in maintaining the buildings. Despite the narrative above in 2024–25 day-to-day HMCTS spending across all courts and tribunals was around £2.4 billion; the highest level in cash and real terms since comparable data began with rising staff, digital costs and caseload pressure responsible. 

A major change over the last 13 years is the current backlog of cases which stood at around 379,400 in the quarter ending December 2025, the highest since March 2019 and 70% above pre-pandemic (Dec 2019) levels.

Perhaps tying with the above as a result of the actions of truly the worst Lord Chancellor in living memory was the introduction of the Single Justice Procedure. Thankfully I had retired prior to its inception. I will not discuss it further in this post as by entering the term in the search box these posts will be available for information and opinion. 

If any function within the magistrates courts system over the last 13 years is an indication of the incompetence, short term thinking, expediency  and parsimony of HMCTS it is in the snakes and ladders attitudes to sentencing. This is easiest demonstrated as follows:-

Pre-2022 (including 2013): Cap fixed at 6 months custody for a single either-way offence (12 months aggregate for multiple offences). A power to raise this to 12 months existed in statute since the Criminal Justice Act 2003 but was never brought into force.

2 May 2022: Power increased to 12 months for a single either-way offence, under the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 — intended to relieve Crown Court backlog pressure.

30 March 2023: Power reduced back to 6 months by regulations, after MoJ concluded the change was adding to Crown Court pressure rather than relieving it.

November 2024: Power restored to 12 months again.

May 2025: Gauke Independent Sentencing Review reported, driven by prison capacity crisis rather than magistrates' powers specifically, but touching on related territory (short-sentence presumptions, guilty-plea credit).

22 January 2026: Sentencing Act 2026 given Royal Assent; core provisions (in force 22 March 2026) introduce a presumption that sentences of 12 months or under be suspended rather than immediate — indirectly affecting how the 12-month magistrates' ceiling is actually used in practice.

Now under review (Courts and Tribunals Bill, before Parliament as of March 2026): Clause 6 proposes extending magistrates' maximum custodial power further still, to 18 or 24 months, adjustable in six-month steps — with the Magistrates' Association supportive, citing the "efficient" 2024 transition to 12 months as evidence it can work.

Doubling the custodial ceiling for a volunteer bench sitting 26 half days a year asks training to do something I don't think training can do. It teaches procedure well but it cannot manufacture the embodied judgment that comes only from repetition and years of practice. 

No single one of these changes was necessarily fatal to the lay magistracy on its own terms.  However taken together the result has left us an institution with its ancient name and dress intact while its practical substance has been quietly emptied out.  It is a shell almost but not quite unrecognisable to my time travelling 2013 participant even with the cinematographic  talents of Christopher Nolan.  I do not think more training restores what geography, governance and procedure have taken away.  In closing I do not think the legal profession's scepticism about this bench is unreasonable. To quote from last week`s post concerning the opinions within the legal profession, "A segment of the respondents felt that reform would not be enough and openly advocated for the lay magistracy to be scrapped."