18 Month Average Before Trial

Multi-track or Fast-track claims now take an average of 18 months to come to trial, as delays continue to worsen in the civil courts.

The latest civil justice statistics produced by the Ministry of Justice for the period between April and June this year show that it took on average 78.2 weeks for these claims to reach a trial. This was 2.8 weeks longer than in the same period in 2022 and way beyond any pre-pandemic figures. The highest waiting time in the decade before Covid was 61 weeks.

In April to June 2023, it took an average of 52.3 weeks between a small claim being issued and the claim going to trial, one week longer than the same period in 2022.

This is despite the fact that the number of claims being submitted has dropped. These fell from 2,029,258 in 2019 to 1,538,846 in 2022, a reduction of half a million claims, or 24%.

Oliver Kew

Published on 02/10/2023