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what_do_magistrates_courts_cost
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what_do_magistrates_courts_cost [2019/02/27 16:40] (current) frescom created |
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| + | ====== WHAT DOES A MAGISTRATES COURT TRIAL ACTUALLY COST? ====== | ||
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| + | As with any question about what a public service costs its not so simple and rather depends on what you mean. | ||
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| + | The cost of the Magistrates Court system can be broken down into four distinct cost areas: | ||
| + | 1. Defence Solicitors | ||
| + | 2. Court Building itself | ||
| + | 3. CPS Prosecutors | ||
| + | 4. Other Services (Police, Probation and Prison Services) | ||
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| + | The first one is easy to figure out but the others are not straight forward. But a quick back of a fag packet calculation would look like this: | ||
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| + | ===== 1. DEFENCE COSTS (LEGAL AID BILL) ===== | ||
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| + | In 2017/18 the Legal Aid bill for the Magistrates Court was £124m and they dealt with 299,000 cases. So the Legal Aid cost was £417 per case. | ||
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| + | The courts are open roughly every day except Sunday. Thats about 313 days per year. So they deal with about 954 cases per day. | ||
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| + | There were 192 courts in 2017/18. Although 15 were closed that year. The cost per court per day was £2,072. | ||
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| + | But its still yet a bit more complex. The Magistrates actualy dealt with 1.2 million cases. Solicitors made only 300,000 claims which includes duty days at court where they deal with multiple matters. | ||
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| + | So its perhaps more accurate to say that the cost per case was only £82 and the cost per court per day is only £410 | ||
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| + | ===== 2. COURT INFASTRUCTURE ===== | ||
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| + | The Magistrates are working for free but there are staff to pay along with heat, light, pensions, VAT building maintenance and all the rest.... | ||
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| + | There were 4,825 members of staff but that is all courts not just magistrates. The total cost of the courts or the total spent by HMCTS is around £1.1bn. | ||
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| + | It looks like the Magistrates Courts cover about 90% of the work but only spend 17% of the money. The Higher Courts dealt with about 114,000 cases and had a Legal Aid spend of half a billion. Its reasonable (maybe even accurate) to assume that proportion holds true for HMCTS spending. After all a magistrate is free but a Crown Court judge is very well paid. The Magistrates are down and dirty but the Crown Courts are rather palatial by comparison and well staffed. | ||
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| + | So, the running costs of the Magistrates Courts is about £189m giving a cost per day per court of £3,148. Each court costs about a miilion quid a year. | ||
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| + | ===== 3. CPS ===== | ||
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| + | No Data yet... | ||
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| + | ===== 4. OTHER SERVICES ===== | ||
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| + | No Data yet... | ||
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| + | ===== CONCLUSION ===== | ||
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| + | So the back of the fag box says our Magistrates Courts cost roughly £3,500 per day per court. But that is still missing some other costs. We have not factored in the CPS or Probation or Police Liason or the Prison Services. | ||
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what_do_magistrates_courts_cost.txt · Last modified: 2019/02/27 16:40 by frescom
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