32,212 complaints were logged as of the end of November 2024
Complaints against His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in the UK have surged in the past decade, reported the Law Society Gazette.
As per a written parliamentary answer, a new record for complaints was likely to have been reached last year, with 32,212 complaints being logged as of the end of November 2024. The previous peak was 32,745 complaints in 2023.
“Last year, the Crown court backlog reached the highest that it has ever been, and it is important that the government addresses these delays which will be contributing towards the rise of complaints submitted,” said Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney in a statement published by the Gazette. She had been the one to table the question.
The Gazette noted that the number of complaints has been ticking up over the past 10 years except in the first lockdown year. In 2015, just 16,511 complaints were recorded. Moreover, only 1,591 complaints reached the review stage in 2015; by 2023, this number went up to 4,188.
Nonetheless, case numbers also jumped from 3.98 million in 2015/2016 to 4.1 million in 2023/2024.
“As courts and tribunals work through a record number of cases, we regularly scrutinise data on complaints and are always looking at what action we can take to improve the service we provide to all court users,” an HMCTS spokesperson said in a statement published by the Gazette.
In late December 2024, the UK High Court declared as legally valid 79 divorces that were mistakenly approved because of a computer error that allowed applications to be filed a day early. Two judges flagged the issue to HMCTS – one in November 2022, the other in mid-April 2024.
The court criticized the HMCTS’ sluggish response in its judgment, noting that the issue could have been largely if not completely circumvented had the HMCTS looked into the matter as soon as the first report was made in November 2022.
