Justice on a Budget

Justice on a Budget. The Spring Budget was delivered by the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on the 6th March 2024 and offered little by way of comfort so far as the criminal justice system is concerned.

Overall departmental spending is said to rise by 1%, but this is not evenly spread, with protected spending, such as on the NHS, receiving a more significant percentage share. In TV interviews, the Chancellor emphasised that protected spending was ‘prioritising the public services that people care about.’

Regrettably, the Ministry of Justice is not a protected department, and whilst it is proper to note that department spending reviews for 2025 onwards have not yet taken place, current projections suggest spending at £500m lower than current projections.

The Chancellor believes that sometimes better public services can be delivered for less due to new ways of working and better efficiencies. Whilst that may be the case, experience tells us that it doesn’t always work out that way. You will see below that a number of savings depend on the successful deployment of IT changes, despite the fact that only a few days ago, the Courts Service effectively abandoned one of its flagship IT projects.

More detailed Justice reforms specific to criminal justice include:

• Reforming Communications from HM Courts & Tribunal Service – The government will modernise communications from HM Courts & Tribunal Service by bringing forward digital reforms and reducing spend on first-class post.
• Bail Information Service – The government will introduce the Bail Information Service (BIS) to all courts. This will help to remove barriers to bail and reduce the remand population held in custody.
• Growing Prison Productivity – The government is investing £16 million to increase prison workshop activity to boost employability and focus resources on rehabilitative activities.
• AI Document Processing – The government will utilise Artificial Intelligence to reduce the need for manual scanning of paper documents through the introduction of Intelligent Document Processing technology in the administration of court cases.
• Digitising Services in Prisons – The government will invest a further £6 million of additional funding to speed up digitisation of key services in prisons.
• Assessing Risks, Needs, and Strengths – The government will introduce a new offender risk management tool to provide more robust, data-driven decisions on whether offenders are safe to release, helping better protect the public and freeup probation staff capacity to focus on rehabilitative activities.
• Digital Jury Bundles – The government will provide the Crown Prosecution Service with £10 million in additional funding for digitising jury bundles in the criminal courts, reducing paper wastage and unnecessary trial delays. This will save up to 55,000 hours a year in court preparation time to enable reducing the length of trials.

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Image credit: “Jeremy Hunt Official Cabinet Portrait” by UK Government is licensed under CC BY 2.0.