Metric permalink
Crown Court outstanding caseload (E&W)
Part of the Public Service Capacity domain. Total number of open Crown Court cases awaiting hearing in England and Wales, measuring the depth of the criminal justice backlog.
Latest data
Latest reading
End Mar 2026
Change between the two latest observations (2025 to End Mar 2026), in stress score.
A higher reading is treated as worse for this indicator.
Score composition
Stress score
Since the August 2026 release
What changed on this indicator between the two releases: method only.
Blended from two measured components: (2/3 weight) and trend (1/3 weight); where no trend can be computed the metric is scored on its level alone. Volatility is published as a diagnostic and does not enter the blend. Full formula on the methodology page.
Level · 2/3 weight
Percentile: this metric is scored against its own history, where today sits between its best and worst recorded years.
Trend · 1/3 weight
Measured from the direction and size of the change between the two most recent readings.
Volatility · diagnostic, not blended
100Measured from how much this indicator has swung period on period across its recorded history.
Data confidence and provenance
Confidence and source
How much weight to put on the reading, the mean data-confidence across the component metrics (source quality, recency and completeness).
Source
Criminal court statistics quarterly
- Update frequency
- Quarterly
- Reliability
- high
Provenance
- Provider
- Ministry of Justice
- Series ID
- Crown Court outstanding caseload
- Frequency
- quarterly
- Accessed
- 7 July 2026
Known weakness
Caseload counts reflect court listing practices and capacity rather than purely demand, and case complexity is not captured in simple caseload totals.
Notes
Verified official value from Ministry of Justice (Crown Court outstanding caseload), accessed 2026-07-07.
Historical values
History
| Period | Value | Relative |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 43.1 | |
| 2017 | 39 | |
| 2018 | 33 | |
| 2019 | 38.1 | |
| 2020 | 57 | |
| 2021 | 58.6 | |
| 2022 | 62.7 | |
| 2023 | 67.1 | |
| 2024 | 70.9 | |
| 2025 | 78.3 | |
| 2026 | 80.1 |