Behind closed doors

When I was young and the summers were longer, I used to travel extensively around the West Midlands to defend motorists whose sole crime was to be found driving in the jurisdictional areas of certain magistrates' courts '“ Oldhill, Oldbury and Willenhall to name but a few.

In those courts, a breach of the Road Traffic Acts was not looked upon as a pre-requisite to a conviction, but was seen as an aggravating feature which merited an increased fine. Local justice was meted out '“ a £10 fine if your client was innocent and a £15 fine if they were sure of guilt!

Those courts have now been closed for a long time, and their passing was mourned by few (apart from those local solicitors who had offices within walking distance of them).We are now faced with further extensive cuts to the number of operational magistrates' and county courts.

The coalition wants to close 103 magistrates' courts and 54 county courts, a reduction of just under 30 per cent of our court buildings. It also wishes to merge local justice areas. They say the number and location of these courts does not reflect changes in population, workload or transport and communication links.

So, how will the proposals affect the Midland Circuit?

Consultation process

A series of consultation papers relating to specific geographically defined areas were published on the 23 June 2010 along with an impact assesment signed by Jonathon Djanogly. The consultation process ended on the 5 September 2010 and the results of the consultation will be available before Christmas.

The impact assessment makes interesting reading and gives the reader a big clue as to what the result of the consultation will be. It starts by identifying what it describes as 'the problem' and concludes by branding the 'do nothing' option as 'Option 0' and the proposed mass closures (which it terms the moderate court closure option) as 'Option 1'. All other options were 'discounted'.

Further clues as to what the future holds are in the costs and benefits section, where all 'un-monetised' costs are promised to be considered/addressed at the implementation stage of the impact assessment.

The impact assessment answers the self-posed question: what is the problem under consideration? Why is government intervention necessary?

'HMCS currently operates its criminal and civil court business from a total of 530 courthouses. This approach is based upon the need to provide local justice for court users while ensuring courts are well maintained and utilised.

'However since the creation of HMCS in 2005 the workload of the magistrates and county courts has fallen to such an extent that many courthouses are significantly underutilised... The proposal... aims to improve the court utilisation of magistrates' and county courts by moving work to courts with better facilities while at the same time saving running costs from the closure and disposal of the surplus courts.'

The author of the IA states: 'The proposals will have a direct impact on increasing magistrates' and county court utilisation levels, enabling greater flexibility due to co-locating magistrates' and county courts, centralising selected operations at strategic locations across the HMCS estates and ensuringaccess to courts.'

The economic case

In these austere and financially straightened times all proposals that produce cost savings should be carefully considered, particularly if its implementation prevents cuts in other more important areas.

The minister believes the proposals, if implemented, would save at least £46.8m per annum '“ not a small contribution tothe cuts that the Lord Chancellor, Ken Clarke QC, an old circuiteer, will have to make to his budget. Doubts about the savings calculations are set out in Philip Henson's article (see solicitorsjournal.com, 16 August 2010). He states: 'The consultation has not been costed at all and is based upon some assumptions, and in some instances no assumption at all.' He quotes from the impact assessment which says: 'Due to their uncertainy and the absence of key dataa number of costs and benefits (e.g. including future estate sales receipts) have not yet been calculated.'

The criticisms diminish but do not change the fact that in monetary terms alone there must be substantial savings to be made by implementing these proposals. Equally there is an opportunity for achieving an increase in efficiency in centralising court centres.

Human impact

What about the effect upon 'customers' of closing what some consider to be the equivalent of the corner shop?

The HMCS says it is committed to providing a high-quality courts service withina reasonable travelling distance of the communities that use it, while ensuring value for money from taxpayers. It states that court users should not have to make excessively long or difficult journeys to attend court, but also says that geographical proximity for all court users should not be the sole or even primary concern.

HMCS says: 'We need to ensure that local communities, including those in rural areas, have access to a court... At the same time we must be realistic about the frequency with which most people need to visit a court compared to other services which they use and travel to more regularly such as banks, schools, supermarkets or hospitals.'

The authors of the impact assessment have carried out many individual impact tests, including a 'rural proofing impact test' which concludes that initial screening of rural proofing indicates there will be a small impact on availability of public and private services, mainly as a result of court attendees (legal providers and local justice agencies) having to travel further to court and the associate cost.

However, further centralisation of the court system may mitigate some of these costs as the consolidation of court activities is likely to mean fewer journeys to court regarding ease of travel to court for users,the impact on those already in rural areas is likely to be small as often travel links are better to major centres than between rural towns.

A detailed alternative travel assessment is given within the consultation proposals in respect of each potential 'doomed' court helpfully giving distances between the old and proposed new court and times for available means of transport.

Having considered the logistical problems that the proposed closures would cause upon our circuit, I am not convinced the proposals constitute a real problem for the law abiding court attending classes who are accustomed to travelling to out of town shopping centres, going on continental holidays, supporting their travelling sports teams on away fixtures and visiting far flung members of their family.

For those members of the criminal classes who arrange 'away days' where they travel into rural areas to commit crimes, the extra travelling time and distance involved in attending courts that are not on their doorstep should not cause them too much of a problem or engender much public sympathy.

Proposals for the Midlands

The individual consultation papers for Warwickshire and West Midlands, Staffordshire and West Mercia and the East Midlands deal in detail with the individual economic and logistic reasons for the proposed closures on the Midland Circuit of 21 magistrates' courts (Halesowen, Sutton Coldfield, West Bromwich, Rugby, Stoke, Tamworth, Ludlow, Market Drayton, Oswestry, Ilkeston, Newark, Worksop, Retford, Coalville, Market Harborough, Melton Mowbray, Spalding, Towcester, Daventry, Rutland and Kettering) and 17 county courts (Rugby, Stourbridge, Stratford upon Avon, Newark, Worksop, Melton Mowbray, Wellingborough, Grantham, Skegness, Tamworth, Oswestry, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Evesham, Redditch, Burton-upon-Trent and Kidderminster).

No use

The architects of the proposals effectively use 'utilisation rates' (calculated by using the time that a courtroom is used, against the hours that a courtroom is available) to show how inefficient our present use of court buildings is.

The calculations show utilisation rates for magistrates' courts administered by LCJBs within the Midland Circuit as follows: Warwickshire (86.8 per cent), West Midlands (68.9 per cent), West Mercia (66.5 per cent), Northamptonshire (65.3 per cent), Leicestershire (62.9 per cent), Staffordshire (61.4 per cent), Derbyshire (58.8 per cent), Nottinghamshire (53.1 per cent) and Lincolnshire (37.2 per cent).

In the current climate such inefficient use of buildings cannot be tolerated when cuts in public spending of the magnitude that we have been softened up to expect are imminent.

The proposals also point out that those courts under threat of closure suffer one or more of the following: a failure to meet the minimum requirements of HMCS; a failure to comply with disability legislation; poor facilities for the public and the magistracy; lack of video equipment causing an inability to have video remands or video link trials; lack of custody facilities; and a tendency for cell facilities to flood. The most bizarre fact is that Rutland Magistrates' Court has not had any work listed before it for two years!

I suspect that fear of embarrassment is the reason why utilisation rates are not given in respect of county courts, some have 'judicial visitors' as infrequently as three days per month and none of the county courts that are under threat on the Midland Circuit are 'full-time courts' with regular, daily judicial sittings. They are 'ghost courts'. Also, the facilities at these courts do not match those at the courts to which it is proposed to transfer the work. I shall not miss sitting as a recorder at Stourbridge, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Redditch or Kidderminster County Courts, where the facilities, including the non-availability of a current edition of the Green Book, leave a lot to be desired.

Additionally, the increased use of mediation and ADR have reduced the number of cases that actually come to trial in the county court. More claims are now processed online and other non-judicial processes are being centralised away from the frontline counter services. The days of back-to-back personal injury cases have gone as have the heavy and automotive industries that caused them.

A necessary step

I appreciate that historically the administration of justice was localised and that in an ideal money-worry free world we would preserve these local courts and limit court users travel. However, we are not in such a world. We desperately need to make savings to support the continued provision of essential legal services and this is one way of saving a not inconsiderable amount of taxpayers money that may prevent cuts to other legal services.

The choices that the government has to make in relation to the proposed closures would not trouble Lord Sugar for a moment. The utilisation rates of some of the doomed courts are derisory. The potential savings when balanced against the increased travel and inconvenience suffered by a few court users cry out for this solution and I support it.