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<p>Data relating to the waiting time in weeks for cases at the Crown Court in England
and Wales can be found in Tables C6 (by case type), C7 (by plea) and C8 (by remand
status) of the published National Statistics series ‘Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly’
(latest to June 2020) <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics</a></p><p>
</p><p>Waiting times for England alone require a further breakdown from the published
data and are provided in the table attached with this response.</p><p> </p><p>On Monday
7 September, the Crime Recovery Plan was published which sets out our comprehensive
plan to tackle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the justice system by boosting
capacity across criminal courts.</p><p> </p><p>As one of the first among other comparable
jurisdictions globally to resume jury trials, our Crown Courts are currently listing
over 200 jury trials and conducting thousands of other hearings every week. The magistrates’
courts have been completing more cases than they receive, dealing with over 21,000
cases each week and tackling the backlog.</p><p>We have also installed plexiglass
screens into over 200 courtrooms and over 100 jury retiring rooms enabling us to safely
open 255 Crown Court rooms for jury trials, roughly the number that were hearing jury
trials before Covid.</p><p> </p><p>We’re also investing record amounts - the biggest
single investment in court estate maintenance for more than 20 years – and have unlocked
vital capacity by opening 16 Nightingale Courts to provide 29 additional court rooms.</p>
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