Justice, courts and access to justice
England and Wales is running out of justice. The Crown Court backlog has passed 80,000 cases, with trials booked years ahead. Prisons hold a quarter more people than they were built for. And in much of the country, the right to legal aid means little, because no local lawyer takes the work.
The gaps below are mostly missing machinery, not just missing money. No inspector watches the courts. No independent body forecasts prison demand or compensates the wrongly convicted. Nothing resentences the thousands still held on a punishment Parliament abolished. Each entry names what could be built, and who could build it.
Full landscape notes (July 2026)
England and Wales's justice system is in managed crisis across courts, legal aid, prisons and post-conviction review. The Crown Court open caseload hit a record ~80,200 in December 2025, with trials listed into 2029. The government's December 2025 response accepted Sir Brian Leveson's Part 1 "blueprint", and the Courts and Tribunals Bill (introduced 25 February 2026) legislates the structural half (removing defendants' right to elect Crown Court trial, a judge-alone Crown Court Bench Division, an appeals permission stage, extended magistrates' sentencing powers), while the diversion and early-guilty-plea half remains unfunded and unlegislated. The Sentencing Act 2026 (implementing the Gauke review) introduced earned-progression release against a prison population above 87,000, roughly 25% over certified normal capacity; the Public Accounts Committee warned in early 2026 that space could run out within months. On the civil side, the first legal aid fee rises in a decade (December 2025) covered only housing and immigration; deserts persist in education (88% of the population without a local provider), welfare benefits (82%) and community care (~70%). Government accepted the Civil Justice Council's PACCAR litigation-funding fix on 17 December 2025 but omitted it from the 2026 King's Speech. The Law Commission opens a consumer class-actions project in autumn 2026 and reports on criminal appeals in 2026–27. The Hillsborough Law (Public Office (Accountability) Bill) stalled in January 2026 over a security-services candour carve-out and was carried over to the new session in April 2026.
The gaps (13)
Leveson's diversion package: accepted in December 2025, absent from the Courts and Tribunals Bill
The court rescue plan had two halves. Only the one curtailing jury trial reached the law.
The PACCAR fix: promised 'when parliamentary time allows', missing from the 2026 King's Speech
A court ruling broke the funding behind group lawsuits. The fix keeps slipping.
No opt-out collective redress regime outside competition law
Wrong millions of people a few pounds each, and British courts can barely touch you.
Legal aid deserts: no duty or mechanism to secure provider coverage by area of law
Legal aid exists on paper. Most people have no local education or benefits lawyer.
No inspectorate sees the whole criminal justice pathway, and none inspects the courts at all
Four inspectors watch the pieces of criminal justice. Nobody inspects the courts at all.
Problem-solving courts stuck at pilot: no statutory footing, central unit or rollout funding
Two decades after Britain's first drug courts, intensive supervision is still a pilot.
Miscarriage-of-justice compensation still requires proof of innocence, decided inside the MoJ
Conviction quashed? You still must prove innocence beyond reasonable doubt to be paid.
A discredited CCRC with an unreformed referral test and no external oversight
The last resort for the wrongly convicted is itself in collapse, and answers to no one.
No national coroner service: 85 locally funded jurisdictions with no consistent standards
How well a death is investigated depends on which council pays the coroner.
IPP: no resentencing mechanism for the 2,400 people still imprisoned on an abolished sentence
Parliament abolished the sentence in 2012. More than 2,400 people are still serving it.
No standing prison-capacity mechanism: crisis managed by ad hoc emergency releases
Nobody forecasts prison places until they run out. Then comes the emergency release.
No shared operational identifier or mandatory data standard across criminal justice agencies
Police, courts and prisons can't follow the same case. The backlog hides in the gaps.
No auditable records infrastructure for guardianship and deprivation-of-liberty decisions
Courts control the lives of 200,000 people. Families can't audit a single decision.
Who is already here: key actors (15)
- Ministry of Justice (government body): Owns courts, legal aid, prisons and sentencing policy; authored the December 2025 Leveson response and the PACCAR legislation commitment.
- HM Courts & Tribunals Service (government body): Runs courts and tribunals and the Common Platform case system; has had no independent inspectorate since HMICA was wound up (closed 2010, abolished 2012).
- Legal Aid Agency (government body): Executive agency commissioning civil and criminal legal aid contracts; has no statutory duty to secure geographic provider coverage.
- Law Commission of England and Wales (statutory body): Criminal appeals review (final report early 2027; standalone compensation report due end-2026) and a consumer class actions project commencing autumn 2026.
- Civil Justice Council (advisory body): Its June 2025 litigation funding final report recommended reversing PACCAR and light-touch regulation; government accepted this in December 2025 but has not yet legislated.
- Criminal Justice Joint Inspection (HMICFRS, HMCPSI, HMI Prisons, HMI Probation) (inspection consortium): The four criminal justice inspectorates' joint programme under the Police and Justice Act 2006: the closest thing to whole-system inspection, but periodic and agency-bounded.
- Criminal Cases Review Commission (arm's-length body): Investigates alleged miscarriages of justice; in institutional crisis after the Malkinson case, Henley review and a 2025 Justice Committee report demanding root-and-branch reform.
- Law Society of England and Wales (professional body): Publishes the legal aid deserts heatmaps mapping provider coverage by area of law and local authority: the key evidence base on advice deserts.
- Bar Council (professional body): Runs a Leveson review tracker and parliamentary briefings on the Courts and Tribunals Bill; documents which accepted recommendations lack funding.
- JUSTICE (charity): Cross-party law reform charity; briefed Parliament on the Courts and Tribunals Bill and responded to the Law Commission criminal appeals consultation.
- Centre for Justice Innovation (charity): Evidence and technical assistance for problem-solving courts and Intensive Supervision Courts; the de facto (non-statutory) champion of rollout.
- Prison Reform Trust (charity): Bromley Briefings prison factfile; leading advocacy on IPP sentences and prison capacity.
- APPEAL (charity): Law practice/charity that represented Andrew Malkinson; casework and campaigning on wrongful convictions, CCRC reform and compensation.
- INQUEST (charity): Supports bereaved families after state-related deaths; campaigns for a national coroner service and the Hillsborough Law's inquest legal-aid parity.
- Access to Justice Foundation (funder): National charitable funder of free legal advice; channels pro bono costs orders and grants to advice organisations in desert areas.
Funders active or plausible here (13)
- Ministry of Justice / Legal Aid Agency (statutory funder of legal aid, courts and pilots such as Intensive Supervision Courts)
- HM Treasury via spending reviews (the binding constraint on Leveson and Gauke implementation)
- The Legal Education Foundation (largest UK justice-focused foundation; funds Justice Lab, data and access-to-justice work)
- Nuffield Foundation (justice research; funds the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, a replicable model for criminal justice)
- Access to Justice Foundation (national funder of free legal advice; receives pro bono costs orders)
- Baring Foundation (funds civil society use of law and legal action)
- Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (justice reform and penal policy grants)
- Barrow Cadbury Trust (criminal justice, Transition to Adulthood alliance)
- Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales (small charities in criminal justice and advice)
- AB Charitable Trust (access to justice and penal reform)
- ESRC / ADR UK (funds Data First and justice data infrastructure)
- City Bridge Foundation (London advice-sector funding)
- Commercial third-party litigation funders (Association of Litigation Funders members; de facto funders of collective redress, contingent on the PACCAR fix)
Policy notes
The defining pattern is acceptance without instruments. Government has accepted Leveson Part 1, the CJC's PACCAR recommendations, CCRC reform in principle and inquest legal-aid parity, but only structural court reform and sentencing reached statute (Courts and Tribunals Bill, February 2026; Sentencing Act 2026). The 2026 King's Speech omitted litigation funding; the Public Office (Accountability) Bill stalled in January 2026 over a security-services candour carve-out and was carried over in April; Leveson's diversion recommendations and Part 2 (efficiency) await funding decisions. Law Commission workstreams on criminal appeals (final report early 2027), wrongful-conviction compensation (end-2026) and consumer class actions (from autumn 2026) make 2027–28 the legislative window for redress and appeals reform. On-record rejections: IPP resentencing and a national coroner service. Legal aid remains piecemeal: December 2025 fee regulations covered two categories, means-test changes slipped to 2026, and no coverage duty exists anywhere in statute.