Make Time Count completed an InnovateUK funded project into the court backlog and use of alternative sanctions to address this.
Based on 2025 MoJ statistics:
- 374,500 non-motoring cases received a sentence in a magistrates’ court.
- 221,700 (60%) of those were fines.
Fines have an important place in justice. However, when relatively small penalties are imposed for lower-level offending, we should ask a difficult question: does the cost of processing the case outweigh the financial value, and likelihood of reoffending, of the punishment?
Durham police research estimates that progressing a case to court takes around 40 hours of officer time. Applied across those 221,700 fine outcomes, that represents:
8.9 million police hours.
Based on industry standard measure of 1,175 productive hours per officer each year, this is equivalent to:
7,550 officers
At an average annual employment cost of £65,000, the police cost would be:
£491 million.
If each case costs a further £1,700 to process through the magistrates’ court, that adds another:
£377 million.
The combined cost is therefore:
£868 million, almost £1bn.
Using MoJ statistics, we assume the average fine is £230, this produces a total fine value of
~£51 million.
Assuming 20% is not recovered and 15% of the recovered amount is absorbed by administration and collection, the net amount received falls to around:
£35 million.
We are therefore spending approximately:
£25 for every £1 collected.
This is based on Make Time Count research, not an official government cost-benefit assessment. Nevertheless, the difference is large enough to justify a serious discussion about whether more lower-level police cases could be resolved earlier and more effectively.
There are three categories of offence:
- Indictable-only offences: The most serious cases. Must be sent to the Crown Court.
- Either-way offences: can be heard either by magistrates or in the Crown Court.
- Summary offences: lower level, normally completed by magistrates,
Most of us believe the magistrates only see the serious offences. This doesn’t reflect in the MoJ statistics:
When we look at the breakdown, excluding breach proceedings:
- Indictable-only cases: 3.5%
- Either-way cases: 36.2%
- Summary non-motoring cases: 60.3%
97% were lower level summary or either-way cases, not indictable-only offences.
For summary only or either way offences, the police use their discretion as to whether this case needs to go to court or whether they can deal with it directly. Some of this 97% could no doubt be addressed directly by police as an out of court resolution. This is where the police add a set of conditions to a case, such as paying reparations to the victim or attending drug treatment instead of going to court.
I am not arguing that all 97% of cases are suitable for an out-of-court resolution. Seriousness, harm, culpability, offending history, safeguarding, victim views, evidential sufficiency and acceptance of responsibility must all be considered.
However, there are already large differences between regional forces as to their use of out of court resolution versus court. This demonstrates that apparently similar offence categories do receive different outcomes. A phenomena that Magistrates’ Association has warned, “creates a postcode lottery in decision making.”
Some variation is inevitable because every case is different. Variation caused by inconsistent processes, local practice or unequal access to interventions is much harder to justify.
What if we redirected just 20%?
If 20% of the 374,500 magistrates cases were resolved directly by the police, this would represent:
74,900 cases.
An out-of-court resolution still requires investigation and officer time, however, modelling suggests that it takes 20 hours not 40. Thus redirecting those cases would release almost
1.5 million police hours.
That is equivalent to approximately
1,275 police officers,
worth around:
£83 million annually.
Avoiding £1,700 of magistrates’ court costs could save another:
£127 million
Together, that represents a potential annual benefit of approximately:
£210 million
While releasing court capacity for cases that genuinely require prosecution.
The challenge is making the right decision consistently. Working with forces since 2020 Make Time Count’s Eligibility Screening Tool assesses cases against structured national and local criteria.
It brings together offence eligibility, risk, offending history, victim views, admissions, safeguarding considerations and required authority, creating an auditable record of why an out-of-court resolution was, or was not, appropriate. Ensures that every decision goes through the same rigour, producing a proportionate, defensible and accurate decision.
The objective is not to keep everyone out of court. It is to ensure that everyone sent to court needs to be there, and that we are using justice for the right purpose, supporting victims and reducing reoffending, not just issuing more fines.