Thank you everybody for coming today. I know that many of you have travelled quite some distance to be here, and many of you will have made special arrangements to commit a whole day to this event. I am grateful to you for doing so. It is, I believe, a very very important time in the justice system and the Lay Magistracy.
Before I say anything else could I just make three quick points? First of all, the Lay Magistracy is right at the heart of our justice system particularly the criminal justice system. The public confidence in the justice system depends very much on their confidence in the magistracy. Second, the quality of the lay magistracy has never been higher. It has been and remains difficult to become a magistrate and so it should. You as chairs lead a very talented and able group of people. Thirdly, the government remains totally committed to the role of the lay magistracy in our justice system. We have demonstrated that recently with the detail of our constitutional changes, in which we spell out that the lay magistracy are regarded as part of the judicial family. The new forms of appointment, whilst they will ensure the continuation of advisory committee and the local element of appointment, will apply quickly to the magistracy. Also the Lord Chief Justice will be President of all courts for England and Wales, including the magistrates courts - so you are completely at the heart of the judicial system and we in the country depend upon you in relation to the confidence that people have in the justice system.
The Department for Constitutional Affairs has been in existence for almost nine months now. Many of our key reforms are now in full swing. Underpinning all of these reforms and the creation of the Unified Administration is the way that we serve the court user.
Our vision is simple. It is one that delivers world class services to the public. This means making sure that the court system best supports the user by running efficiently, effectively, and flexibly responding to the needs of local areas. In all of those issues we are in many respects responding to your frustrations.
We don't need a new constitution. We need to get the one we have now to work better for the public, so that we can raise the confidence in public institutions. We don't need a wholly new, reinvented criminal justice system. We need the criminal justice system we have now to work. We need to reform the system, and we need to base this reform on performance. Both working pro-actively to raise performance in certain areas, and more generally to enable the staff to perform better in a more efficient and effective administrative structure.
Let me talk about the requirement to centre this vision on the needs of the public. Unified Administration is a central way we can do this to improve the criminal justice system. Robin Auld, in his review of the criminal courts, identified areas where the current system works badly, inefficiently, and sometimes divisively.
It is important that family cases are dealt with quickly - and unified administration will allow us to better address the balance of work going to the Family Proceedings Court and the County Court. In Birmingham, for example, recently the Family Proceedings Court moved into the same building as the County Court, which means that the judges and the magistrates can work together more closely.
It can be difficult to move cases between court jurisdictions, and across boundaries.
It is not right, I believe, that staff frequently have to spend their time overcoming the problems of, rather than benefiting from, an IT infrastructure.
It is not acceptable for victims or witnesses, to have to wait hours for cases inexplicably delayed to make it to the courtroom. That doesn't help the public and it doesn't help you.
None of these problems are the fault of those working in the courts - they are the consequence, I believe, of a system that needs reform. I am proud of the commitment of our staff, and the wide range of the skills that they bring to their jobs. Time and time again as I visit the courts around the country, I am struck by the profound desire of staff and magistrates to deliver justice in a way to which the public would respond but who are persistently frustrated by things beyond their control. I believe that the reforms that we are introducing, particularly Unified Administration will help staff and will help the Lay Magistrates to do the job that they are desperately needing to do.
For example, our work on raising the fine collection and enforcement rate in the magistrates' courts will be important in reaffirming and raising public confidence in the system as a whole. In the Courts Act we have included measures that increase your sentencing powers in this area and allow you to get tough with fine defaulters. I believe that at the most basic level, the public must have confidence that the decisions of the court will be enforced. When you impose a penalty, you should expect that it will be implemented, as an essential part of the justice process. The pilots we are running in selected regions across the country are testing out how we can better meet those expectations.
Programmes such as LIBRA and the Effective Trial Management Programme will help all those working at any level in the courts in their day to day business. In the case of Unified Administration, it will allow us to make the system as a whole clearer and easier to use. In the future benefits such as common case files, greater co-location of magistrates and county courts, and common financial and accounting systems will mean that we will be able to both support staff and empower them to focus on service delivery. As I say all too often, magistrates are keen to see the public well served and cases brought on with reasonable dispatch only to be completely thwarted time and time again by the absence of a witness or a file or a defendant or a lawyer. We need to co-operate to make sure those things happen less and less.
It's only through an effective partnership that we'll be able to deliver this important change. You are key players in making this system work. You will be at the heart of the transition to Unified Administration. You will have a presence as I have said, on the new Judicial Appointments Commission, something Chris Leslie will talk to you about later. You are, of course, at the centre of making the National Strategy for the Recruitment of Lay Magistrates work - your participation in the Magistrates Shadowing scheme so far has been pivotal in making it a success, and I believe that we are together beginning to build real momentum in that area. I remember talking to many of you at Millbank back in October when we launched the strategy, and I have been impressed by the momentum that has followed since then. Our feedback from employers involved in this scheme has emphasised how highly they regard the role of the lay magistracy in delivering thriving communities. Unified Administration, with its focus on building connections with the local communities so that we can serve their needs, relies on the magistrates to be active advocates of the change. You have been helpful in the extreme in your constructive engagement with the design process. Now I ask you to work closely with us in turning that design into a reality. That I believe is what today is all about.
Unified Administration also enables you to work more closely with your counterparts in the professional Judiciary. Working in partnership to deliver justice across jurisdictions is something the new agency will foster, and I'm sure Lord Justice Thomas will have more to say about that this afternoon.
These things are big. They are broad, and they are forward looking and future looking at the agenda. But I believe it is only by being ambitious that we can be successful and deliver services that truly serve the public which must be at the heart of what we are trying to achieve.
Could I finish by illustrating why I believe so strongly in the need for, and the purpose of, this reform programme. Just before Christmas, I was in the USA, looking at a range of criminal justice practices there. I was in a place called the Midtown Community Court in New York, which has helped to turn Times Square which is at the heart of Manhattan from a magnet for low-level criminal activity - most of it drug-related - to a new hub of the city, a magnet now for the consumers who swarm in and out of its stores. Handling about 15,000 lower-level cases from the Times Square area per year, it has a range of sentencing options at its disposal including work projects in the local community, and employs justices from the local area to preside. Its focus on local justice for the local community is remarkable, and one of the principal reasons for its success. I met with Judge Judith Kaye, who is the chief judge of New York City, and she has been a driving force for change. She told me that when she started with initiatives like the Midtown, she was told over and over again that it wouldn't work, it wasn't worth bothering about, it was bound to fail. All that could be done was to manage the system. Keep the lid on. Hold it down. Don't expect things to improve. Faced with that she said she responded, every time, by saying simply: "Keep doing what you've always done, and you'll keep getting what you've always got".
I believe that's the attitude we need to take towards our justice system. Reform isn't an option. Reform isn't a choice. Reform is essential. This next year gives us, I believe, an opportunity to deliver the reform that so many of you tell me that you want, this reform for a purpose that it benefits both those who use and those work in the courts. Your role in this programme, in particular as we move towards the implementation of UA, is central, and the agency's success in its first year will to a large degree rely on our working relationship. You have done so much to ensure that this relationship is strong so far, and time and time again you have demonstrated why we value your role and depend upon you to make the justice system for the whole country work.
I have absolutely no doubt that with your help we will succeed.
Thank you very much indeed.