62,903 Outstanding Cases in the First-Tier Tribunal
A recent article published by the Law Society Gazette outlines the true scale of why so many cases take so long.
''Official figures show there were 62,903 outstanding cases in the first-tier tribunal at the end of the third quarter last year, up 20% on the same period in 2015...
...The age of a case at disposal was 48 weeks between July and September 2016, 15 weeks longer than the same period in 2015.''
The huge amount of outstanding cases are blamed on the fact that the First-Tier Tribunal are short of Judges.
''Government figures show that in 2012 there were 347 fee-paid and 132 salaried judges in the first-tier tribunal. In 2016 there were only 242 fee-paid and 77 salaried...
...In the upper tribunal ... 40 fee-paid and 42 salaried judges in 2012 declined to 35 fee-paid and 42 salaried last year.''
It is clear that there is a need for more Judges to tackle the amount of cases.
''According to a judicial attitudes survey published this month, a quarter of first-tier tribunal judges thought their case workload over the past 12 months was ‘too high’.''
