Money claims increase while small claims and multi-track cases reach trial faster, new data reveals
New civil justice statistics published by the Ministry of Justice show an increase in county court claims alongside modest improvements in the time taken for cases to reach trial, though campaigners have questioned whether the headline figures fully reflect the reality for court users.
The latest quarterly data, covering October to December 2025, indicates that overall county court claims in England and Wales rose by 3% compared with the same period a year earlier, reaching around 454,000 cases. The majority of these were money claims, which increased by 7% to roughly 388,000.
By contrast, damages claims which include many personal injury cases fell by 20% year on year.
The statistics also show some improvement in how quickly cases progress through the courts. The median time for small claims to reach trial fell to 36.1 weeks, around 6.4 weeks faster than during the same quarter in 2024.
For cases allocated to the fast, intermediate or multi-track, the median time to trial was 57.4 weeks, approximately 9.3 weeks quicker than a year earlier.
Trial volumes rose modestly during the quarter, increasing by 6% to about 13,000 cases, while the number of defended claims remained broadly stable at around 65,000.
Elsewhere in the data, judgments increased by 7% to roughly 297,000 in the final quarter of 2025, with default judgments accounting for the vast majority.
Applications for judicial review also increased significantly. The figures record around 1,100 applications during the period, representing a 56% rise compared with the same quarter in 2024 and the highest quarterly level since early 2017.
Commenting on the latest data, Matthew Maxwell-Scott, ACSO’s executive director, said “Three successive quarters of improvements in the median waits represents progress but on a like-for-like basis things seem to way off where they were before Covid struck.
“In order for these statistics to be credible, the MoJ needs either to stick to one set of numbers or provide the missing data for median waits, as these only go back to 2022.
“Even looking at the more favourable interpretation, people are waiting more than a year when it comes to more serious cases and around nine months for a small claim. But the experience for many claimants will be far worse than this and they may understandably not be very impressed by the government’s statistical gymnastics here.
“Perhaps we are all guilty of not spotting the spin sooner, but it’s now up to officials to come clean and present the data in a more transparent way. We would also hope the Justice Select Committee will consider this as it reviews the government’s progress into meeting the recommendations of its 2025 report into the County Court.”