Decades of civil justice reform in England and Wales have failed to deliver lasting improvements, according to a new report.
Authored by Dr John Sorabji, Associate Professor of Law at UCL, Improving civil justice reform – an analysis of major reviews in England and Wales, sets out the first comprehensive assessment of civil justice reform over the past 40 years, examining four landmark reviews. It provides an authoritative system-wide look at how reform efforts unfolded – and why they struggled to succeed.
This report is the first in a wider set of evidence reviews and briefing papers commissioned by our Public right to justice (PRTJ) programme, which is exploring how the justice system serves the public and how it can be improved. The report covers the Civil Justice Review (1988), and the Woolf (1996), Jackson (2010), and Briggs (2016) Reviews.
A system in ‘crisis’
The findings come amid growing concerns about the state of the justice system in England and Wales which years of reduced funding have worsened by years of reductions in funding. Some international comparisons suggest that access to affordable civil justice is now more difficult in England and Wales than in many comparable countries.
Previous reform efforts fall short
The report shows that despite repeated diagnoses of cost, delay, complexity, and uneven access to justice, change has often been fragmented and reactive. It identifies how, despite successive reviews of civil justice and implementation of many of their recommendations, sustained improvements to underlying challenges have been difficult to achieve due to four recurring weaknesses:
- lack of institutional capacity to coordinate reform
- limited use of evidence
- overly narrow focus on courts
- failure to treat civil justice as a core public institution
The case for long-term reform
To address these challenges, Sorabji sets out eight recommendations for a credible, sustained path to reform. They include:
- establishing new institutions dedicated to civil justice reform
- securing sustained government funding
- testing changes through pilot schemes before implementation
The report makes a clear case for strengthening the institutional foundations of civil justice reform, arguing that the major reviews analysed were not grounded in robust evidence.
It calls for the creation of a permanent Civil Justice Reform Institute and an independent Access to Justice Institute, backed by long-term funding. Together, these bodies would provide the continuity, expertise and sector engagement needed to deliver change that is properly tested, informed by evidence and part of a coherent, long-term strategy to improve access to justice.
This first report from our Public right to justice programme offers an important contribution to understanding the changes required to successfully improve the civil justice system, highlighting the need for rigorous evidence, sustainable funding, and institutional and practical reform to deliver lasting change. In learning from the past, it marks an important step towards building a strong foundation for future policy proposals.Rob Street, Director (Justice)
My report highlights the central lesson from the past four decades – that civil justice reform has been fragmented, reactive, and unable to deliver lasting change. If access to justice is to meaningfully improve, it must be seen as a long-term public responsibility, with a broader scope beyond the courts, grounded in evidence, properly funded and tested, and supported by institutional capacity to make it work.Dr John Sorabji, report author
A wider programme of research on access to justice
Improving civil justice reform – an analysis of major reviews in England and Wales sits alongside seven other evidence reviews and briefing papers commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation as part of our PRTJ programme. Each report – which will be released in 2026 – examines different dimensions of the justice system and access to justice.
Building on the wider portfolio of work we fund looking at the accessibility, fairness, and effectiveness of justice, PRTJ aims to develop a substantial, robust and interconnected body of research, that helps policymakers and practitioners better understand how the justice system operates, where it falls short, and how these challenges might be addressed.
By commissioning independent and rigorous research, we want to find practical, evidence led solutions to the issues affecting whether and how people’s legal needs are met.
A synthesis report later this year will bring together findings from the eight reviews and our grant-funded research, identifying ways to improve the civil justice system.
