Transforming justice: The interplay of social change and policy reforms

A well-functioning justice system is fundamental to social well-being. In vindicating rights and resolving disputes, it supports an inclusive and secure society and underpins wider trust in the state. 

Why is this important?

The justice system in England and Wales has been transformed over the last 15 years through large-scale reductions in funding and a sequence of major procedural reforms intended to modernise that system. Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic has intensified pre-existing problems such as lengthy case backlogs. Despite the scale of change, and the central importance of justice to everyday social and economic life, to-date there has been limited systematic economic and quantitative analyses of impacts of these changes on access to justice, people’s pathways through the justice system, and wider effects on well-being for those experiencing the justice system.

What does it involve?

This project will address this knowledge gap through three strands of work:

1. Advancing empirical understanding of the justice system. First, via a programme of interlinking analysis projects, examining the implications of change and reform on people’s ability to access justice, the behaviours of actors within the system, the capacity of the system to deliver efficient and fair outcomes, and the wider life chances for those encountering the system. Second, by looking at how demands on the justice system have changed over time, driven – sometimes inadvertently – by other non-justice related areas of government policy, focusing particularly here on young people and offending.
2. Influencing policy and public understanding of the justice system through a series of engagement activities with key stakeholders. This will include promoting analysis of justice system reform and the development of justice data infrastructure to further the case for evidence-based policy.
3. Building the capacity for quantitative and economic research on the justice system both by establishing a new group of expert researchers at the IFS and associated institutions and by providing training opportunities in these methods for other economists, social scientists, and legal and socio-legal researchers.  

The research will draw primarily upon the administrative datasets curated through the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Data First’ programme, funded by ADR-UK. The different projects, which will range across many of the system’s jurisdictions (administrative, civil, family, and criminal) will vary in methodology and scope, focusing on key issues  and enabling either novel descriptive analysis or, where the data allows, credible causal impacts to be identified.

How will it make a difference?

A range of outputs and impact work is planned. The research team will engage key stakeholders throughout the project’s duration, and project partners the Public Law Project will facilitate access to policy and legal practitioner networks. Regular workshops and events with researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, and two-way secondments with the Ministry of Justice, will facilitate the exchange of ideas and methods and be used to build capacity and translate findings into impact.