Chronic underfunding of the Ministry of Justice is undermining the entire criminal justice system and putting public safety at risk – that’s according to the Police and Crime Commissioners for Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and the Thames Valley.
Calls have been made for the Government to take bold, system-wide action to improve courts, prisons and probation – areas which are all struggling in one form or another.
Despite recent funding increases, the Ministry of Justice remains one of the worst-hit departments. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, day-to-day spending on justice in 2025–26 is still forecast to be 24% lower per person than in 2007–08.
It’s known that some 73,105 court cases were awaiting trial as of September 2024 — nearly double the backlog in 2019. On the Isle of Wight, trials being held in the Magistrates court are now being listed for March 2026 onwards.
When it comes to prisons, in 2024 alone a total of 16,231 prisoners were released early under the Government’s early release scheme to ease overcrowding.
While policing has received funding uplifts to support recruitment and reduce crime, PCCs Donna Jones (Hampshire & Isle of Wight) and Matthew Barber (Thamves Valley) say this alone is not enough to keep communities safe or rebuild public confidence in the justice system.
Both PCC Jones and PCC Barber have said:
“The system is buckling. Policing is just one agency. We cannot continue to starve the criminal justice system of resources and expect the public to have confidence in it. Justice doesn’t end when an offender is arrested. It ends when a victim sees a resolution, and when rehabilitation or punishment has been delivered properly. Right now, that cycle is broken.
“Officers are working tirelessly to arrest dangerous individuals. They are tackling violent crime, child abuse, domestic violence and organised crime, but too many of these cases are falling apart because courts are clogged, evidence is lost, or legal processes fail due to under-resourcing. Victims are left in limbo, and in some cases, they’re denied justice altogether.
“Releasing thousands of prisoners early and proposing lighter sentences in the community may relieve pressure, but only if community supervision, rehabilitation services and offender management teams are properly funded. If not, we are simply pushing risk into the public domain and onto overstretched police, probation and support services.
“I support meaningful rehabilitation. Not everyone needs to be behind bars, but for those who do, especially serious sexual and violent offenders, prison is essential for public protection. Where rehabilitation is right, it must be resourced and monitored. At the moment, neither is happening to the standard the public expects.
“We cannot continue to treat justice as a patchwork of agencies. It’s a single, interdependent system. When one part breaks down, it affects every other part – and most importantly, it fails the public we all serve.”
Maybe they should stop paying for PCCs and divert that money to frontline services. That would help.
The Government are still paying thousands of
Civil servants full pay and full London Weighting
even though many of them only go into the office
1 or 2 days of a week.
If run correctly there would be plenty of money to go
round.
Let’s face it we pay tax on tax.
You go to work and any money you have left after
paying tax, if you deposit that money into a bank
you then pay tax on the money you had already paid
tax on.
The whole system is a joke.
“if you deposit that money into a bank
you then pay tax on the money you had already paid
tax on.”
No you don’t! You obviously do not know how banking works. Any monies you deposit into a bank is not taxed and you can withdraw all of it whenever you wish.
You might like to pay tax on any interest
made on a savings amount you deposit
I don’t!, should be tax free!
You pay tax on that because the interest is extra income…no different than if you had shares that grew in value. Either way it was UNEARNED by your labours and an admittance that in spite of being a pensioner your income is above the threshold for tax. Be grateful and stop whining; many pensioners have just a state pension of 800-odd quid a month to live on. The tax you pay object to paying helps them.
So you are now saying you only pay tax on any interest!
But that is new money, so not the money you have already paid tax on!
It’s called educating yourself in public
No wonder their both smiling in the photo they are on £100.000 a year no under funding there
It is ridiculous for Conservative PCCs to say that a 2.3% increase in funding is leading to the policing system buckling under pressure when a Conservative Home Secretary cut police funding by 18% in one go. Ms Jones demonstrates precisely why the office of Police and Crime Commissioner should not be party political. PCCs should be independent of party poitics and focus on delivering for the public and the police, not dancing to the tune of party politics.
She’s right. Perhaps she could divert her funding into the Courts and then shut down her burgeoning empire.