A National Approach to Out of Court Resolutions: The Quiet Reform That Could Save the Justice System

By Jonathan Ley, Founder and CEO, Make Time Count

It is not the glamorous end of policing. These are not the investigations that dominate headlines or the cases that define careers. Yet the absence of a coordinated national approach to dealing with low-level offending is quietly placing enormous strain on the criminal justice system.

Out of Court Resolutions (OoCRs) were introduced to allow police to deal swiftly and proportionately with lower-level offences without resorting to the full cost and delay of the court system. In principle, they allow officers to resolve cases earlier, engage victims meaningfully and direct offenders towards interventions that reduce the likelihood of further crime.

In practice, however, the way they are used varies dramatically across England and Wales.

Research published by Transform Justice highlights the scale of the inconsistency. In the police force using OoCRs most frequently, around 47% of cases are resolved without going to court. In the force using them least, up to 85% of cases are sent to court.

Even allowing for differences in local crime patterns, such variation is difficult to justify. Justice should not depend on postcode. Yet the reality is that two individuals committing the same offence in different parts of the country may experience completely different outcomes.

The inconsistency extends beyond whether OoCRs are used at all. The type and quality of interventions offered to offenders also varies widely. In some areas, resolutions involve meaningful interventions such as restorative justice, educational programmes, or behaviour-change courses. In others, the process remains largely administrative, with limited opportunity to address the underlying causes of offending.

Perhaps more concerning is that the use of OoCRs has declined steadily over the past decade, despite growing evidence of their effectiveness. Today they account for roughly one third of offender outcomes, a significant drop from the levels seen earlier in the 2010s.

At the same time, the criminal justice system is under increasing pressure. Policing budgets remain stretched, officer time is increasingly absorbed by administrative demand and magistrates courts continue to face significant backlogs. Public confidence in the system is fragile.

Against this backdrop, the case for a clear national approach to Out of Court Resolutions has never been stronger.

A consistent framework would ensure that eligibility rules are applied uniformly across the country, decision-making thresholds are standardised and victims receive consistent opportunities to engage with the process. It would also generate better national evidence about which interventions are most effective at reducing reoffending.

Such an approach would align directly with the strategic priorities of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), which emphasises productivity, prevention and public confidence.

It would also support the recommendations emerging from the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson. That review highlighted the urgent need to reduce unnecessary demand on the courts and identified pre-court diversion as a key mechanism for doing so.

Many cases entering magistrates courts involve relatively low-level offences that could be resolved earlier through diversionary measures, conditional cautions or structured community resolutions. Expanding the use of these approaches would allow courts to focus on serious and contested cases where judicial oversight is genuinely required.

The financial case for reform is compelling. Through two projects funded by Innovate UK, Make Time Count examined how the justice system currently handles lower-level offending and what might be achieved through greater use of OoCRs.

The findings were striking. Around 75% of low-level magistrate court cases ultimately result in fines or compensation orders of less than £250. Yet the combined cost to the police and the courts of processing these cases is estimated to be around £4,000 per case.

In other words, the justice system is often spending sixteen times the value of the sanction simply to administer it.

Operational data suggests that even a straightforward case can require around 40 hours of police time from investigation through to case preparation and court attendance. Resolving the same case earlier through an Out of Court Resolution can save roughly 20 hours of police time, equivalent to about £1,100 per case.

If just 20% of magistrate court cases were diverted appropriately through OoCRs, policing could save around £85 million annually, while the courts could avoid approximately £160 million in processing costs.

A second Innovate UK project, jointly funded by a Police STAR grant, explored how digital tools could support this shift. By creating an end-to-end platform for managing OoCRs, including eligibility checks, victim engagement, partner referrals and compliance monitoring, the project demonstrated how administrative overhead could be significantly reduced.

The research showed that a digital approach could release the equivalent of 551 police officers from administrative workloads, representing around £35 million in additional policing capacity.

Taken together, these changes could deliver around £280 million in combined savings across policing and the courts.

But the real opportunity lies not simply in reducing costs. It lies in redesigning the front end of the justice system.

Too often, officers spend significant time preparing case files for offences that ultimately result in modest penalties. Meanwhile, courts process large volumes of uncontested, low-harm cases that could be addressed more effectively through restorative or rehabilitative approaches.

A national approach to Out of Court Resolutions would allow policing to redirect officer time towards neighbourhood policing, serious crime and safeguarding. Courts could focus on the cases that truly require judicial oversight. And offenders could receive interventions earlier—often at the point where they are most likely to change behaviour.

This is not about being “soft” on crime. It is about being smarter in how the justice system responds to it.

The opportunity now is not merely to process cases differently but to rethink how the system deals with lower-level offending altogether. By diverting appropriate cases away from court and addressing behaviour earlier, the justice system can become faster, fairer and more effective.

A national approach to Out of Court Resolutions may not make headlines. But it could prove to be one of the most important reforms available to a criminal justice system under growing pressure.