Wanted: 100 judges to fill growing gaps on the bench
More than 100 new High Court judges could be required in the next five years to fill gaps on the Bench due to a surge in retirements and a lack of suitable candidates, the Lord Chief Justice has said.
According to the Review Body on Senior Salaries’ annual report, published this week, Lord Thomas gave evidence of a ‘sudden increase in recent and forthcoming retirements from the higher judiciary’. Notably, 34 of about 150 senior judges were due to retire this year, more than double the norm.
The Review Body, which advises government on setting senior civil servants’ pay, reports an ‘unprecedented number of unfilled vacancies’ in the High Court this year. It notes that the situation has worsened since last year, when there was a failure to recruit to one post, ‘which in itself was unusual’.
It states: ‘This was followed by an exercise to fill 14 posts in which only eight judges were recruited. Currently, a further exercise is being run to appoint 25 judges. This has been accompanied by a significant increase in the number of early retirements in the High Court.’
There are also signs of potential difficulties with recruiting to the Circuit bench, the report says.
It attributes the lack of candidates to low judicial morale, caused by an increased workload, dissatisfaction with the tax treatment of judicial pensions, increased numbers of litigants in person and a sense of not being valued by the government. Judicial salaries range from just under £250,000 for the Lord Chief Justice and more than £215,000 for Supreme Court Justices, to about £180,000 for High Court judges, £133,000 for Circuit judges and £107,000 for District judges. However, many judges take a pay drop when they move from private practice to the Bench.
The Review Body considered recommending an increase outwith the one per cent pay norm. Before it could do so, however, the Ministry of Justice introduced a temporary, taxable and non-pensionable allowance worth 11% of pay for some High Court judges.
The Review Body has recommended that all judges receive a consolidated one per cent pay rise this year and is carrying out a major review of judicial pay, which is scheduled to be completed by June 2018.
