Salary rise to attract more judges

The 25% will replace the 11% temporary recruitment and retention allowance introduced for High Court judges in 2017, bringing their annual salary to £188,901 from 1 October. Circuit and tribunal judge salaries will rise to £140,289. These figures include a permanent 2% salary rise given to all judges.

Both the permanent salary rise and the temporary allowance will be backdated to 1 April 2019.

The allowance will only be given to eligible judges – those eligible for a new, less valuable pension scheme introduced in 2015, which is being challenged in the courts on the grounds of age discrimination (Lord Chancellor v McCloud and Mostyn & Ors [2018] EWCA Civ 2844). It will be retained only until the McCloud litigation is complete, and will be taxable, non-pensionable and non-consolidated.

There has been a shortage of judges in recent years due to early retirements and promotions, with ‘serious impacts across all jurisdictions’, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said. Care proceedings determining the future for children, for example, took on average 31 weeks instead of the statutory target of 26 weeks last year.

However, three successive recruitment exercises for High Court positions have failed to fill all available vacancies, with 14 posts unfilled last October and more vacancies due to arise this year. The MoJ also reports emerging recruitment problems for District Judge and First-Tier Tribunal Judge posts, particularly in specialist areas.

The allowance falls short of the Senior Salaries Review Body’s recommendations of 32% for High Court judges, 22% for Circuit and Upper Tribunal judges, and 8% for District and First-tier Tribunal judges.

Lord Chancellor David Gauke said: ‘Here in the UK, we have a judiciary that is world-renowned because of its quality, independence and integrity.

‘Every day our judges take decisions which have a profound impact on people’s lives.’

Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, and Sir Ernest Ryder, Senior President of Tribunals, said the salaries announcement was ‘an important step which we are confident will have a significant effect on addressing critical shortages in the judiciary.

‘Judges understand very well how delays to the cases they decide can affect the people and businesses involved.  They do their utmost to ensure cases are dealt with both promptly and fairly, but are nonetheless concerned that there is an urgent need to recruit enough judges to tackle the workload in a sustainable way.

‘Judges are conscious that they are well-paid compared to most in the public-sector. They are continually finding ways to make the administration of justice more efficient both through the modernisation programme being run by HMCTS and more widely.’