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• assessing and implementing recommendations associated with the ABS Courts Administration Data Collection National Report on lodgments and finalisations • clearly defining issues pertaining to the scope of the data collection and reporting within the chapter • assessing the most appropriate way in which to collect and publish data • amending data definitions • improving data verification and data quality. These changes are ongoing and incremental. 6.5 Jurisdictions’ comments This section provides comments from each jurisdiction on the services covered in this chapter. Appendix A contains data that may assist in interpreting the performance indicators presented in this chapter. These data cover a range of demographic and geographic characteristics, including age profile, geographic distribution of the population, income levels, education levels, tenure of dwellings and cultural heritage (including Indigenous and ethnic status). 6.48 REPORT ON GOVERNMENT SERVICES 2005
“ New South Wales Government comments During 2003–04, the Attorney General’s Department of NSW continued to focus on improving the administration of the community’s justice system for resolving civil disputes and criminal matters. As well as continued improvements in court performance, our priorities included building community capacity to prevent crime, improving outcomes and services for Aboriginal communities, enhancing value for money through justice sector cooperation, and use of technology such as video conferencing. The District Court’s pending civil caseload, has reduced substantially as a result of the introduction of Tort Law reforms. With criminal matters, the District Court ranked first in Australia in relation to time standards, despite having the largest number of serious cases. The NSW Supreme Court has continued to deal with its criminal cases in a timely way and, amongst the supreme courts, has the third smallest backlog of cases older than 2 years. This is despite that fact that it deals almost exclusively with the most serious offences (murder and manslaughter). NSW also improved outcomes and services for Aboriginal communities through the expansion of circle sentencing and community justice groups. Circle sentencing was extended to Dubbo, and is due to commence in the near future at Brewarrina and Walgett Local Courts. Aboriginal Community Justice Groups were established at Lismore, Grafton, Yamba, Maclean, Toronto and Mt. Druitt. Local Courts now provide outreach services in 35 courthouses. Outreach services improve access to a range of government information and transaction services for residents in physically remote and isolated locations and to targeted client groups such as Aboriginal communities and people from non- English-speaking backgrounds. Video conferencing systems installed in courtrooms and other justice facilities have been used for over 20 000 bail appearances, parole hearings and remote witness appearances. This technological advance has significantly reduced the costs and risks of transporting people in custody and has improved security within courts, particularly for vulnerable witnesses. CourtLink, the multi-jurisdictional case management system is providing an impetus to review and streamline processes in each of the jurisdictions. Additionally, court forms and documents in the criminal jurisdiction have been reduced from 700 to fewer than 100 types of documents. Lawlink NSW was consistently rated in the top five most popular legal websites in Australia, registering an average of more than 4 million hits per month. For Caselaw, the web-based application containing NSW court and tribunal decisions, more than 19 million pages were accessed throughout the year. COURT ADMINISTRATION ” 6.49
Page 1 and 2: 6 Court administration This chapter
Page 3 and 4: Box 6.1 Criminal Magistrates court
Page 5 and 6: Box 6.3 Criminal Supreme court juri
Page 7 and 8: licence cancellation), asset seizur
Page 9 and 10: Figure 6.1 Major relationships of c
Page 11 and 12: Table 6.1 Court administration recu
Page 13 and 14: Figure 6.2 Distribution of court ad
Page 15 and 16: deaths and fires in the coroners co
Page 17 and 18: proportion of criminal matters lodg
Page 19 and 20: Table 6.6 Court finalisations — c
Page 21 and 22: As shown in figure 6.3, there are n
Page 23 and 24: Table 6.7 Average civil court fees
Page 25 and 26: distribution of cases may vary acro
Page 27 and 28: Table 6.9 Backlog indicator — the
Page 29 and 30: In each of the courts, the second n
Page 31 and 32: Table 6.12 Backlog indicator — th
Page 33 and 34: In the civil jurisdiction, the aver
Page 35 and 36: Table 6.15 Judicial officers, full
Page 37 and 38: Table 6.17 Clearance rate (finalisa
Page 39 and 40: Efficiency — cost per finalisatio
Page 41 and 42: Box 6.14 The impact of the electron
Page 43 and 44: Figure 6.6 Net expenditure per fina
Page 45 and 46: Figure 6.8 Net expenditure per fina
Page 47: of Australia, which has implication
Page 51 and 52: “ Queensland Government comments
Page 53 and 54: “ South Australian Government com
Page 55 and 56: “ Australian Capital Territory Go
Page 57 and 58: 6.6 Definitions of key terms and in
Page 59 and 60: Method of finalisation Method of in

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