Previously on this blog, I have noted how, in March this year, HM Courts & Tribunal Service began to revise its previously published management information on the backlog of Employment Tribunal cases, and how this magical shrinkage of the ET backlog later accelerated. And the latest set of HMCTS management information, published yesterday, indicates that this downwards revision of previously published data continues.

Until March this year, the previously published data was routinely revised in each new data set, but only minimally and invariably upwards. But from March the direction of revisions reversed, and the magnitude of the revisions increased significantly. So, for example, the backlog as of November 2022, which was 51,670 according to the data set published by HMCTS on 12 January 2023, has been steadily revised down to 41,311, according to the data set published yesterday – an overall downwards revision of 20%.

So, I’ve updated my chart showing the revisions, and added colour coding to make it easier to see the transition: red where the figure was revised upwards from the previous data set, and green where it was revised downwards.

The reasons for this revisionism remain unclear, but it goes without saying that a smaller backlog of ET cases is good news. The bad news is that, according to the data set published yesterday, the backlog has been stubbornly stuck at about 41-42,000 for the past year.