In my previous article "A Day in the Life of a Magistrate" I mentioned the general expectation that Magistrates would be prepared to travel between different court sites within their Local Justice Area.
My local court is a good 30 minutes' drive from home, but the court I frequent most often is at least twice that distance away. I don't mind travelling, but some colleagues will only sit at the court nearest to their home or place of work. Travelling further afield allows me to see a greater range of cases, which is helpful from a personal development point of view.
If I were to sit only in my local court then I'd be pretty much guaranteed to be dealing with remand or GAP (guilty anticipated plea) cases on every occasion. Travelling gives me the chance to deal with some non-standard applications, which I would never see at my local court - as some of the people making those applications don't even know where it is!
The Rota Unit, just as the name suggests, is responsible for ensuring that every court has sufficient Magistrates, District Judges or Deputy District Judges to run effectively. It's a bit like a game of chess I suppose, with all the pieces needing positioned in just the right places.
Our Unit handles a few Local Justice Areas, so probably has to fill 30 courts a day in all jurisdictions (Adult, Youth, Family). The overwhelming majority of those courts will have lay benches. That's quite a few pawns to position on the board. The Kings and Queens are obviously easier to place, as there are fewer squares available for them.
In our area a rota is generated for every Magistrate on a six monthly basis. The rota can be accessed online via Common Platform, which will no doubt be a future topic of discussion, given that case management has recently moved to Common Platform too. The online system can be used to cancel and rearrange sittings and it also tracks attendance.
Every morning at the crack of dawn there is someone sitting at the Rota Unit ready to deal with any Magistrates who find themselves unable to sit at the last moment. They might be ill, have a family emergency, their car has broken down or whatever. The Rota Unit will ring around to find a replacement, but they generally know who is likely to be available nearby and at short notice. Similarly the rota sometimes needs last minute tinkering during the day, if a morning trial unexpectedly runs into the afternoon for example.
Generally speaking the Rota Unit does a very good job and has the best of intentions, but occasionally there is no rhyme nor reason to the decisions they make. They have seemingly been churned out by some computer algorithm, without any sort of human input or oversight. There is sometimes a lack of communication between the Rota Unit and the Listings Unit, which decides where and when each case is dealt with.
The Rota Unit knows when I am available, yet I still get phone calls and emails asking me to sit when they know I cannot.
Similarly the Rota Unit knows where I live so it could give me a few more sittings at courts closer to home. As I said earlier, I really don't mind travelling, but my current rota has me travelling to the furthest possible court for virtually every sitting.
It would be nice, on occasion, to have a sitting at my local court, notwithstanding the fact I'd probably end up dealing with remand or GAP cases. It defies logic to expect a colleague to drive an hour to a court I live only half an hour from.
A couple of weeks ago I was down for a morning only sitting with a three hour trial. Trials being what they are, it didn't start until almost an hour late. Entirely predictably it went into the afternoon session.
As chance would have it I was able to make a couple of calls and stop for the afternoon, but had I been unable to the trial would have went part-heard - an entirely unsatisfactory outcome for all concerned.
Had the Rota and Listings Units been on the same song sheet they would have spotted the potential problem before it arose and made sure everyone sitting on that trial was available for the full day.
All sounds very familiar!
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