Debate contribution: Speeding Up Justice Programme
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 13 October 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Speeding Up Justice Programme
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5175625
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The programme is an example of cross-justice collaboration to try to resolve what is a key issue. The Criminal Justice Board comprises all the senior leaders in the justice system, and they have prioritised that programme of work. It takes a whole-system approach; focuses on reducing avoidable delay, reducing demand, freeing up capacity and facilitating more proportionate and effective responses to offending behaviour; and aims to take advantage of technological developments to improve operational processes and communication between criminal justice organisations. Funding of £20·5 million from the public-sector transformation board is enabling work to progress on early engagement and out-of-court disposals. There are regular updates to the Criminal Justice Board, as well as interim updates to the programme board, about how we are making progress. Given the existing financial pressures, that funding is a boost and will enable us to do some essential work to progress efforts and reduce avoidable delay. Part of that will be the work that we are doing around collating responses to the out-of-court disposals consultation. We will publish the findings of that and recommendations in due course. There is an early engagement project, which has seen the commencement of a gateway initiative to seek to enhance communication and file-preparation quality between the PSNI and the PPS at the earliest point in a case. There is also work towards a pilot of new case-management processes for courts. In addition, work is continuing on the implementation of a second phase of committal reform — direct committal — which is planned for November 2026. There is still a lot more to be done, but what we are seeing in departmental statistics is that the average or median time taken for a case to be dealt with from the date on which the offence is reported to the police was 189 days in the most recent bulletin. That was an 8·3% improvement over the past two years, and will be a key measure of how the system is performing overall and a sign that efforts to speed up justice are having an impact.
344 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.78).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.78 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 1.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
| Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:27 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.