AUGUST has always been a quieter month, as magistrates, judges and lawyers take advantage of a warm summer to escape the stifling heat of the courtroom.

But even by August standards, this month has been quiet. A survey, compiled over social media by one senior barrister over the weekend, suggested that on Monday just half of the country’s courtrooms would be sitting - with the rest lying empty. Richard Atkins QC, chairman of the Bar Council, branded it a devastating blow for victims of crime. Others blamed chronic underfunding of the justice system.

At Swindon Crown Court yesterday both the court rooms were home to trials – on Monday, only one court was hearing cases. In Bristol, where Wiltshire’s murder cases tend to be heard, there were cases in seven out of the 10 courtrooms.

While sitting days seem to have fallen, police figures highlight rising crime. Legal aid cuts are said to have resulted in a fall in the number of people able to litigate cases, while reductions in the Crown Prosecution Service’s budget has seen case numbers drop.

Last month, former circuit judge Nic Madge wrote for the Legal Action Group that judges at some courts had been told to take “reading days” at home, with more full-time circuit judges than there were cases for them to hear. He said: “The government should be seeking to reverse those trends, not using them as an excuse to close courts.”

Sir Brian Leveson, who this summer retired as the judge in charge of England and Wales’ criminal courts, told the BBC in June: “Ultimately, if the system doesn’t get appropriate investment the system can collapse.”

Robert Buckland, South Swindon MP and newly appointed justice secretary, is the man responsible for stopping that from happening.

He’s hardly unaware of the challenges the criminal justice system faces. Born in Llanelli in 1968, the solicitor’s son was called to the Bar in 1991 and sat as a Recorder – a kind of junior judge – from 2009. Five years later and now MP for South Swindon, he was appointed Solicitor General, the government's senior law officer responsible for advising ministers on points of law.

“The system has been a Cinderella system for a very long time,” he told the Adver this week.

“It’s not just so-called austerity. It goes back well before that. I think people assume because England has had a world-class justice system the system can run itself.

“People forgot that in order to keep the system going you do actually need to invest in it. You need to repair your prisons and keep your courts working well.”

The Ministry of Justice, Mr Buckland’s new department, has seen 40 per cent funding cuts over the past decade. Those cuts have been criticised by the legal profession, as one might expect. In 2017, when then chancellor Phil Hammond confirmed the ministry would have to find £600m savings by 2019 the Law Society said the cuts had had a real impact on the ability of society’s most vulnerable to access justice.

Mr Buckland said: “In the last couple of spending rounds, the MoJ has been first up in terms of cuts. I think really now we’re seeing an understanding if you’re going to put money into the system and increase police officer numbers, for example, it’s going to have a downstream effect on justice.”

Ministers’ plans to recruit an extra 20,000 police officer was likely to result in an increase in prosecutions, he said.

A £2.5bn investment in prisons, resulting in a claimed 10,000 extra places, has been criticised by commentators as – by turns – too small or only enough to tackle current overcrowding.

Acknowledging this criticism, Mr Buckland said he wanted to see more robust community orders – including rehabilitative orders to support those with mental health. But he stepped short of following predecessor David Gauke’s bid to scrap short jail sentences of six month or less: “The answer for judges and magistrates is not to restrict their choice, but to expand it and expand it in a way that makes a well-structured community order with an alcohol or mental health treatment requirement the no-brainer.”

Asked about courtrooms sitting empty, Mr Buckland said: “Can we use our courts more wisely? Yes, which is why I’m a big fan of combined court centres where we can get them. So, if you’ve got a glut of magistrates’ cases why can’t we use the crown courts?”