Re: Government still spends an outrageous amount of money on IT
"There are only 60 million people in the uk ,so the amount of criminals is less than that."
Courts, at least high courts, seem to have enormous scheduling problems.
That's from personal experience. In the worst cases I've spent several hours on each of several consecutive days waiting to be called as a witness despite the fact it would have taken, worst case, about half an hour's notice to get from lab to witness box.
They need to schedule judges, barristers, barristers' juniors, instructing solicitors, witnesses and jurors. Whilst the sittings are built around the judges' schedules it's not always easy to estimate how long a particular trial will last and if one overruns then it might disrupt not only the remainder of the list but also other courts where one of the barristers or witnesses might be scheduled to appear. Add to that the fact that start of business can sometimes be held up as some other matter has to be urgently brought before the judge.
It's not surprising that magistrates' courts are the one thing they've sorted out - my limited experience there is that they have multiple brief cases so, although one might waste half a day, there's no "can you come back tomorrow?".
There could be a huge win by improving high court scheduling but I doubt it could ever be an easy job.