Courts Tsar to Oversee Shake-Up of London JPs Magistrates

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THE GOVERNMENT is to appoint a pounds 120,000-a-year "courts tsar" to oversee the biggest shake-up of London's courts for more than 100 years.

The successful candidate will be given a pounds 70m budget and will have responsibility for rooting out delay and incompetence in magistrates courts across the capital.

For the first time, all London's magistrates courts will be run by a single authority led by a new chief executive, working closely with the London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith.

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, who has appointed …