UK SBS FWMRCR17069OME - Survey of newly-appointed judges in the UK

The purpose of this project is to provide the SSRB with robust, reliable summary information relating to those newly-appointed to the judiciary, distinguishing between fee-paid and salaried roles, including: a. pre-appointment earnings; b. pre-appointment backgrounds and experience; c. individual motivations in applying to join the judiciary; d. judges' individual expectations of length of tenure in their current role and in the judiciary more generally; and e. for fee-paid judges, intentions to apply for salaried judicial appointments. The current Major Review is more extensive in scope than previous ones because, in addition to salaried posts, it covers the tribunals' judiciary and fee-paid judges.

However, the focus of the survey element is on those appointed to the judiciary for the first time but excluding senior judges (above the High Court, in salary groups 1-3), who are likely to have been appointed from other judicial appointments2. For the purpose of the survey, newly-appointed will be defined as individuals recruited into a judicial appointment in the four years, 1 Apr 12 - 31 Mar 16.

The survey will need to take account of the fact that recruitment into the different levels of the judiciary varies from year to year and that pre-employment data may need to capture information over more than one year to take account of annual fluctuations in earnings. Data from the Judicial Offices indicates that there will be around 500 salaried and 1,000 fee-paid judges in scope for this survey.