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Background:
In 2001, as recommended by the State Judicial Council, Chief Justice I. Beverly
Lake, Jr., adopted a trial court performance standards system developed by the
National Center for State Courts. This system is designed to help trial courts
identify and set guidelines for their operations, measure their performance, and
make improvements to better meet the needs and expectations of the public.
Survey of Court Users:
To put the performance standards into use, the State Judicial Council decided
that the first step was to find out directly from the people who use our courts
how our courts are doing. In July 2002, the AOC began a grant-funded project
to measure court user perceptions of court performance, including courteousness
and responsiveness. Public surveys were distributed to all courthouses statewide,
and from June through October 2003, 125 community volunteers observed trial court
proceedings in 29 counties across the state. Overall, responses from the surveys
and court observations revealed a predominantly positive public perception of the
court system, especially with judges and court personnel being courteous,
respectful and polite, fair, and helpful. Areas where respondents expressed the
most dissatisfaction included courthouse parking and timeliness. The project is
using the results to help identify key areas in need of improvement and will establish
approaches to improve court operations and public perceptions in those areas.
Click here for
a summary of survey results.
People who use our court system are encouraged to complete our on-line survey to
help us continue to improve our services to the public. If you would like to provide
input about your court experience and have conducted business recently with the North
Carolina courts, click here to
complete the on-line survey.
Court Performance Management System (CPMS):
As the second step to implement performance standards for North Carolina's trial
courts, in 2003 the State Judicial Council endorsed the development of five specific
trial court case processing measures. Since then the AOC has developed, tested and
implemented a web-based system that provides court officials with up-to-date data
for three of those measures:
case clearance (cases disposed as a % of cases filed)
on-time processing (% disposed within time guidelines, based on those
adopted by the Supreme Court in 1996)
aging case index (backlog) (cases older than times in the guidelines)
The CPMS gathers current data (within one month) from the AOC’s civil and
criminal automated systems and organizes this data allowing you to search
and query the information, for various case types, and any county or district.
The CPMS includes both the three percentage-based measures above, plus
extensive statistical data, such as the disposition rate for Superior Court
criminal or civil cases in a certain county in the past 12 months, or the
backlog of all District Courts within the state.
The CPMS "help" pages provide more detailed information about future plans
to enhance the CPMS with expanded case types, and additional performance
measures and statistics, eventually displacing printing and distribution
of paper management reports. The anticipated next two performance measures
(subject to enhancements to automated systems) are the number of times a case
is put on a court calendar before being disposed, and a measure that will be
designed to assess collection of restitution. The CPMS is also an important
factor in planning and development of court technology and information systems.
Your advice and input are welcome. If you have any questions please contact
us at court.performance@nccourts.org
For more information about performance standards systems in general and
nationwide, visit the National Center for State Courts web site.
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