Estimating Staffing Needs in the Justice Sector
Justice system agencies around the world continue to seek adequate methods to estimate staffing needs. Especially when caseload rise and budgets are limited, the pressure is on to justify adequate staffing with solid data. The simpler approaches of...
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Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2012/01/16773076/estimating-staffing-needs-justice-sector http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18404 |
Summary: | Justice system agencies around the world
continue to seek adequate methods to estimate staffing
needs. Especially when caseload rise and budgets are
limited, the pressure is on to justify adequate staffing
with solid data. The simpler approaches of basing staffing
needs on number of cases filed or population numbers have
proven to be imprecise at best and seriously flawed at
worst. The search for better estimation measures first led
to weighted caseload studies, which weighed the complexity
and other special needs of different case types. As these
methods still did not provide an accurate assessment,
efforts continue to be made to develop a more precise
measure of not just caseload but workload, a measure that
factors in the time spent on managing the case and on the
increasing amount of non-case-related work, such as
administration, training, outreach, travel, etc. This paper
describes the leading approaches (including the analytical,
Delphi, and weighted caseload methods) used throughout the
world for determining workload among justice sector
employees, presenting the benefits and limitations of each.
The paper then focuses on what is currently viewed as the
more optimum method of the weighted workload study, and
offers a step-by-step outline of how this kind of study can
be developed and implemented. Also considered are the dual
challenges of forecasting future staffing needs and
incorporating performance measures to promote quality
decision making and cost-efficient court procedures and services. |
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