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1. Introduction

A summary of the discussion of the Strategic Engagement Group (StratEG) meeting held on 13 April 2021. This meeting was held by video, rather than face-to-face due to the pandemic.

Members of the Bar Council, Law Society and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives met with the jurisdictional leads for HMCTS� Court Reform Programme and the HMCTS Corporate Relations Team for the latest 8-weekly update and discussion.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp Chair opened the meeting acknowledging the passing of His Royal Highness »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp Duke of Edinburgh on Friday 9 April and the mourning period. As a mark of respect for the Duke and Her Majesty the Queen, flags in MoJ and HMCTS buildings were lowered to half-mast.

2. Court Reform

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp group received an update from each jurisdiction including on the impact of the pandemic on project delivery and presentations on Video Hearings evaluation and the new Find a Court or Tribunal Service.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp Reform Plan update confirmed that Common Platform has gone live in Guildford Crown Court, Guildford Magistratesâ€� Court and Staines Magistratesâ€� Court, moving from early adopter to national roll out. Crime Board approved national roll out on 22 February. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp Divorce project is on track for the service to move into business as usual from May. Scheduling and Listing went live in the pilot site at Havant Property Tribunal. Scheduling and Listing early adopter sites are moving into national roll out. CTSC Strategic Technology roll out will go live on 19 April.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp update from the Future Hearings jurisdiction confirmed that the Scheduling and Listing pilots in Oxford and the first Property Tribunal Court in Havant are using the ListAssist tool. Development work is progressing well for sites, and forward planning is underway for moving from early adopter to national roll out.

Planning is on track for Birmingham to go live with video hearings at the end of April. Video Hearings is the next generation of Cloud Video Platform, which had been rolled out as a contingency response to the pandemic. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp Video Hearing service represents a long-term solution for joining hearings via video. Video Hearings is being developed to ensure it can support hearings for anyone in any location.

In the crime jurisdiction, Common Platform is live in Guildford, Staines and Warrington and the system went live in Wales week commencing 12 April. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp intention is to manage more hearings on Common Platform.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp civil jurisdiction advised that in the Online Civil Money Claims service, judge draws directions orders and legal advisors directions orders, will be extended from the initial 19 pilot courts to every County Court in June. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp pilot for £500 mediation has been extended to all cases and value. Parties will now need to “opt outâ€� of mediation.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp damages claims first release will be in May 2021 and will cover issue of a claim and the response to a claim. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp next step in the process will be to open the system to multi-party cases, which will enable 90% of cases to use the system. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýappre will be further releases in 2022.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp update from the family jurisdiction reported that the last of the Divorce functionality will be delivered by the end of April. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp legal representation functionality for applications and contested cases is due for imminent release. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýappre will also be a release for objections to cost and for applying online for bailiff service.

Using the online system for divorce applications will be mandated soon. Financial Remedy is already mandated. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp public law rollout is complete but was slower than expected due to the pandemic.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp update from tribunals jurisdiction advised that the Immigration and Asylum Chamber (IAC) service had extended at the end of March and that appeals could now be accepted online where the appellant was outside of the UK. Over 9,000 appeals have been received from professional users in IAC. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp digital service is mandated, and take-up of digital appeals in IAC is 100% of eligible appeals.

As of 15 April, tribunals is the first service to adopt the new common capability of notice of change. This enables an appellant to change their legal representative in an online case. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp new process will have a significant impact as approximately 20% of cases change representatives.

From June, another fees and payment common component will be adopted which will see appeal fees taken online. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp first capability to be adopted will be Pay by Account, a direct debit method of payment for repeat professional users of HMCTS services, through their setting up a fee account.

3. Presentation on Video Hearings evaluation

A two-stage approach to research and evaluate the use of remote hearings during COVID-19 was initiated in 2020. Stage 1 was an implementation review to quickly identify challenges across jurisdictions and improvements to processes, and was completed last year.

Stage 2, the evaluation, is underway to help inform future use. It is intended to include analysis of monitoring data, user surveys and in-depth-interviews with different types of user.

A reform project-level evaluation strategy has been agreed for HMCTS. This will inform the overarching evaluation of reform being undertaken by MoJ. As part of this, the Video Hearings service in Civil, Family and Tribunals will be robustly evaluated.

4. Find a Court or Tribunal (FaCT)

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp meeting received a presentation on the launch of ‘Find a Court or Tribunalâ€� (FaCT) service, which was previously called ‘Court and Tribunal Finderâ€�. Government digital guidelines were followed in changing the name of the service.

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp new system is more responsive. It has been built from a user’s perspective, as users found questions with the previous service unclear and confusing. Some features from the previous system were retained, however, based on feedback from users. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp service was launched on 8 April. »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp meeting received a demonstration of the new service.

5. Next Meeting

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp next meeting is scheduled for 8 June 2021 with project updates due from Video Hearings, Scheduling & Listing and Online Civil Money Claims (service for legally represented parties).

»Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp group agreed to hold the next meeting virtually by video on MS Teams (the position will be reviewed at each meeting).

Caroline Olaiya
Head of Corporate Relations, HMCTS
Chair of Strategic Stakeholder Engagement Group