Recommendation 2

HMCTS’s failure to engage sufficiently with staff and stakeholders throughout the common platform rollout has increased the burden on courts and staff already under significant pressure. When we last reported on the programme, HMCTS assured us that it intended to do more to ensure staff and stakeholders felt listened to. We are therefore disappointed to hear that these groups still feel that the quality of engagement has been insufficient – particularly during the rollout of common platform. HMCTS initially rolled out what it considered to be a minimum viable version of common platform to criminal courts. But this version was not sufficiently developed, and staff have had to deal with multiple technical and design issues, including system outages. HMCTS acknowledges that this has created challenges for its staff, who have also been working hard to deal with the extensive case backlogs worsened by the pandemic. However, users of common platform say that they have often not felt heard. This is reflected in HMCTS’s poor staff satisfaction scores and user perceptions of common platform. HMCTS established a new feedback mechanism to in October 2022 and recognises that it needs to do more to improve its approach to engagement going forwards. Recommendation 2: HMCTS should set out in its Treasury Minute response how it will improve its approach to engagement and transparency to ensure that staff and stakeholder concerns are responded to adequately. This should include how it will monitor the effectiveness of its new feedback mechanism.