Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 13
Sixty-First Report - Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme
Published 30 Jun 2023
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Court Reform Programme: progress review All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
It explained that it had several ways it can gather user feedback. For example, it told us that every director in HMCTS was sponsoring an area of the programme which allowed them to listen to user feedback first-hand. HMCTS also stated that it had “six or seven other new mechanisms” for getting better feedback, including webinars and an online chat system, through which users can report specific issues that they were experiencing. However, HMCTS told us that it was “deeply concerned” about, for example, legal advisers who had reported through the webinars that the system was difficult for them to use and that they did not have faith or confidence that HMCTS was addressing their issues. It committed to listening to their concerns and responding, “as best we can”.24 We received written evidence from the Law Society, which told us that HMCTS tended to “focus on the positives of the common platform rollout”, despite this not aligning with user feedback about how the service was working on the ground.25
From: Public Accounts Committee, Sixty-First Report - Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme (HC 1002), 30 June 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 24 September 2023 (deadline 30 August 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the six conclusions, describing five as "Recommendation implemented" and one, on assessing the full cost of the programme, with a target implementation date of December 2023.
- On assurance of plans, the response says the programme is "conducting ongoing reviews of plans", overseen by programme boards and a portfolio board, with updated confidence assessments reported against each portfolio-level milestone.
- On access to justice, it commits to publishing four completed assessments in autumn 2023, with further publications "in 2024 and into 2025". Where impacts are identified, it will do further work and, "where appropriate", implement a service fix.
- On full costs, the government will respond within the six-month deadline, considering the proposed inclusions "where they are within the scope of the programme". It adds that in some cases it will be necessary to rely on estimates.
- On savings, it says delay will mean £50 million fewer recurring annual net savings by the end of 2025-26. The full £227 million is "still expected" a year later than originally expected, by the end of 2026-27.