Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Accepted
Reformed online services frequently exhibit functionality issues, causing significant delays and user problems.
Conclusion
Despite these assurances, stakeholders such as the Law Society reported that some reformed services failed to meet their needs. For example, it explained that there were functionality issues with online portals for family services, such as family public law. These issues led to problems, including instances of solicitors not getting necessary notifications which made the system difficult to use and, in some cases, significantly delayed cases. It told us that it had frequently expressed concerns to HMCTS about the functionality and design of some reformed services. The Law Society stated that HMCTS had “left it too late to undertake sufficient testing” of the private family law service, which was still being developed.31
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee's findings and commits to publishing four Access to Justice assessments in autumn 2023, with further publications in 2024 and 2025. It will investigate identified impacts and implement service fixes, while continuing to gather user feedback and conduct an overarching evaluation of the Reform programme.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation Recommendation implemented 3.2 HMCTS already obtains and uses regular feedback on how services are impacting users, for instance, through surveys embedded throughout the digital application process and after submission, through contact with users via contact centres and the web chat facility. HMCTS monitors this and other user related data including Google analytics, speech analytics, complaints, user satisfaction and access to justice metrics. All this data is fed through to service development and improvement and, as necessary, the department also conducts new research with users to get even more targeted feedback on specific areas. 3.3 Four completed Access to Justice assessments will be published in the autumn 2023. Further publications will follow in 2024 and into 2025 as services continue to be rolled out and assessments carried out. The department will then publish them as summary reports on completion. Where impacts are identified, the department will complete further investigative work to understand the underlying cause(s) and, where appropriate, implement a service fix which will be then monitored to ensure improvements are made. In addition to the assessments, the department is conducting an overarching evaluation of the Reform programme which is particularly focussed on access to justice and vulnerable users. An update to the evaluation plans HMCTS Reform MOJ Evaluation: Progress Report was published on Gov.UK in March 2023.