Recommendation 16

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