Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Reforms prioritised "access to process" over genuine "access to justice" for all users.
Conclusion
We asked witnesses about concerns highlighted by the Law Society that the reforms provided access to process, rather than access to justice. HMCTS told us that it considered the user to be “the single most important judge of whether access to justice is delivered” – for example, victims of crime, people going through divorce, or children in a custody battle. It explained that the view of legal professionals was crucial in the same way as the view of the judiciary and HMCTS staff, as users of the system, but that ensuring people were satisfied with what it was delivering was the most important.34 It told us that it expected better access to justice to be reflected in staff satisfaction scores. For example, in its latest surveys HMCTS reported high satisfaction ratings for divorce (91%), probate (91%) and online civil money claims (95%) services.35 HMCTS told us that it planned 29 Committee of Public Accounts, Transforming courts and tribunals, Fifty-Sixth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 976, 20 July 2018, para 4, 11, 13 ; Committee of Public Accounts, Transforming courts and tribunals: progress review, Second Report of Session 2019, HC 27, 5 November 2019, paras 2–3 30 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the One Hundred and Twelfth to One Hundred and Nineteenth reports from Session 2017–19 and the First and Second reports from Session 2019, CP 201, January 2020 31 CPR0003, Written evidence submitted by The Law Society, 30 March 2023, paras 5, 29–30, 37–52 32 Qq 93, 96, 98, 107; C&AG’s Report, paras 3.9–310 33 C&AG’s Report paras 14, 3.9–3.10 34 Qq 98–99 35 Qq 96–97; C&AG’s Report, paras 3.9–310 14 Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme to publish more access to justice assessments in Autumn 2023 which would tell it more about people’s experience of using the new system, and it would respond to any feedback received.36 36 Q 93 Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme 15 2 Costs and savings
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.