Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 22
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The funding allocated to the programme will also no longer cover several projects that HMCTS has paused as part of its programme reset: these relate to its civil possession service, family adoption and all special tribunals with the exception of criminal injuries compensation tribunal. This is because it assessed that it could not finish all projects within 37 Q 86; C&AG’s Report, para 1.14 38 Qq 86–87 39 Committee of Public Accounts, Transforming courts and tribunals, Fifty-Sixth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 976, 20 July 2018, para 23; C&AG’s Report, Early progress in transforming courts and tribunals, Session 2017–19, HC 1001, 9 May 2019, para 3.8 40 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty Third to the Fifty Eighth reports from Session 2017–19, Cm 9702, October 2018 41 Qq 99–100; C&AG’s Report, paras 1.14, 2.6 42 Qq 99–100 16 Progress on the courts and tribunals reform programme its current timeline.43 Moreover, despite HMCTS having classed the online portals for divorce and probate cases as complete, these portals continue to require improvements. For example, HMCTS found that significant proportions of its online divorce and probate cases required manual interventions from staff and in March 2022 HMCTS identified that 55% of divorce cases could not be completed online.44 Although fixing this is important if HMCTS is to gain the benefits it planned from this reform, HMCTS will fund the future costs of these and other completed projects from outside of the budget for the reform programme. HMCTS told us that it had always planned to make continued improvements to services based on user feedback, after the programme closed. But HMCTS explained that it in some instances it had been unable to make improvements to services it classed as complete and moved to business-as-usual because of interdependencies between projects in the programme which are not yet complete.45 It also stated that it carefully considere
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.