Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
The Ministry appears to place significant focus on the ability of technology to manage the...
Conclusion
The Ministry appears to place significant focus on the ability of technology to manage the increased demand on the court system, through remote hearings and other technology-based initiatives it says will drive up productivity. It told us that user feedback for video hearings in probate and the family court have been very positive. But these technologies could be more difficult to implement in other parts of the court system and may yet take up to 2022 to roll out completely. The Ministry and HMCTS acknowledged that more work still needs to be done to fully understand the impact remote hearings have on user satisfaction and justice outcomes.14 12 Q 5 13 Qq 6, 7, 2–25 14 Qq 5, 8, 18–20 Key challenges facing the Ministry of Justice 11 2 Systemic challenges across the justice system Delivering court reform
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
4.2 Managing the impact of COVID-19 required HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to adjust its approach to delivering the reform programme. Some services were ramped up more quickly, whilst other projects had to be delayed. In other areas, HMCTS’s COVID-19 pandemic response made it necessary to deliver entirely new initiatives at pace, most notably, building on the work done through Reform, the rapid roll-out of audio and video hearings across courts and tribunals, which has enabled essential hearings to continue during this period. However, the overall delivery window for reform will not change as a result of COVID- 19, and the programme is still due to be complete in December 2023. 4.3 In terms of the 2019 Digital Justice Report, HMCTS published its initial response in October 2020, welcoming and accepting all of the report’s recommendations and providing an update with specific commitments to action. 4.4 Since then, HMCTS has continued to develop its data strategy and is investing an extra £8 million, on top of existing budgets, to improve its data infrastructure and management information. The improvement of management information and reporting will help to enhance understanding of, and develop improvements to, frontline performance; and the development of a data platform will provide the infrastructure to better store and analyse data while enabling key data requirements to be more easily incorporated into digital systems. 4.5 In May 2021, the department published the framework for the evaluation of the reform programme. This framework sets out the scope and research plans for the evaluation of the HMCTS reform programme. 4.6 HMCTS intends to publish a further update on its work to progress the recom- mendations from the 2019 report in autumn 2021.