Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 13
13
The Ministry’s new accounting officer told us of her commitment to collect good quality, consistent...
Conclusion
The Ministry’s new accounting officer told us of her commitment to collect good quality, consistent data to support the reform programme, including data on user satisfaction and justice outcomes. While we welcome this renewed commitment, we are disappointed that the Ministry has yet to make any significant progress on implementing the recommendations of the Digital Justice report it commissioned in 2019.18 Despite the court reform programme entering its final stages, the Ministry and HMCTS have also failed to publish the promised evaluation framework that will set out how the Ministry will robustly assess the impact of its reform programmes.19 Managing prison capacity
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
4: PAC conclusion: Despite previous warnings, the Ministry and HMCTS do not yet have a firm grip on the data they need to understand how effective the court reform programme is or its impact on users. 4: PAC recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Ministry should explain how it is managing the impact of the pandemic on the court reform programme, including its plans to respond to the recommendations set out in the 2019 Digital Justice report. 4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 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.