Conclusion 2

HMTC risks undermining public confidence in the fairness of the justice system by proceeding with its reforms without sufficiently demonstrating it understands the impact on justice outcomes or people. HMCTS is rolling out new systems and processes without first assessing the success, or otherwise, of experiences to date. To date its evaluation has largely been process-based, focussing on how new technology is working rather than the impact on people or justice outcomes. For example, HMCTS has not fully explored the impact that using video-hearings has on outcomes for defendants. Although some digitised services like divorce seem to be working well, representatives from Transform Justice, Law Centres Network and the Law Society are concerned about how online services may disadvantage users with low digital or legal literacy. Such people may be less likely to seek legal representation, putting them at risk of making uninformed decisions or incurring unknown costs. The Ministry’s interim evaluation of the reform programme will not report until 2021, which is too long to wait for a better understanding of impacts. Recommendation: HMCTS and the Ministry should write to the Committee by July 2020 demonstrating how evaluations will influence implementation of future services, including, where possible, an assessment of how reforms are affecting justice outcomes. It should map out the links between planned evaluations and its reform delivery plan to demonstrate how learning will influence future developments and deployments of services.