HM Courts and Tribunals Service

4Mr A complains HMCTS failed to respond to his enquiry about a judicial review that he submitted in October 2021 for three and a half months. He says it then took HMCTS two months to respond to his complaint and a further two months to respond to his request for a review of the initial complaint response.

5He says the failure to respond has caused him considerable distress and inconvenience. As well as causing him headaches.

6As an outcome he is seeking a financial remedy.

7In October 2021, Mr A submitted a judicial review claim. Court staff were unsure what he was challenging and queried this with him. They agreed to issue it ‘on insistence’, which they did on 1 November 2021. Mr A then contacted HMCTS several times to ask what was happening with his case, particularly about the Acknowledgment of Service. The Government Legal Department sent the Acknowledgment of Service and summary grounds on 23 December.

8Mr A complained on 8 January 2022 about the lack of response to his enquiry, and HMCTS acknowledged this complaint was overlooked. After being asked to resubmit it, he did so on 8 March and received a Stage 1 complaint response on 11 March.

9Still dissatisfied, Mr A asked for a review, and HMCTS sent a further response on 5 May 2022. He remained unhappy and wrote to HMCTS again 12 July. On 2 August HMCTS sent its final response and apologised for the delays he experienced.

Failure to respond to enquiry 12. Mr A complains HMCTS failed to respond to his enquiry about a judicial review that he submitted in October 2021 for three and a half months.

13The HMCTS complaints policy explains when a query is received it should aim to reply within 10 working days or explain to the customer why it cannot do so by sending a holding response.

14The evidence shows on 18 October 2021 Mr A submitted a judicial review application to the Administrative Court Office (ACO), part of HMCTS. Between October 2021 and November 2021 the evidence shows the ACO explained to Mr A they were unclear what he was challenging. They said he could not judicially review the Firsttier Tribunal and suggested that an Upper Tribunal was actually the correct route. On 1 November 2021, after he signed an ‘Issued on Insistence’ form, which is typically a court order for an injunction or other civil remedy issued by the court, the claim was reissued.

15The Government Legal Department emailed the court (copying in Mr A) with the Acknowledgment of Service (AoS), which is an official notification to both the court and the claimant that the defendant has received the claim and outlines their initial intentions regarding the proceedings, on 23 December 2021. This shows the judicial review was progressing. Mr A then made a formal complaint on 8 January 2022 as he felt he had not received a definitive response to his enquiry. HMCTS did not treat that January email as a complaint at first, and it was later acknowledged as having been ‘overlooked’.

16We can see the first clear, documented explanation from HMCTS that addresses Mr A’s concerns about what was happening with the judicial review and the AoS is in the 11 March 2022 complaint response. The failure to respond to his emails is not in line with HMCTS’s complaints policy, which says it should reply to enquiries within 10 working days.

17Mr A says this failure to respond to him caused him distress and the inconvenience of having to have to chase the enquiries. He also tells us this led to him experiencing headaches. We are sorry to hear of the difficulties Mr A has described, and we recognise this was a stressful period for him.

18Where maladministration or poor service has led to injustice or hardship, we consider whether it is proportionate for an organisation to take any further steps to provide an appropriate remedy.

19As an outcome of bringing the complaint to our service, Mr A is solely seeking a financial remedy to recognise the impact the issue caused him.

20We have considered the Complaint Standards, which outline that we expect organisations to openly identify instances where things have gone wrong, or where services have had an unfair impact, and take responsibility for these. These say organisations should give sincere and meaningful apologies that reflect the impact the individual has experienced. We can see in its response dated 11 March HMCTS apologised to Mr A for the delay in responding and advised his case would be passed to a Judge in due course. This is in line with the Complaint Standards.

21We have considered Mr A’s request for a financial remedy. Our Guidance on Financial Remedy explains an apology is an appropriate remedy ‘if we consider the person affected has experienced a low impact injustice such as annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience, typically arising from a single (one-off) incidence of maladministration or service failure, where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration, and where there are no other adverse effects or ongoing wider impact.’

22We can see the lack of responses to his queries caused Mr A inconvenience and frustration for a relatively short duration. We have not seen there were other adverse effects or impacts that we can determine on the balance of probabilities were caused by the actions of HMCTS. Mr A says the actions of HMCTS (including the delays which we go on to consider below) caused him headaches, and we have thought about this. Having done so, we cannot say on balance that he would not have had those headaches without any error by HMCTS. Therefore, we consider the apology already provided by HMCTS is an appropriate remedy in this case.

Time to respond to complaint 23. Mr A says HMCTS inappropriately took two months to respond to his complaint.

24The HMCTS complaints policy explains when a complaint is received it should aim to reply within 10 working days or explain to the customer why it cannot do so by sending a holding response.

25The Complaint Standards say we expect organisations to make sure they respond to complaints at the earliest opportunity.

26The evidence shows Mr A first made a formal complaint by email on 8 January 2022 about the lack of clear response to his judicial review enquiry and the difficulties getting information about the AoS. Mr A did not receive a response to this and sent a further email on 8 March 2022, which HMCTS responded to on 11 March 2022.

27In its responses, we can see HMCTS acknowledged Mr A’s first complaint, which he sent on 8 January 2022, had been overlooked. This is not in line with the HMCTS complaints policy on responding to a complaint within its usual target of 10 working days, nor our Complaint Standards expectation of responding to complaints at the earliest opportunity.

28As explained previously, where maladministration or poor service has led to injustice or hardship, we consider whether it is proportionate for an organisation to take any further steps to provide an appropriate remedy.

29Mr A explained the failure to respond caused him additional inconvenience to chase and distress, as well as contributing to him experiencing headaches. We understand this would have been frustrating and inconvenient for Mr A.

30We can see HMCTS apologised to Mr A for the delay in overlooking the complaint. It asked him to resubmit the complaint via its online portal, which he did on 8 March 2022). HMCTS then issued a firststage response on 11 March 2022, and later a review response. We are reassured to see HMCTS completed its subsequent investigation in a timely manner, and it appears to have taken the initial delay seriously. HMCTS acknowledged and explained the reasons for the delay, and apologised for the delays in dealing with the initial complaint.

31This is in line with the Complaint Standards on providing an appropriate remedy and our Guidance on Financial Remedy, as the impact to Mr A is ‘annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience, typically arising from a single (one-off) incidence of maladministration or service failure, where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration, and where there are no other adverse effects or ongoing wider impact’. Based on this we are satisfied no further action or financial remedy is required in relation to this issue.

Time to complete review 32. Mr A complains HMCTS took a further two months to respond to his request for a review of the initial complaint response.

33The HMCTS complaints policy explains when an appeal to the outcome of a complaint is received it should aim to reply within 15 working days.

34The Complaint Standards say we expect organisations to make sure they respond to complaints at the earliest opportunity.

35The evidence shows Mr A was unhappy with HMCTS’s response and on 5 May 2022 he asked for a further, higherlevel review. HMCTS initially responded by email on 27 May 2022, explaining it considered there was no incorrect information contained within its previous response. We can see HMCTS failed to respond to Mr A’s initial review request within the 15 working day timescales set by HMCTS. The initial review request took HMCTS 16 working days to complete. This is not in line with the HMCTS complaints policy.

36On 12 July 2022 Mr A then emailed the HMCTS Customer Investigations Team (CIT). In that letter he set out, in detail, his concerns about the delay in responding to his judicial review enquiries, the delay in responding to his first complaint, and the further delay in getting a review.

37On 2 August 2022, the Head of CIT sent HMCTS’s final response. The CIT confirmed it had reviewed HMCTS’s handling of the judicial review enquiries and the complaints. It accepted that the January complaint had been overlooked and apologised for this. It reiterated that it is the parties’ responsibility to serve Acknowledgments of Service, not the responsibility of the court, and noted the defendants had copied Mr A into their email in December 2021. It did not uphold his complaint overall and decided not to offer compensation, saying it believed an apology was sufficient. It stated this was the final decision under the HMCTS complaints procedure and signposted him to our Office.

38The final review request took HMCTS 15 working days to complete. HMCTS’s handling of this review was in line with the timescales outlined by HMCTS in its complaints policy.

39We have identified there was a delay of one working day in HMCTS completing its initial review. This delay is not in line with HMCTS’s complaints policy of responding to a complaint within 15 working days. Looking at the period of 15 days to provide its final response, after Mr A returned on 12 July 2022, this was in line with the service standard, so we have not seen any indication of mistake there.

40As set out previously, Mr A says this caused him considerable distress and inconvenience.

41In line with our Guidance on Financial Remedy, for an ‘injustice such as annoyance, frustration, worry or inconvenience, typically arising from a single (one-off) incidence of maladministration or service failure, where the effect on the person complaining is of short duration’, an apology is enough to put things right.

42With this in mind, we have decided to take no further action, as although HMCTS made some errors in its service we can see it has taken appropriate action to put right the impact to Mr A that we have been able to identify. We recognise this was a difficult time for Mr A, so we hope we have clearly explained how we thought about what he told us and how we have reached our decision in this case.