HMCTS response to Public Accounts Committee report on court reform programme

HMCTS CEO Susan Acland-Hood said:

Today’s report highlights the ambitious and transformational nature of our reform programme. We will study the committee’s recommendations and respond in detail.

Significant progress is being made to deliver the programme, including new digital services which have seen high take-up and satisfaction rates.

We do recognise the need to engage more actively with our key stakeholders, and this is a key priority over the next phase of reform. This is a challenging programme but we remain confident that it is on track to deliver the benefits promised and to help create a better, more straightforward, accessible and efficient justice system for all who use and need it.

In the last six months, the £1bn courts and tribunals reform programme has delivered a range of changes, including:

• A new fully accessible online Civil Money Claims service giving the public the ability to make a small claim online – with 13,000 claims made online since its launch in late March, and user satisfaction at 90%;
• A new system for applying for divorce online, which has cut errors in application forms from 40% to less than 1%;
• A new probate system in testing which has also cut errors, speeds up the process, and a user satisfaction rate of 95%;
• A pilot of fully video hearings in the tax tribunal to test the potential for the use of video more broadly across the courts and tribunals system. This is now the subject of an independent, academic evaluation
• The national roll-out of a new in-court system to record the results of cases digitally and instantly;
• A national Track Your Appeal service in social security and child support tribunals, allowing thousands of users, many vulnerable, to be kept informed about the progress of their Personal Independent Payment appeal.