Minister for Justice (): Open justice relies on
court proceedings being transparent and accessible. This
Government is committed to ensuring that appropriate court and
tribunal information is available to the public, legal
professionals, journalists, and researchers in a way that is both
meaningful and secure. I am today updating the House on two
actions towards that commitment: the expansion of HMCTS' Court
and Tribunal Hearings Service (CaTH) to include criminal court
hearing lists, and the launch of a new data sharing licence for
organisations who successfully apply to analyse court data at
scale.
On 10 February 2026, I updated Parliament on our intention to
establish court and tribunal data sharing arrangements which
would support the publication of hearing information while
maintaining essential data protection safeguards. I am pleased
today to report on delivery of that commitment.
Court and Tribunal Hearings Service (CaTH)
expansion
CaTH is a secure online portal on GOV.UK that publishes court
hearing lists in an accessible format.
It makes court listing information freely and publicly accessible
in one place, replacing fragmented and inconsistent local
arrangements in local courts.
CaTH already published hearing lists for the Civil and Family
Courts (excluding the Court of Protection), the First-tier and
Upper Tribunals (excluding Employment Tribunals), the Royal
Courts of Justice, and Single Justice Procedure cases. Since 1
April 2026, Crown Court and magistrates' court hearing lists have
been added, meaning all criminal court hearing lists are now
available too.
The public can view all these court and tribunal hearing lists
free of charge without registering. Authenticated users such as
journalists and legal professionals who are entitled to
additional information can access and receive notifications of
enhanced court hearing lists which include greater detail about
cases, also free of charge. During a transitional phase, manual
emails from local magistrates' courts will continue.
Third-Party Courts and Tribunals Data Licence
Supported by the recent CaTH service expansion, HMCTS has today
launched a new non-exclusive Third-Party Courts and Tribunals
Data Licence.
This enables organisations that successfully apply to conduct
approved computational analysis of court and tribunal data,
including court hearing lists, at scale. While it will be for
successful applicants to determine, they might use the data to
help journalists track cases and identify hearings of interest,
or enable researchers and charities to analyse trends across the
courts and tribunals system. This supports innovation, research,
and wider public understanding of the justice system, in keeping
with the principle of open justice.
Any organisation with a legitimate case for its use may apply for
a licence, and multiple licences may be granted, enabling broad
access to court and tribunal data while ensuring appropriate
oversight.
The data sharing licence includes robust safeguards. Applicants
must satisfy a panel chaired by a member of the judiciary, that
their proposed use is lawful and consistent with open justice
principles, judicial independence, data protection rules,
anti-bias, and computer-generated transparency. They must meet
security standards, and access to restricted data is limited to
those with an existing entitlement. The licence requires that
information must not appear on search engines and strictly
prohibits sharing data into public large language models.
The panel will assess each application, including requested data
retention periods that seek to maximise the benefits of open
justice while balancing privacy, commercial value and data
protection requirements, and the needs of specific user groups
including researchers, academics, journalists, legal
professionals, or charities.
The licence is launching free of charge realising immediate
benefits for open justice and transparency. The application form
and guidance are now available on GOV.UK, and I encourage
interested organisations to apply.
