Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

What is the point of going to court if, having obtained a judgement in your favour, you cannot get it enforced? This has long been recognised as a problem for the Civil Justice system.

Reforms to the relevant law were introduced in April 2014.

In this blog in June 2018 I noted the publication of a review of how the new rules relating to the enforcement of judgements were operating, based on the first full year of their operation. Reform of the legal basis of enforcement was an important part of the Transforming Compliance and Enforcement Programme, which was itself an important adjunct (though separately funded) of the Transforming our Justice System programme.

The aim of TCEP was that, through better investment in IT, enforcement would be able to be carried out more quickly and efficiently.

The Government has now announced that the TCEP is to be put on hold – the Ministry of Justice just does not have enough money to take the programme forward. While changes that have been made will continue to be implemented, further change and investment must wait.

This will be very disappointing news for those who would like to see significant improvement in enforcement work.

The announcement, made on 6 September 2018, is at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/compliance-and-enforcement-work-to-continue-unchanged