Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

It is a some time since I wrote about the great Transformation of the Justice system programme that was launched in 2016. It is quite a challenge to follow the progress of the reform programme. I thought it would be useful to bring together the principal documents which relate to the project which will fundamentally reshape the justice system for years to come.

• The Transformation of the Justice system project was formally launched in a joint statement issued by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals in September 2016.

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-our-justice-system-joint-statement

Initially planned for completion in 2021, the end date is currently set back to December 2023, though many parts of the programme have been completed. The principal features the programme can be seen in the following diagram.

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• The programme was the subject of an initial review by the National Audit Office, published in May 2018. This is available at https://www.nao.org.uk/report/early-progress-in-transforming-courts-and-tribunals/(See this blog 7 June 2018)
• This was followed by a report from the Public Accounts Committee published in July 2018 which is available at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/976/97602.htm.

The PAC report resulted in six separate responses from the Government, details of which are at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-public-accounts-committee-transforming-courts-and-tribunals. (see this blog 10 March 2019)

• One issue, raised in both the above reports,  related to the adequacy of HMCTS engagement with stakeholders. HMCTS responded by commissioning an independent audit of stakeholder engagement which was published in October 2019. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmcts-stakeholder-perception-audit-report-2019. A further progress report on stakeholder engagement was published in January 2020. (It can be found by googling HMCTS Engaging with our external stakeholders 2020 which leads to a Report published in Jan 2020.)

• A second report from the National Audit Office was published in September 2019. This is available at https://www.nao.org.uk/report/transforming-courts-and-tribunals-a-progress-update/

This has not to date led to a further report from the Public Accounts Committee.

• At the end of October 2019, the Justice Select Committee published its own report on the Courts and Tribunals Reform Programme. This can be found at https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/justice-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/court-and-tribunals-reform-inquiry-17-19/

HMCTS issued a response to this report in the form of a Press Release, which is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hmcts-response-to-justice-select-committee-report-on-court-and-tribunal-reforms

• HMCTS provides updates about progress with the reform project. Initially these appeared in six-monthly updating reports which were published in 2018 and 2019. The last of this series appeared in Summer 2019. See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-reform-programme-reform-update. Current updates are contained within the monthly blog Inside HMCTS, which is available at https://insidehmcts.blog.gov.uk/

•  In each year of the project, HMCTS has run a meeting, which presents an account of progress with the programme to stakeholders. The most recent of these events was held in November 2019. The presentation slides used at this meeting are available online and present very useful picture of progress up to that date. They can be accessed from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hmcts-hosts-3rd-annual-public-user-event. Other engagement events, both past and planned are listed at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/hmcts-reform-events-programme.

I hope that this blog entry, listing key documents and reports relating to the transformation project will be useful for those wanting to get an overview of the project and its progress. I will endeavour to keep readers up with more specific developments as they occur. For the moment, many of these have become intertwined with arrangements that have been made to adjust the work of the courts and tribunals to the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic.