Fact sheet: Court and Tribunal Hearings service
Updated 6 February 2024
Applies to England and Wales
© Crown copyright 2024
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmcts-reform-infrastructure-and-enabling-services-fact-sheets/fact-sheet-court-and-tribunal-hearings-service
The Court and Tribunal Hearings service is a new online service that will initially publish hearing lists for courts and tribunals in England and Wales . It provides the foundation for publishing more courts and tribunal information and is available for all GOV.UK users.
Our aim is to modernise and improve the way people find hearing details. We want to make the information easy to use for people who need it, in line with our commitment to open justice.
The service works with ListAssist which improves the judicial functions of scheduling and listing of cases and gives court users greater certainty that hearings will take place when planned. ListAssist helps us to make the best use of resources - such as court rooms - and integrates with our case management systems. The Court and Tribunal Hearings service uses the information provided by ListAssist to display hearing lists that people can see ahead of visiting a court or tribunal.
The service is being introduced in a phased approach, starting with Civil and Family courts and the Single Justice Service. In time it will publish hearing information for tribunals and criminal courts.
1. Main outcomes
The service aims to make it easier for people to find hearing information. We’ve achieved several outcomes so far, including:
- enabling media representatives to subscribe to lists so they can plan which hearings to attend and cases to report on
- enabling professional users with an existing MyHMCTS account to subscribe to lists so they can know in advance the court room their case is in
- allowing court users to view hearing lists in one place on GOV.UK in a consistent and accessible way for the first time
- publishing Single Justice Procedure pending lists
- publishing Civil and Family hearing lists directly from List Assist in Milton Keynes, Oxford, Reading, High Wycombe and Slough
2. How the Court and Tribunal Hearings service will make it easier for users to find hearing information
Every year we publish thousands of lists, setting out the cases being heard in courts and tribunals across the country. Currently lists are published in different formats and are not consistent.
We’ll make it easier for people to find the information they need and plan visits to court by publishing lists in one place and in a consistent format.
3. Looking ahead
We’ve been publishing Single Justice Procedure pending lists such July 2022 and in April 2023 we started publishing Civil and Family lists from 5 early adopters in the Thames Valley.
By the end of 2024, we aim to publish all Civil and Family hearing lists from List Assist and work will begin on integrating with Common Platform .
4. Further information
Find out more and sign up to the Court and Tribunal Hearings service.
Find out more about how the Court and Tribunal Hearings service was developed..
5. Contact us
If you have feedback on the Court and Tribunal Hearings service, contact the team via PublicationsInformation@justice.gov.uk.