Transparency data

Strategic Engagement Group Meeting Chair’s Summary - February 2023

Published 23 February 2023

Applies to England

1. Introduction

This document summarises the discussion of the Strategic Engagement Group (StratEG) meeting held on 14 February 2023. The meeting was a hybrid online and face-to-face event at 102 Petty France, London.

Members of the Bar Council, Law Society and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives met with the jurisdictional leads for the HMCTS reform programme and HMCTS corporate relations team for the latest bi-monthly update and discussion.

The meeting included 2 presentations on Common Platform and Employment Tribunals Reform.

2. Reform programme

Each jurisdiction provided updates on their area and project delivery.

2.1 Future Hearings

In January, there will be releases on default judgments, general applications and for judges to make direction orders, for legal representatives of the Damages Claims Service and Online Civil Money Claims.

Work will progress in the next financial year on Enforcement and Bulk Claims, and Possession Claims. The Possession Project is engaging with ministers and the Department For Levelling Up, Housing & Communities on Possession Claims.

2.2 Civil

The next releases in the Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC) and the Damages Service will be on default judgments, direction orders for hearings in defended cases and the ability to make an application online by legal firms.

The OCMC and Damages releases are being worked on to go live in March. Work is also ongoing on delivering screens for hearings, testing and practice, and extending the service.

The project has worked on the Possession reform digital journey and undertaken user research with stakeholders. The project is continuing to engage with MoJ ministers and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities Committee to commence the technical design and build for possession reform.

2.3 Family

The Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) SSCS5 appeal form (HMRC appeals) is planned to be released at the end of January 2023. The Case Access Management component needed for the new SSCS5 form was successfully deployed on 12 October 2022.

Technical work for the Scheduling and Listing work is complete and ready to rollout a minimum viable product (MVP) to the pathfinder site in Cardiff this month, followed by the MVP business release and national rollout in January 2023.

Online card payment for legal representatives was released on 26 October 2022. European Union Settlement Scheme appeals for the legally represented and Appellant in Person (AiP) journey was planned for release on 8 December 2022. The online application forms in the Employment Tribunal are going forward.

2.4 Tribunals

The video hearings service will be onboarding the Lands Chamber in March 2023 and trialling with pilots in some prisons.

The team is completing a post-implementation review, with small (Aberystwyth), medium (Plymouth) and large (Manchester) county courts during November/December 2022.

Publication of Civil and Family hearing lists will include automation between ListAssist and the Court and Tribunal Hearings service next year.

2.5 Crime

The programme is finalising an implementation plan for all remaining functionality. The following system improvements went live for legal professionals in January:

• quicker and easier check-in process for court hearings – the same screen can be used to check-in as prosecution or defence
• updated case details section, including a timeline, pleas and case results
• easier switching between cases for defendants being represented
• details for all defendants being represented in a multi-defendant case in one place
• view any client applications, related material, and their status more easily

The ability for defence professionals to find case papers on Common Platform without the URN (unique reference number) will be available from 6 March.

Future releases will include CPS integration with Common Platform, and several joint HMCTS and CPS releases including enhanced document management functionality.

On completion of Scheduling and Listing, and following user assurance tests, the functionality will be trialled in a small number of adopter courts before national rollout. A webinar to update defence professionals was held on 22 February.

There are pilots in Norfolk and Suffolk to improve feedback and workshops to improve the service for unrepresented service users.

3. Common Platform

The Crime update at 2.5 at this meeting included an update on Common Platform. Approximately 500 delegates had signed up for the Common Platform webinar for defence professionals on 22 February. This increased to 1,200 delegates signed up on the day of the webinar and 685 logged into the webinar.

The updated Digitalisation of the Preparation for Effective Trial (PET) process, Defence Disclosure, and the Better Case Management (BCM) process is proposed to go live at the end of February in all Magistrates Courts. The cases on LIBRA will remain on paper or word document.

4. Employment Tribunals Reform

The presentation outlined the vision of the Employment Tribunals to determine employment disputes, enabling users to use the service online or by a paper option.

The new ET1 claim form was tested in September 2021. This provided an online process for users. A paper option was also made available.

The new Employment Case Management (ECM) system provided to all offices and the judiciary in 2021, enables reform improvements to be added to the database. Reform went live at Glasgow and Leeds on 1 August 2022. Bristol and Nottingham Employment Tribunals were added as Early Adopter sites in November 2022.

The project released a Welsh CitizenUI portal and a Welsh language ET1 in week commencing 13 February.

MyHMCTS portal will soon be available for submission of ET3 response forms. The project is interacting with other HMCTS project teams on case progression functionality and new HMCTS releases.

The project will be engaged on delivering Work Allocation and Case Progression products during May-June 2023. Bulk Scan and Print, and Scheduling and Listing tools are currently being tested. The project is working on unrepresented users and with the judiciary on the rollout of reform products to the remaining eight offices. There will be a phased transition of the reformed service to the Loughborough Courts and Tribunals Service Centre (CTSC later this year.

5. Other updates

The new weekly HMCTS Update bulletin was launched on 5 February. The first edition was sent to over 33,000 recipients, the second to over 25,000 recipients, with high opening rates for both.

The Courts and Tribunals Communications Forum held its inaugural meeting on 9 February. The forum involved communications leads and representatives from legal professional associations, and other high priority stakeholder organisations including the CPS, Magistrates’ Association and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.

The primary role of the group is to engage on communications and engagement plans and activity, aligned to the organisational priorities of the represented organisations. The first meeting identified a number of areas for potential collaboration and information sharing.

6. Next meeting

The next meeting will be on 11 April 2023.

Amy Allen

Acting Head of Corporate Relations, HMCTS and Chair of Strategic Engagement Group.