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Strategic Engagement Group Meeting Chair’s Summary - March 2022

Published 6 April 2022

1. Introduction

This document summarises the discussion of the Strategic Engagement Group (StratEG) meeting held on 15 March 2022. The meeting was held face-to-face at 102 Petty France.

Members of the Bar Council, Law Society and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives met with the Jurisdictional leads for HMCTS’ Court Reform Programme and the HMCTS Corporate Relations Team for the latest 8-weekly update and discussion.

The Chair opened the meeting and outlined the agenda which included three presentations on the HMCTS Appointed Intermediary Services, the development of service for Legally Represented Parties in Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC) and Damages, and a verbal update on Common Platform.

2. Court reform

Each jurisdiction updated on their area, as well as on impact of the pandemic on project delivery.

The Reform Plan update reported that the decision on restarting the Common Platform rollout was awaited. The Scheduling and Listing project has been extended to October 2022. Family Public Law has been mandated and the project is complete. Employment Tribunals phase 1 is complete. The Royal Court of Justice project will complete in March 2022 and services will be referred to business as usual after the Board in April 2022. In the Future Hearings jurisdiction, Civil and Family Courts have been integrated with 42 sites ready to go live. Early Adopter sites for the Video Hearings service will commence in March 2022. Future Operations projects close in March 2022 with work continuing to identify suitable pilot sites and handover of services to business as usual.

In the Tribunals Jurisdiction, Upload Hearing Recordings for Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) has been released to allow recordings to be attached to a case in Core Case Data. The new SSCS 2 appeal form (child support) is ready for bulk scanning. The new SSCS 5 appeal form (HMRC appeals) will be bulk scan only and ready for rollout at the end of March 2022. In the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, the Appellant in Person (AIP) digital service and forms are live. AIP service requirements for hearings, submit hearings, list hearings, hearing bundles and judge decision uploads for appellant access have been released. AIP services for appellants out of the country werewas released on 14 March 2022. All AIP services have been delivered. The Immigration and Asylum Chamber project work will run to November 2022.

In the Employment Tribunal Jurisdiction, design work for all forms has commenced and all Tribunal Reform priorities will be in place by October 2022. Work is progressing on ten ‘Special Tribunals’ sites which have a lower caseload, to be reformed as a group in April 2022. Work is also progressing with the Association, Conciliation & Arbitration Service and the Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy Committee on the process for online claims and legislative framework for employment matters.

In the Civil Jurisdiction, the OCMC service is focused on case progression. The new digital service for Damages Claims has started. The service will be mandated for claimants from April 2022.

In the Family Jurisdiction a transformed end to end service will be delivered by September 2022 for Family Private Law. In the Adoption project activity is on track for Release 1 planned for April 2022 to deliver a digital application process and the ability to pay for this online for Litigants in Person. Release 2 activity will deliver a full digital end to end journey by Summer 2022. The ‘No Fault Divorce’ Act will come in on 6 April 2022.

The Crime Jurisdiction update included the presentation on Common Platform. As reported at the previous meeting there are 101 courts live on Common Platform – 32 Crown Courts and 69 magistrates’ courts. Phase 1 of the rollout to additional courts remains paused but the programme is re-planning rollout to 126 courts when ready to do so. The programme is working with the judiciary and operational colleagues for three sites to go live. There will be a review of these sites before going forward with other sites. There has been good progress with Phase 2 of the rollout, which will include more automated notifications from the system.

In the Future Hearings Jurisdiction, the Video Hearings (VH) implementation is progressing; all tribunals should be using the service by the end of March 2022. The project is continuing to update and improve guidance to assist participants in using the service, and to smoothly onboard corporate users and other government departments to the VH platform. The project has commissioned independent researchers to evaluate the VH service.

The Scheduling and Listing ListAssist tool is being implemented across Civil and Family courts. Rollouts in courts in Wales, Thames Valley, the South-West, North-East and Central London have been successful. At this stage, the tool is being implemented as a standalone system. Integration with the case management systems and common components supporting civil, family and tribunal cases will follow.

The Publications and Information project completed a final round of usability testing in early February 2022 with legal professionals and members of the media. The project has published a blog detailing the service vision and project progress to date and next steps.

3. HMCTS Appointed Intermediary Services

The Contracted Services Division has arranged a new contract from 1 April 2022 for the HMCTS Appointed Intermediary Services. The service is suitable for defendants in criminal cases and all parties in family, civil and tribunal cases.

Commissioners will be able to select an approved provider under the new contract framework. Detailed information about the two providers and the service/specialities they provide will be available on GOV.UK with supporting guidance and information. The providers are the Managed and Approved Service Providers (MASP) and the Approved Service Provider (ASP). Legal representatives will be able to commission the intermediary service through the respective process of either provider.

The practice and booking forms will be standardised across HMCTS and as stated above detailed guidance will be published on GOV.UK. Services under this arrangement will be paid for by HMCTS but further details are included in the guidance.

4. The development of service for Legally Represented Parties in OCMC and Damages

The presentation provided an update to the reform of the OCMC and Damages service and how legally represented parties will interact with the reform services. This included a background to the service and the Damages Claims Portal.

There are four planned releases between March 2022 and June 2022:

• extension of the current OCMC service to legal representatives - enabling a legal representative to issue and respond to a money claim up to £25,000, including to issue a multi-party claim
• enabling legal representatives to request and issue a default judgment within either the OCMC or Damages claims service, where a defendant fails to file an acknowledgement of service or defence
• enabling Standard Directions orders to be made for legally represented small claim and fast track cases within the OCMC and Damages claims service, receive orders in a more timely manner by email notification immediately after the Judge has made the order
• ability for legally represented parties to submit a ‘general application’. The first release will facilitate a claimant or defendant legal representative to issue a with notice, without notice, consent or urgent general application and upload a draft order and/or supporting documents on an existing claim. A judicial review of the application will result in an approval, rejection, request for further information or listing instructions being informed to the parties immediately upon decision by way of email notification

The project has sought feedback from legal professional groups post new features being released.

5. Next meeting

The next Strategic Engagement Group meeting is scheduled for 9 May 2022. It is intended that the meeting will be held in-person.

Caroline Olaiya Head of Corporate Relations, HMCTS Chair of Strategic Engagement Group