Transparency data

Strategic Public Engagement Group Summary - April 2023

Published 8 June 2023

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introductions and Welcomes

This is a summary of the discussions from the Strategic Public Engagement Group meeting held on 25th April 2023, held in-person at the Rolls Building, Fetter Lane, London. It was co-chaired by The Hon. Mr. Justice Robin Knowles CBE and Lauren Van Staden (Deputy Director – User Insight & Experience – HMCTS).

Senior leaders from advice sector organisations and networks met with HMCTS officials for the first time under a new engagement framework.

The Chairs reflected on the previous Public User Engagement groups as being an important part of the Reform programme, the role of this new group, and the importance HMCTS placed on getting feedback and input from these new groups.

2. Review of the Terms of Reference

The HMCTS Public User Engagement (PUE) lead presented to the group on the PUE team’s internal review of engagement, consultation with stakeholders and the development of the new public engagement framework.

The new levels of public engagement activity and their relative scope were discussed – strategic, jurisdictional and dialogue.

HMCTS agreed to review and strengthen the feedback mechanism between HMCTS and the group (“you said, we did”) and reflect this in a revised Terms of Reference.

It was also raised and discussed that HMCTS could engage more with users who have lived experience of the justice system. Organisations who ran ‘lived experience’ programmes offered to support HMCTS in exploring how this could be achieved.

3. Megatrends and The Future of HMCTS

Officials from the HMCTS Business Strategy Team facilitated a discussion on megatrends and their impact on future HMCTS strategy development. These megatrends were compiled by horizon scanning a number of sources to identify medium to long term national and global trends. These may have an impact upon courts and tribunals users, such as the changing environment and people’s ways of working.

The discussion covered key areas of concern as well as opportunity for HMCTS users, such as the risks of unregulated AI use, the consequences of the cost of living crisis, impacts of climate change, trust in public institutions, increased user expectation around services, as well as more immediate challenges such as court backlogs and supporting neurodiverse users.

The Business Strategy Team will update the group on future strategy development and the Public User Engagement team will consider the topics mentioned for future agenda items.

4. Managing User Contact: Increasing User Self-Service

HMCTS Head of User Research gave an overview of user contact with HMCTS and took insights from the group on the prototype Citizen Hub, designed to offer better levels of self-service for courts and tribunals users.

The groups raised issues such as differing levels of digital competence among users, accessibility issues and how users are often in a stressful situation which impacts their ability to access and understand the Citizen Hub. The advice sector would benefit from having access to the system to support their clients.

There will be a follow-up session to review the prototype again and the design principles with the group.

5. Re-procurement of MoJ Language Services

HMCTS Senior Head of Intelligent Client Capability gave an overview of the reprocurement of language services, including spoken interpretation, visual and tactile formats and the quality assurance of these services.

One of the key challenges for HMCTS to get right is effectively capturing data and generating insights on the impact on users of the services and planned changes as part of the new suite of contracts. The procurement team want to work closely with stakeholders to ensure they fully understand the impact on users during the process and will engage with stakeholders over the course of 2023 to scope the issues involved.

6. Next Meeting

The next meeting is planned for September 2023, with date to be confirmed.