Corporate report

Engaging with our external stakeholders: A progress update

Published 9 September 2021

In 2018, we published Engaging with our external stakeholders: Our approach and plans, which set out our commitment to better understand our stakeholders’ expectations, engage with them regularly and report on our activity.

1. Charting our progress

In January 2020, we published an update demonstrating the significant progress we have made in delivering against our stakeholder engagement commitments. We also set out clear plans for how we would continue to fulfil these commitments in 2020 and into the future.

In April 2020, the Chief Executive of HMCTS wrote to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to provide a further update on how we continued to improve on, and deliver our stakeholder engagement commitments.

We expect this progress report to be the last update against our 2018 plan as we clearly demonstrate how we have implemented recommendations and delivered against our commitment to provide regular, high quality engagement activity and have established a pattern of working fit for the future.

We said we would:

• develop a greater understanding of perceptions and needs
• audit, assess and track our engagement activities
• improve consistency in the frequency and level of engagement that we undertake
• increase visibility of opportunities for our stakeholders to engage with us
• extend the reach of our engagement to more people

2. Stakeholder engagement during the pandemic

Nobody could have predicted the pandemic that hit in early 2020 and, like every other organisation, we needed to adapt and adjust all our activity. But, more than ever, good engagement with our colleagues and partners across the justice system was key – both to our response then, and our recovery now.

So, while some specific activity was briefly paused as we responded to the crisis, the challenges we all faced in the justice system meant that we engaged with legal professionals, judiciary, professional court users and our partners across the legal system more than ever before.

Proactive and transparent engagement was important in our response and recovery from the impact of COVID-19; ensuring that our staff, partners, legal professionals and court and tribunal users understood how we needed to work together to stay safe and keep the justice system functioning. The relationships and patterns of working established before the pandemic provided a solid foundation for the bespoke engagement needed in a time where everybody’s lives were affected by a national emergency. Throughout, we remained true to the intentions set out in our plan, albeit the subject of our engagement shifted in emphasis from reform to COVID-19 response and recovery.

As part of our engagement with stakeholders in response to the crisis caused by COVID-19, we:

• consulted with legal professionals on a proposal to introduce COVID-19 operating hours. In December 2020, we established a roundtable group of stakeholder representatives, launched the consultation proposal, invited responses and answered questions at a pre- recorded webinar. In July 2021, the Lord Chancellor announced his decision to endorse, on a short-term, timebound basis, a flexible approach. This supports Resident Judges who wish to sit different hours to recover from the impact of the pandemic on their local caseloads or use a new remote model for non-jury trial work that will enhance flexibility, and address concerns about changes in travel time.

• these measures, known as ‘temporary operating arrangements’ are temporary and timebound, and we will carefully monitor their impact. Following the decision, we published a consultation document
• including the public sector equality duty report, after carrying out extensive engagement with stakeholders to provide advanced warning and full details
• hosted a Court Safety Webinar in January 2021, attended by 687 people, mostly professional court users, and we have since published answers to over 370 questions raised in the webinar and beforehand. In July 2021, we hosted another court safety webinar to update legal professionals on the impacts of milestone 4 of the government’s roadmap out of lockdown
• engaged extensively with members of the Bar, Crown Prosecution Service, Resident and Presiding judiciary, Public Health England, Public Health Wales and local TUS prior to restarting Jury trials. We held walk-through demonstrations across various regions of how jury trials would be safely resumed. Similar exercises were carried out with Public Health Wales in Cardiff
• established regular meetings since January 2021, between our operational leadership team and legal professionals to continuously review and address any concerns about safety in courts and tribunals due to COVID-19 and new variants, and on our court recovery plans
• provided escalation routes for professional users to raise any concerns or questions that could not be dealt with by a local court or tribunal
• met with Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) legal professional membership groups to help understand the perceptions and needs of diverse court users during the pandemic
• introduced an operational update, at first daily during the early weeks of COVID-19 and now weekly, which is published on GOV.UK and emailed to our 31,000 subscribers. This was supported with ad hoc ‘COVID-19 newsletters’ during the peak of our response phase to support major announcements, and this information now sits in a bespoke section of our monthly bulletin

3. Supplementary COVID-19 focused engagement

To meet these unique demands, we supplemented our routine engagement with additional, bespoke and extensive recovery-focussed activity since April 2020:

• at the height of the pandemic, we participated in daily calls with the legal profession and colleagues across the justice system to ensure we could listen to their concerns, capture feedback, respond quickly and solve problems collaboratively
• we engaged actively and early on as we developed and introduced new arrangements in courts and tribunals – making sure others’ views were considered
• ministers and senior officials have continued to meet and engage frequently with all our stakeholders, either for routine updates or to address emerging issues
• we established and participated in a number of temporary, bespoke working groups to engage partners in targeted, time-limited, response and recovery planning whihc are listed in the table below.

Group	Chair	Purpose	Membership
Crown Court working group	Lead Presiding Judge	The contributions of this group helped the resumption of jury trials in Crown Courts The group has now closed.	Lead Presiding Judge, Law Society, Criminal Bar Association, Bar Council, HMCTS.
Magistrates’ court hearings working group	Chief Magistrate	To support the safe increase of magistrates’ court hearings across the open courts within the HMCTS estate The group identifies and resolves cross-agency issues that would prevent the increase in effective hearings within magistrates’ courts.	Judiciary, Crown Prosecution Service, Ministry of Justice, Police, Home Office, Prisoner Escort & Custody Service, NHS.
COVID-19 Single Justice Procedure group	National Police Chiefs’ Council	This was an operations group set up to enable breach of regulations to be dealt with by Single Justice Procedure. The Cross-Criminal Justice Service agency meetings addressed impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Single Justice Procedure. The group now meets on an ad-hoc basis.	HMCTS, Attorney General’s office, Crown Prosecution Service and National Police Chiefs Council and ACRO/ criminal records office.
Criminal Justice System Strategic Command	HMPPS	To ensure the continued maintenance of the rule of law and public order, and the joint operation of the criminal justice system throughout the pandemic. The group discussed major changes or risks within each organisation, requests for support and any forthcoming decisions likely to impact on other agencies. A number of working groups sit beneath the CJSSC to support a range of specific areas relating to the criminal justice system. This group is no longer operational.	HMCTS, Crown Prosecution Service, HMPPS, the Police, Judiciary, PHE and Wales, NHS England, MoJ and Home Office.
Legal Professionals’ bi-weekly court recovery update	HMCTS	To update and engage on recovery plans and activity, bringing together activity into one single view across all jurisdictions, with input from the legal profession to inform and challenge decision-making.	HMCTS, Bar Council, Law Society, Support through court, 7br Barristers chambers.
Legal Professionals’ bi-weekly court safety update	HMCTS	To update and address any concerns about safety in the context of the lockdown restrictions and new variants of the virus since January.	HMCTS, Bar Council, Law Society, Support through court, 7br Barristers chambers.

An annex to this report provides a timeline of milestones in our engagement strategy with external stakeholders since our last update in January 2020 to August 2021.

We’ve established an effective corporate communications channels, including an email subscriber list of over 31,000.

4. Positive feedback

Feedback from professional court users, from these working groups and meetings, including legal professionals, has been very positive. They have found them an invaluable source of information and have ensured good collaboration between HMCTS and its colleagues across the justice system.

We are committed to continuing these engagements where they continue to be effective and in keeping with the guiding principles we set out and agreed with our stakeholders.

At all levels, HMCTS officials continue to regularly meet, remotely, with the judiciary, our partners, legal professionals and court users; listening to their concerns, advice and comments and responding to them. Their input is vital to ensuring our recovery meets the needs and expectations of all our court and tribunal users.

We appreciate the support from the legal professions, judges, public users and all stakeholder groups – we couldn’t have kept the wheels of justice turning without them. And we are thankful for their commitment to continuing this two-way engagement in the future.

5. Delivery against our five commitments

Despite the pandemic, we have made significant improvements to our stakeholder engagement over the past three years.

We have established and implemented an effective strategy and continue to deliver against our five commitments set out in 2018 and updated in 2020:

5.1 Commitment one: develop a greater understanding of perceptions and needs

We said we would:

• continue to update and refresh communications and engagement plans, and channels based on what stakeholders tell us, including how they want to engage with us
• use benchmark data from the 2019 stakeholder perception research to help track the impact of stakeholder engagement

We have:

• established an effective strategy. We are clear about who our stakeholders are, what they want and how to effectively communicate and engage with them
• clearer roles and responsibilities within HMCTS and better understanding of who owns which relationships with key stakeholder groups; officials recognise the importance of these relationships and prioritise them
• implemented a wider range of online analytics to understand the reach and readership of our email- bulletins, blogs, GOV.UK and social media content
• established good and effective corporate communications channels with an expanded reach: an email subscriber list of over 31,000; regular blog posts on Inside HMCTS; a combined social media following of over 65,000
• conducted a communication and engagement survey with professional court and tribunal users (we amended some of the questions we asked in the 2019 survey; there were 904 responses in 2019 and 686 in 2021). The survey helped gather feedback on how we can improve the way we communicate and engage with professional court and tribunal users on topics including reform, day-to-day operations and recovery.

Key insights include:

• 73% said their knowledge of HMCTS had improved over the past 12 months from our communications. 45% of respondents said the frequency of communication with HMCTS is about right, a 32% increase from 2019
• 49% of respondents in 2019 and 40% in 2021 wanted more information, demonstrating a continued demand from stakeholders and professional users for more information from HMCTS. 69% said they want more information on operational news from HMCTS in the future
• 68% of stakeholders and professional users felt that their knowledge of HMCTS had improved over the past 12 months through engagement

Regarding openness and transparency:

• 44% of respondents in 2021 agreed or strongly agreed that HMCTS’ communication is open and transparent. This is an increase of 100% when compared with 22% who agreed with the statement in 2019
• 47% of stakeholders and professional users in 2021 agreed that HMCTS produces timely information. This is an increase of 76% when compared to 25% in 2019

Regarding trust:

• 53% of stakeholders and professional users in 2019 trusted the communication they received from HMCTS. This has increased by 24% to 66% in 2021

We plan to utilise these insights to inform our future channel strategy and communications planning to ensure we are communicating and engaging with stakeholders in the most effective and efficient way possible.

We’ve acted on the outcomes of the research including:

• published communication and content on the channels that legal professionals told us they went to for information such as our weekly operational update and a monthly bulletin
• feedback by legal professionals on how they preferred to receive updates, that is by jurisdiction, and in short, clear and concise messages by developing factsheets and redesigning our monthly bulletin
• we undertook an evaluation of remote hearings with legal professionals, using a survey and interview, to understand more about the remote hearing practice implemented during the COVID-19 outbreak, and to make recommendations for use of remote hearings in the longer term

Legal professionals are a key user group of our services and buildings, and we knew engagement with our official communication channels on reform could be improved. In 2019, we commissioned independent researchers to gather views on how we communicate and engage with professional court users. The main objectives of our research on their perception and needs were to:

• understand what channels legal professionals are currently using to access information about HMCTS
• understand perception and views of our official/corporate communication channels
• understand expectation and needs when it comes to information about HMCTS

We learned from legal professionals that:

• most legal professionals actively read a range of blogs/newsletters/social media posts to keep up to date with changes happening within their area of law/ reform
• key sources include: Law Gazette, Family Law Week, Twitter posts and blogs from other legal professionals (e.g. Nearly Legal), The Lawyer, LexisNexis, Practical Law
• sources used were either specific to their area of law, or they were able to quickly access and/or subscribe to relevant content within sites that covered multiple jurisdictions
• opinions / viewpoints from other legal professionals are respected and valued - if there is a change with the court system/reform update they will want to know what other legal professionals think and how the changes may impact their work
• there is an appetite for digestible/short information about reform which can link to further information/ detail
• they want information/knowledge that will help them do their job better
• they want content specific to their specialism: many eventually found content related to their area of specialism, but this was not easy to find

We received positive feedback from legal professionals about our participation in three Q&A sessions held by HMCTS CEO on our COVID recovery plans.

5.2 Commitment two: audit, assess and track our engagement

We said we would:

• put better mechanisms in place to track and record our stakeholder engagement activities
• capture and document more robust evidence of how and where stakeholder engagement has been considered, used or impacted on change, and share this back to those who contributed to it

We have:

• launched new mechanisms for capturing and recording feedback about our approach to communications and engagement, including:
  
  a. an internal stakeholder engagement survey for project leads and their stakeholders that tracks engagement activity
  
  b. a monthly report that brings together all the analytics and findings that the communications team routinely captures from its channels and monitoring systems and makes recommendations for continuous improvement
  
  c. a new public engagement action log to capture design recommendations which will track over time the amount of feedback being used to develop and inform new services, allowing HMCTS to assess the impact of engagement with Public User Groups
  

• regularly sought ad hoc feedback in relation to specific activities, which is twofold:
  
  a. feedback and input to our projects and services, via engagement activities
  
  b. feedback and evaluation about communications and engagement activities. For example, post-webinar evaluation surveys or focus groups about online content
  

• received positive feedback from legal professionals about our participation in three Q&A sessions held by HMCTS CEO on our COVID-19 recovery plans

5.3 Commitment three: improve consistency in the frequency and level of engagement we undertake

We said we would:

• embed stakeholder engagement ‘checkpoints’ into our project planning and governance processes to ensure that each part of the programme engages with relevant stakeholders at the appropriate time and in the most effective way
• regularly review and update our engagement toolkit to help our projects embed effective, consistent stakeholder engagement
• create and embed an aligned and more consistent level of reform information across all our external channels

We have:

• updated our engagement toolkit with a quarterly stakeholder engagement survey that enables project teams to capture insight into their levels of stakeholder engagement
  
  
  a. at project level, reform projects use one off events like focus groups and short-term working groups to get feedback from stakeholders on the products and services they develop, including regular meetings with the judiciary
  
  
  b. results of the first internal stakeholder engagement survey in March 2021 showed various reasons for project teams’ engagement with a range of stakeholders, including to provide feedback, for stakeholders to test project functionality or participate in a pilot and regular stakeholders meeting
  
  
  c. this illustrates that project teams have been upholding previous PAC recommendations by maintaining a dialogue with stakeholders instead of simply broadcasting information regarding court reform
  

• embedded the use of the engagement survey in our 7-steps ‘checkpoint’ project framework
• consolidated roles that support stakeholder communications and engagement; providing better support to operations, capitalising on opportunities to enhance our reputation and building trust with our main stakeholder groups
• worked with users and stakeholder groups during the pandemic to redesign and launch our Courts and Tribunals Finder service option, which enables users to easily find information on courts and tribunals across the UK. Through research, we identified that the service was not user friendly. We responded directly to their needs, using their feedback to improve the usability of the service, and built a new service called Find a Court or Tribunal (FACT) based on users’ perspective. The new service was launched in April 2021

We have increased our levels of engagements including:

• held 26 Strategic Engagement Fora bringing together representatives of the Bar Council, Law Society, CILEx and our Reform Programme every 8 weeks to establish a drumbeat of continued dialogue as projects progress through their lifecycle
• held 63 Public User Engagement Fora bringing together the advice sector, support agencies, organisations that represent public user-interests (such as witnesses or victims) legal professionals and our Reform Programme
• held 11 meetings with a Media Working Group to understand and support the needs of news media organisations and court reporters
• held 2 public user conferences: one held in person (November 2019) and one held online (November 2020), the second attracting 659 delegates (in total and in real time), facilitating conversations between our reform leads and representatives of court user groups on a project-by-project or service-by-service basis. All webinars and supporting materials were published on GOV.UK for anyone to refer to
• hosted a total of 13 corporate webinars attended by 4,150 delegates in total, in real time, covering reform and COVID-19 recovery topics. Recordings were subsequently published and made available to all. We will continue to hold regular webinars in line with stakeholders needs

We’ve collaborated with our partners and legal professional groups to co-host events to reach wider audiences.

5.4 Commitment four: increase visibility of opportunities for stakeholders to engage with us

We said we would:

Continue to publicise opportunities for stakeholders to engage with us at a corporate level. Our routine engagement activity and forums, such as the Strategic Engagement Forum and Public User Engagement Forums have continued to act as an important pillar of reform programme engagement.

We have:

• published chair’s readouts of the Strategic Engagement Group meetings on GOV.UK, increasing openness and transparency for all stakeholders
• published a series of project-specific factsheets on GOV.UK which provide stakeholders with updates on the progress of projects within the reform programme. These factsheets will be updated regularly
• published a series of case studies detailing stakeholders’ involvement in the development of court and tribunal reform projects and the impact on people now using our online services
• used our email subscriber list of over 31,000 and a combined social media following of over 65,000 to promote opportunities for engagement such as events and surveys
• collaborated with our partners and legal professional groups to co-host events to reach wider audiences
• published recordings and Q&A from our events so that people who cannot attend in real time can access the content at a time that suits them

5.5 Commitment five: extend the reach of our engagement to more people

We said we would:

• refresh our stakeholder map and reach out to new groups, particularly when new services go live
• review our communication and engagement channels to ensure that they are accessible and appropriate for our stakeholders

We have:

• refreshed our stakeholder maps at a corporate and business level, making progress in engaging with groups including the Association of Police & Crime Commissioners and local Law Societies, and we will continue to develop strategies to reach more frontline professional court users
• moved our engagement activities with legal professionals to online platforms including operational and recovery updates in response to COVID-19. This has had a positive impact of continuous engagement and opportunities to listen to and collaborate with stakeholders. We received positive feedback from legal professionals and have plans to continue this post recovery, creating flexibility for face-to-face and/or virtual meetings as required
• launched a weekly roundup to support justice partner communications teams in sharing HMCTS information with their members more effectively and improved how we measure the reach of this. We also have regular meetings with the communication teams of key legal professional bodies
• supported launch of Remote Courts Worldwide to help the global community of justice workers to share news, information and lessons learned relating to international responses to the pandemic
• taken part in conferences and speaking opportunities, such as the Westminster Policy Forum and Civil Court Users Association Conference, covering our reform and recovery work

6. Annex

A timeline of milestones in our engagement strategy with external stakeholders since our last update in January 2020 to August 2021.

Date	Milestone	Details
January 2020	Progress update against stakeholder engagement strategy published.	Included plan for 2020.
January 2020	Stakeholder engagement toolkit published.	Includes templates, guidance, checklists and tips, for projects and staff to deliver our engagement strategy in a consistent way. Embeds stakeholder engagement ‘decision points’, as part of the 7-step delivery framework for reform projects.
February 2020	Identified and contacted 50+ local Law Societies of England & Wales.	To update them on reformed services and how to become involved with engagement. Invite them to engage at a local level Included as part of corporate stakeholder engagement to ensure organisational- level updates are received by members working at a local level.
March 2020	National lockdown due to COVID-19 in UK.	Routine engagement and communications rapidly enhanced and thematic working groups involving key stakeholders established. Examples include: GOV.UK guidance page acts as our first port of call for all the latest information in regard to the impact of coronavirus on our courts and tribunals. Daily/weekly operational summary. COVID-19 newsletter to support major announcements as they happened. Fed into daily/weekly Ministry of Justice stakeholder updates detailing the latest courts and tribunals activity in response to COVID-19. Jury trials working group, COVID operating hours working group, Magistrates’ court working group.
April 2020	Remote Courts Worldwide launched.	Partnered Tech Nation and Prof Richard Susskind in launching the website. Designed to help the global community of justice workers - judges, lawyers, court officials, litigants, court technologists - to share their experiences of ‘remote’ alternatives to traditional court hearings, in the wake of the pandemic.
May 2020	HMCTS bulletin refreshed.	In line with wants and needs of stakeholders, presenting the information in a refreshed, jurisdictionally focused way to increase accessibility of information and diversify our audiences.
May 2020	‘Get Legally Speaking’ podcasts issued.	Engaging and sharing practical information directly with users, focusing on key consumer-focused reform services and a range of COVID-19 updates.
May 2020	e-book ‘50 Tips for Effective Video Conferencing’ published by legal professional Andrew King.	HMCTS supported and provided foreword. To help professional court users adapt to and gain confidence in using accelerated video and audio technology in light of COVID-19.
September 2020	First tranche of case studies published.	Evidencing the impact of engagement within key reform programme projects.
September 2020	Magistrates’ court lists in England and Wales published.	Public for the first time, making it easier for stakeholders to access listing information.
September 2020	Police & Crime Commissioners in England & Wales engagement.	To update them on COVID-19 recovery, outline engagement taking place at a local level, what it is achieving and how they can become involved. Established strong working relationships with their central comms team to ensure organisational-level updates are received by members working at a local level.
October 2020	Central lines/ information on COVID recovery in criminal courts.	Embedded a central lines document to support external messaging, briefing and communications in relation to recovery in our criminal courts. This is updated weekly and circulated to HMCTS and Ministry of Justice colleagues to improve consistency and accuracy of court recovery communication.
November 2020	4th Annual Public User Event (online).	Online equivalent of annual event delivering over 25 presentations on reform/ COVID-19 recovery projects, initiatives and activity. Over 550 attended over three-day event and given opportunity to ask questions at all sessions.
December 2020	Consultation on COVID-19 operating hours proposal.	Engaged the legal profession on proposals for temporary extended ‘COVID-19 operating hours’ to further increase capacity in the Crown Court. Supported the consultation process through use of stakeholder, digital and social media channels. Delivered recorded presentation and Q&A session to allow wider profession to engage with the consultation. Worked with ministers, press office and No10 in delivering proposed decisions - see consultation document. Led comms and engagement plan when ministerial decision reached.
December 2020	One Conversation 6 launch.	Delivered overarching webinar to update all staff on progress made within reform programme in previous 12 months, and how this has played a crucial role in COVID-19 recovery work. From February 2021, we held webinars for staff across all jurisdictions and programmes providing updates on reform programme.
December 2020	Launch of internal stakeholder engagement survey.	Rolled out across HMCTS reform project teams to facilitate more aligned and consistent tracking of stakeholder engagement and improve quality and accuracy of how this is reported. Survey will be run and reported on, on a quarterly basis.
January 2021	Escalation routes.	Delivered and published escalation routes for professional users, a protocol for how HMCTS manages and reports information about COVID incidents in our buildings.
March 2021	1st stakeholder engagement survey.	Reform projects completed an engagement survey, providing evidence of their engagement with stakeholders from January to March 2021.
March/April 2021	Engagement to support start of common platform national rollout.	Onboarding stakeholder communications, operational sites page published, and weekly staff updates began. One Conversation internal engagement webinars delivered to staff focusing on progress of crime programme and impacts on staff of Common Platform. Engagement webinar delivered to police forces.
April 2021	HMCTS communications round-up.	Weekly communications round up provides regular updates to legal representatives, in an accessible and digestible form, making it easier for them to share the updates more widely in their organisations.
April 2021	Launched Find a Court or Tribunal (FaCT).	The new system has been built from a user’s perspective and based on feedback from users.
May 2021	Reform factsheets and GOV.UK refresh.	Worked with projects to produce factsheets published on GOV.UK for each area of reform which replace ‘Reform Updates’.
July 2021	2nd Internal stakeholder engagement survey.	Reform projects completed an engagement survey, providing evidence of their engagement with stakeholders from April to July 2021.
September 2021	Case studies exemplifying reform engagement.	Worked with projects to produce case studies published on Gov.UK demonstrating impacts of engagement within key reform programme projects.
September 2021	Progress update against stakeholder engagement strategy published.	The update demonstrates how we have implemented recommendations from Public Accounts Committee and delivered against our commitment to provide regular, high quality engagement activity and have established a pattern of working fit for the future.