Transparency data

Chair’s Summary – Strategic Engagement Group Meeting 23 November 2021

Published 24 December 2021

1. Introduction

This document summarises the discussion of the Strategic Engagement Group (StratEG) meeting held on 23 November 2021. The meeting was held by video, rather than face-to-face due to the pandemic.

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.

2. Court reform

Each jurisdiction updated on their area, as well as on impact of the pandemic on project delivery. There were verbal updates on Common Platform and the contract for Court Appointed Intermediary Service.

The Reform Plan update reported that the Common Platform national rollout is on hold and HMCTS is working with the Judiciary on stability and performance issues.

The Single Justice Service is on track to be delivered to every Police Service by the end of March 2022.

The Social Security and Child Support project will close in 2022.

The Family Public Law project has closed with work continuing on mandating the service. The project will close completely in January 2022.

The Immigration and Asylum project is on track to deliver and close in May 2022.

The Video Hearings pilot has been extended.

The first tranche of the Scheduling and Listing project, using the ListAssist tool, in Wales and South Yorkshire has gone well. Kent and Northumberland will follow in December. Wales Courts and Tribunals Service Centre is on track to be operational in June 2022. The Tribunals project is looking to identify early adopter sites for the Scheduling and Listing ListAssist functionality for Social Security and Child Support jurisdiction.

In the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, appeals by legal representatives can be submitted digitally on behalf of appellants from inside and outside of the UK.

The Family jurisdiction reported that the Private Law project has started developing the first major release; a dedicated C100 journey for legal professionals, using MyHMCTS, which is scheduled for release in Spring 2022. This will allow users to pay for applications online via Payment by Account, receive auto acknowledgement of receipt by the court and have an ability to track case progress. The C100 journey for litigants in person will allow Litigants to pay online, receive an auto acknowledgement of receipt by the court and track case progress up to final order. The Adoption project re-commenced, following a pause, in October 2021 and will deliver a transformed digital end-to-end digital service for individuals and/or their legal representatives wishing to make an application for Adoption by October 2022.

In the Civil jurisdiction, the Online Civil Money Claims service is live, with Judge Draws Directions Orders/Legal Advisers Directions Orders national rollout complete. This provides the beginning of the digital file being available in the County Court. Help with Fees will be released in December. The next release of the Damages Claims service will expand the service to Legal Rep Private Beta and the digital journey through to the Hearings stage by early 2022.

An update on Common Platform was presented at the meeting - see below below.

In the Future Hearings Jurisdiction and the Scheduling and Listing pilot, the ListAssist tool is in service at Oxford. Courts in South Yorkshire and Wales are also live, and implementation is underway across other County Courts. Tribunals will use ListAssist once integration with Civil and Family systems are complete. The Publications and Information project is conducting usability testing with legal professionals and Media Working Group volunteers.

3. Common Platform update

The presentation on Common Platform (CP) reported that there are 32 Crown Courts and 69 Magistrates Courts live on Common Platform. We paused rollout to additional courts in August to assess stability issues and challenges with IT changes. No further courts will go live on Common Platform until the New Year. Phase 2 of the rollout included digital case systems at Crown Courts. We’re gathering feedback from courts to inform the rollout in 2022.

4. Contract for Court Appointed Intermediary Service

Currently there are no formal contracts for the court intermediary service. The service is primarily facilitated by legal representatives or the courts/tribunals for litigants in person. The HMCTS Contracted Services Division was therefore bringing the provision for the Court Appointed Intermediary Services (CAIS) under one contract, managed by HMCTS. The Witness Intermediary Scheme (WIS), managed by the National Crime Agency, will however continue and remain unchanged.

The CAIS contract will offer a choice of Managed and Approved Service Providers (MASP), where the service is managed on behalf of HMCTS, or Approved Service Provider (ASP), where the service is provided by individuals or small companies. Supporting guidance and information will be available on gov.uk.

The benefits of the CAIS contract and arrangements will include clear quality standards and control of the service, choice of provider, guidance for court staff, consistent booking, pricing, complaints and quality assurance protocols for all venues.

Procurement activities for the contract are complete, and the contract is provisionally scheduled to go live in February or March 2022.

5. Stakeholder engagement strategy

The Chair thanked legal professional members for their input to the update on HMCTS stakeholder engagement strategy, which was published in 2018. We will publish the refreshed stakeholder engagement strategy for 2022 to 2025 in January 2022.

6. Next meeting

The next Strategic Engagement Group meeting is scheduled for 18 January 2022.

There will be four presentations at the meeting. We’ll update on the Video Hearings Evaluation, MyHMCTS, Family Public Law Digital Service and Common Platform.

The group agreed to hold the next meeting virtually by video on MS Teams. The position will be reviewed at each meeting.

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