Strategic Engagement Group Meeting – Chair’s Summary – 5 September 2023
Updated 15 December 2023
Applies to England and Wales
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1. Introduction
This document summarises the discussion of the Strategic Engagement Group (StratEG) meeting held online on 5 September 2023.
Members of the Bar Council, Law Society and Chartered Institute of Legal Executives met representatives of HMCTS and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for the latest quarterly meeting.
The meeting included verbal updates and three presentations:
- ListAssist and over-listing issues
- MoJ evaluation of the reform programme
- Small claims: integrating mediation into the court process
2. Over-listing and ListAssist
In a verbal update, listing was confirmed as a judicial function and cases are evaluated individually, based on their position in the justice system.
ListAssist is currently live in some jurisdictions, but not yet crime. Work is ongoing to synchronise it with additional technology used by the Crown Court. It will add value in implementing judicial listing policy but will not completely solve over-listing issues due to high trial listing rates.
Over time, ListAssist may be used to identify the availability of court professionals, but currently faces some challenges in doing so.
HMCTS is taking an active approach to develop relations between the courts and local chambers to ensure of improvement in communication and working practices.
3. Crime and Common Platform update
A verbal update confirmed that Common Platform is now live across all courts in England & Wales (as of July 2023), with plans to enhance its features and performance over the coming months.
Defence practitioners are being offered opportunities for engagement relating to increased functionality of Common Platform, with a series of demonstrations taking place from mid-September.
The Single Justice System has been rolled out and has been extended to traffic cases in the Essex area, with plans to extend it to the remaining police forces by the end of the year.
Preparation for Effective Trial (PET) and Better Case Management (BCM) forms have generated positive sentiments and good levels of utilisation. Further enhancements are planned for later this year.
4. MoJ overarching evaluation of the reform programme
The overarching evaluation centres around four thematic areas:
- redesigning channels around user needs and a shift to online services
- enhancing the use of remote services
- consolidating the court estate and investing in infrastructure
- introducing new support services
Several evaluations are in progress. The opt-out civil mediation report which was published in March 2023 is available online. Further details about other research already completed is available on GOV.UK.
Evaluations of Crime Reform, Scheduling and Listing, Publications and Information and Video Hearing Service are currently being scoped.
5. Small claims: integrating mediation into the court process
A presentation outlined an overview of the policy. It will be introduced within HMCTS following the consultation in 2022 and subsequent government response in July 2023. HMCTS will pilot increased mediation in spring 2024.
Integrated mediation will start with specified money claims, which represents 80% of all small claims, before being extended to other small claims. To accommodate increased mediation, HMCTS has outlined five priorities:
- increased numbers of mediators
- ensure updated business processes are in place
- developing an improved appointment booking tool
- participant communication support
- evaluation and monitoring of the process
Mediation services are tailored to individual claims as a first line of resolution to solve lower-level disputes.
Potential increases in cases processed have undergone evaluation, with modelling predicting limited impacts, which HMCTS will monitor regularly to ensure there is sufficient capacity.
6. Reform programme – jurisdictional updates
Written jurisdictional updates were provided to the group, as agreed under the revised Terms of Reference.
6.1 Crime
Common Platform is now live in every criminal court in England and Wales, with the remaining functionality to be released by December 2023.
The delivery timeline for the enhanced case progression capability for Crown Courts and the strategic Scheduling and Listing solution has been extended by up to 15 months (delivering by the end of March 2025).
6.2 Future hearings
There is on-going work with HMCTS’ pathfinder court to look at the business processes which will support remote hearings for crime. Workshops have taken place to identify current processes and map out new processes for testing of the end-to-end design.
Work to refine features to ensure that the video hearing service is accessible is underway, along with enhancements to the look and messaging within the remote hearing.
6.3 Civil
Digital take up for Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC) is around 58% with an overall satisfaction rate of 97%.
As of July 2023, the current digital uptake of the Damages Service is at 89%, with users now being able to choose to pay a court fee via card or Payment by Account (PBA).
Over the coming months, plans for nationally released enhancements and releases in both the OCMC and Damages claims services will be developed to continue to increase digital functionality.
Taking into consideration feedback from the last national releases, planning is underway to develop and test a digital end-to-end journey to support legally represented parties on OCMC and Damages claims at proposed ‘early adopter’ locations.
Currently, 16 court locations and approximately 14% of the total civil caseload volume are being considered and engagement sessions with judicial and operational colleagues are being planned and delivered.
6.4 Family
The Private Family Law service has developed a full implementation plan and will be used in early adopter courts to ensure processes are right for all users before moving onto the next phase of early adopters.
The Adoption Service project has developed and released a private Beta that tests the digital application and ability to pay online. It’s available to litigants in person only at the 11 early adopter sites. The project has created an implementation plan for national roll out. Regional rollout of the service is due to start with the new digital service to the remaining sites and associated local authorities in late September 2023.
6.5 Tribunals
On 4 July 2023 the Project and Service teams hosted their first webinar to external professional users to promote digital uptake of the ET3. The webinar is also available to users via YouTube.
On 27 July 2023 the ‘Case Progression’ feature for Employment Tribunals was released, allowing both Litigant in person or Legal representative to interact with the Tribunal using the customer facing portals to submit applications and correspondence.
On 14 August a presentation video on the case progression applications was recorded and also made available to professional users via YouTube.
7. Next meeting
The next meeting will be on 5 December 2023.