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Court reform queried

by Mark Rowe

A Public Accounts Committee report has called into question HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s £1.2 billion programme to modernise courts.

Committee Chair, London Labour MP Meg Hillier said: “Government has cut corners in its rush to push through these reforms. The timetable was unrealistic, consultation has been inadequate and, even now, HMCTS has not clearly explained what the changes will mean in practice.

“Our report recommends action to address these failings. But even if this programme, or a version of it, gets back on track I have serious concerns about its unforeseen consequences for taxpayers, service users and justice more widely. There is an old line in the medical profession — ‘the operation was successful but the patient died’.

“It is difficult to see how these reforms could be called a success if the result is to undermine people’s access to justice and to pile further pressure on the police and other critical public services. Government must engage properly with these challenges and explain how it will shepherd this programme through the upheaval taking place across the justice system.”

The report says that HMCTS is proposing to introduce “virtual hearings” across the court system as well as in tribunals. It already uses video-links in some parts of the justice system. HMCTS closed 258 courts between April 2010 and December 2017. The report warns that changes in one part of government often lead to costs being shunted to another ‘and this could well happen here, for example in prisons, when prison officers will be diverted from usual duties to supervise attendance at virtual hearings’. MPs point to a most recent review of the reforms that concluded ‘that successful delivery of the reforms was in doubt’. The Ministry of Justice in charge of courts told the PAC that ‘it had learnt lessons from its experiences of the Transforming Rehabilitation and Electronic Monitoring programmes. It acknowledged that, while not failures, both programmes took too long, were over-complex and difficult.’

For the full report visit https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmpubacc/976/97602.htm.

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