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Civil

Susan Acland-Hood sets out our priorities for the next phase of courts and tribunals reform

A blog post from Susan Acland-Hood in which she talks about what is planned on courts and tribunals reform over the next 18 months. This includes taking the things we’ve begun to develop so far and building them out further.

Next steps in testing our proposals for court hours pilots

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, Family, Tribunals

Susan Acland-Hood confirms that today, we are publishing the invitation to tender for an independent organisation to provide an effective assessment of the pilots along with a supporting prospectus, which sets out the rationale for testing flexible court operating hours, and invites views on the detail of how the pilots can best be carried out.

Helping people access our services online

A blog post from Mike Brazier who work in HMCTS’s Accessibility and Inclusion Team. Mike talks about how his team is responsible for ensuring we help and support people who are not online make sure that they can also experience the benefits of using our online services.

We’re delivering reform – and starting to make a difference

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, Digital services, Family, Tribunals

The second in a series of blog posts from Susan Acland-Hood. The first one set out why reform is needed and why we need to do more to engage and talk more widely about what we’re doing. In this blog post Susan talks a bit more about the approach we are taking to reform, and why we are well set up to succeed and explains about what impact changes have already made.

We're pausing court hours pilots to get evaluation and other changes right

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, Family, Tribunals

A blog from Susan Acland-Hood on our plans to re-tender for an independent organisation to lead the evaluation work for the flexible operating hours pilot. At the same time, we’ll make more information available and spend more time with legal professionals in each jurisdiction, including those outside the pilot areas, to refine our plans. This will mean the pilots will now begin in February next year.

We're changing for a purpose - and listening too

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, Digital services, Family, Tribunals

Susan Acland-Hood reflects on what she has learnt since she started as CEO of HMCTS last November. Susan explains her plans to write a set of blog posts that outline what we need to do, what we’ve done so far, what our plans are, and how to get involved in shaping HMCTS’s reforms for the future. This blog post focuses on her first-hand observations of our courts and tribunals system, its strength and value, but also the deep challenges it faces and the reasons why she believes only radical reform can make it flourish for the future.

Improvements to victim and witness rooms

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Crime, Family, User experience and research

A blog post from Liz Olney, Deputy Director for Customer Change and Innovation at HMCTS. Liz shares our recent work to transform our victim and witness rooms. We see over 156,000 individuals coming to court to give evidence each year and rely on evidence provided by victims and witnesses to support the carriage of justice. It’s important we provide the best environment so that individuals can present their cases well.

How remote working will give users and courts greater flexibility

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, Digital services, Family

A blog post from Fiona Rutherford, which discusses the implementation of remote working, specifically virtual hearings. Fiona talks about the opportunities (and responsibility) presented by the ‘once in a generation’ £1 billion investment in our courts and tribunals. This work will re-shape how we enable access to the justice system and how we deliver our reformed public services in the future.

Ensuring our justice system fits the needs of those it serves

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Civil, Court and tribunal reform, Crime, User experience and research

A blog from Susan Acland-Hood, the Chief Executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service about looking at options to use court and tribunal buildings in a more flexible way, letting people have their cases heard outside the current traditional 10am to 4:30pm court day.