It announced this week it will extend the overall reform programme to modernise and improve the civil, family and tribunal justice system by a year to March 2025. It will focus on ‘fixing and enhancing’ the Common Platform case management system, which has encountered some teething problems.
HMCTS said it aimed to improve the ‘stability and the experience of those using’ the Common Platform, and had paused some aspects of the programme but would continue with the introduction of ‘digital cracked and ineffective trial forms and the functionality to allow judges to validate sentences’.
It said: ‘We’ve considered wider pressures, such as long-lasting impacts of the pandemic, number of outstanding cases and the rising cost of living—all affect us as an organisation.
‘As a result, we now need to adjust our plans, particularly for some aspects of the Reform Programme, which was originally scoped at a time when caseloads were lower.’
Nick Emmerson, president of the Law Society, said: ‘HMCTS is making sensible decisions about prioritising work.
‘Pausing implementation of further phases of the Common Platform project in the criminal courts makes sense because the work involving training judges and lawyers on the updated system would have detracted from tackling the backlogs. Trying to implement major IT changes while dealing with an unprecedented backlog of cases always appeared a questionable approach.
‘Extending plans in the civil, family and tribunals to March 2025 means the process may take longer to develop but will avoid costly errors and rework in the long run.’
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