The CJC Enforcement Working Group’s final report recommends creating a ‘single unified digital court for enforcement of judgments’ obtained in the High Court and the county court.
This approach would have ‘the benefit of a portal retaining information about the defendant’s financial position and dealing with all the debts relating to one individual or party—including those outside the court process’.
The CJC group, led by Judge Karen Walden-Smith, considered switching from using the courts to enforce debt recovery to an administrative or judicial officer model, but found ‘no particular appetite’ for this. Similarly, it considered but opted against simply providing more funds for the county court or transferring county court enforcement to the High Court.
The report, published last week, follows a 12-week consultation which uncovered widespread concerns that the court system for enforcement is ‘slow, ineffective, underfunded, and hard to use and “near impossible” for someone navigating the system without assistance’, uses ‘arcane’ systems and ‘prehistoric’ forms and is ‘labyrinthine’.
It notes that ‘enforcement of judgments in general is currently performing poorly, with judgment creditors frustrated by delays and ineffectiveness of a disjointed approach, and judgment debtors concerned about the costs incurred in the process of enforcement and the inability to pay—particularly in the continuing cost of living crisis’.
The working group makes several suggestions on service, process and fees—for example, many defendants are unaware of the proceedings until judgment in default is entered and appears in a credit rating check (about 60% of judgments are default). It recommends reducing the fee for an application to set aside a county court judgment from £303 to £123.
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls, and chair of the CJC, said: ‘For too long, civil enforcement processes in England and Wales have been overly complex and unwieldy.
‘There is an obvious need for rationalisation and modernisation, but it is a subject that has perhaps always been placed in the “too-difficult box”.’
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