Law Society backs decision by HMCTS to extend timetable for court reforms

March 21, 2024

The Law Society has welcomed a decision by HM Courts and Tribunals Service to extend the time allowed for court reforms to March 2025 from this month.

President Nick Emmerson said: “HMCTS is making sensible decisions about prioritising work given the dual challenges of delivering the court reform programme and tackling the huge court backlogs.”

Extra time will allow for consideration of organisational capacity, long-lasting impacts of the pandemic and outstanding cases among other issues, Chancery Lane said.

Emmerson said the Law Society had “previously warned of the importance of not rushing development”.

An HMCTS spokesperson said: “We’ve made significant progress in helping people access justice more quickly and easily, successfully modernising 14 vital services including money claims and divorce, and receiving over 2.4 million applications since 2019.

“We’ve listened to feedback and are extending the final phase of the Reform Programme to March 2025, to focus on maximising the potential of existing systems and providing the best possible service in our courts and tribunals.”

HMCTS is revising plans for delivering additional functionality in Common Platform case management system, which it said had received more than 1.3m cases since going live in 2020.

It will focus on enhancements and will also retain the Crown Court digital case system.

The Law Society in December said the courts were “crumbling, plagued with delays and swamped by a 63,000-case backlog” and issued a five-point plan to resolve these problems.

This called on the government to: