Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has had recent discussions with Royal Mail on the steps it is taking to tackle delays in delivery to the BR7 postcode area.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
It is for Ofcom to set and monitor Royal Mail's service standards with powers to investigate and take enforcement action where there are reasonable grounds for concluding Royal Mail has failed to achieve its obligations.
I am aware that Royal Mail continues to have particular service challenges in some postcode areas. I note that Royal Mail management accepts its performance needs to be much better and has started to address this, for example, by recruiting an additional 3,000 postmen and women so far with a further 500 permanent delivery positions a week going forwards.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has had recent discussions with criminal barristers on the adequacy of the Common Platform.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS is accountable to, and regularly engages with, the Lord Chancellor on Common Platform. The Lord Chancellor sees court reform as a top departmental priority, and is fully committed to engaging with the legal profession on all the department’s priorities, including Common Platform. He is looking forward to meeting with representatives of the Criminal Bar Association in mid-July to discuss the priorities that they wish to engage on.
Throughout the rollout of Common Platform, we have engaged extensively with the defence community on the wider reform landscape and the design of Common Platform functionality. We have done this through a range of formal engagement groups with representatives from the defence community. The feedback we have received has been extremely valuable and provided a wealth of information that has been fed into our designs. Defence practitioner input is particularly important for informing the next phase of implementation which will bring significant changes and improved functionality for the judiciary, counsel, and other parties in the Crown Court.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the Common Platform for enabling barristers to transfer cases without a transfer being undertaken by a defence solicitor.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Phase 1 of Common Platform was not designed for the use of Crown Court judges or barristers. It replaces the systems used by HMCTS staff in the Crown and magistrates’ courts and is used by magistrates’ court users to view case materials.
Phase 2 of Common Platform will introduce new functionality that will enable Crown Court cases to be handled on Common Platform. Until then the Crown Court Digital Case System (DCS) continues to be the single document repository for Crown Court Cases. Barristers are expected to continue accessing the information they need from DCS and do not need to access Common Platform other than to check into a case when arriving at the hearing.
Having worked with defence practitioners throughout the design stage of the programme, we were aware that once Crown Court cases are fully managed on Common Platform, there is a requirement for barristers to be able to give access to cases to other barristers, at short notice and at unsociable hours. This requirement was intended to be met when other Phase 2 functionality is introduced.
The absence of this flexibility in Phase 1 does mean that if a case changes hands at short notice, counsel attending the hearing may not be able to check into the case, and a process has been put in place for court staff to complete the check-in on their behalf in this scenario.
In early April 2023 we learned that, despite all the above, the inability to reassign cases was causing issues for barristers.
Now that we are aware of the issue, the functionality to enable greater flexibility has been reprioritised and will be delivered sooner than planned. The development teams are analysing this change now and we should soon be able to provide a time estimate for its release.
We are grateful that this issue was raised with us, and welcome further feedback to improve the Common Platform for all our users.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has invited (a) barristers and (b) solicitors to (i) access test cases and (ii) test other aspects of the Common Platform system.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Whenever new functionality is developed for Common Platform, it goes through several stages of testing. For significant changes, we ensure the functionality is tested by the main groups of users who are most impacted by the system, and rigorously test it in early adopter courts to ensure it is suitable for use in a live court environment.
A handful of solicitors were invited to test the new functionality for the digitalisation of the Pre-Trial Preparation and Better Case Management forms late last year. The feedback provided gave valuable insight into the usability of the forms by practitioners.
Now that we are planning the next phase of implementation, where barristers are a critical user group, we are enhancing their role in our implementation approach. In addition to the existing opportunities they have to provide their input on design, we plan on providing opportunities for barristers to join sessions to test the system and we will be issuing further communications to raise awareness on that approach soon.
We will be undertaking user acceptance testing with defence advocates, including barristers, as we did in November 2022 before moving the Preparation for Effective Trials and Better Case Management forms to a digital format.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to ensure a smooth rollout of the Common Platform in Crown Courts.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We are already live in 67 Crown Courts with 10 remaining, and we have learnt and adjusted our approach in the ways of working with the Judiciary and CJS partners. To date 369,447 cases have been accepted onto the Common Platform, and 521,812 hearings have been managed on Common Platform in the Crown Court.
We recognise introducing a new digital system and business processes is challenging and we are working with Judiciary and CJS partners to embed the changes.
Common Platform has been designed for its users, incorporating their experiences and feedback at every stage. Experienced staff and Judges have been directly involved throughout the design, testing and implementation of Common Platform. Their knowledge and expertise have been instrumental in developing the system.
We have a Defence Practitioners Working Group and a Judicial Working Group who have been closely involved in the design of the functionality and how it will be used. We started with discussions about what requirements users have, then mocked these up into visual images for validation with our users, and to ensure we’ve correctly interpreted their requirements. Once the designs are finalised, the functionality is developed. As soon as functionality has been developed, we have arranged demonstrations for users. We are now organising User Acceptance Testing and training, as well as opportunities for users to come and see the new functionality in order to get an idea of the look and feel of it. We are also planning to bring some pieces of functionality to early adopter courts before rolling out wider. Once new functionality has been implemented, we have a robust feedback process in place to ensure any issues are identified and resolved quickly.
Feedback from Common Platform users is important for us to make implementation as smooth as possible. We have a newly established feedback process to capture concerns and suggestions from staff and this has improved the way we manage feedback and keep them directly updated on how it is being used, through a range of measures. These include a new digital form, monthly feedback webinars, and allocating senior sponsors to all regions to act as independent escalation points.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that the NHS Workforce Plan contains a detailed analysis of the long-term funding allocations required to develop a healthcare workforce capable of delivering recommended levels of care into the future.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has and will continue to prioritise investment into the National Health Service. We worked closely with NHS leadership to agree £3.3 billion per year of new funding for the NHS in England at the autumn statement. This is on top of the historic funding settlement that the NHS received at the last spending review.
The work of the Long Term Workforce Plan will be used to inform future Government work on how to best meet the needs of patients and the NHS workforce. Funding plans will be subject to business and financial planning and investment decisions once the work has been completed. Funding plans beyond the current Spending Review period will be subject to the outcome of future Spending Reviews.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the terms of reference are for the joint NHS and Health Education England diagnostic workforce board; whether there is an imaging subgroup of the board; what role the diagnostic workforce board has had in shaping the NHS long-term workforce plan; and what role the board will have in the implementation of the NHS long-term workforce plan.
Answered by Will Quince
A copy of the Terms of Reference for the joint NHS England and Health Education England Diagnostic Workforce Board is attached. There is an imaging workforce sub-group of this board.
Individual members of the Diagnostic Workforce Board have had an opportunity to feed into the development of the Long Term Workforce Plan for the National Health Service at appropriate stages and in the capacity of their roles. In line with the Terms of Reference, the board will have a role in supporting implementation of the workforce plan.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the actions required to ensure that the NHS long-term workforce plan can be implemented efficiently with regards to establishing (a) governance structures and (b) accountability checks.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has committed to publishing the long term workforce plan this year. Further information on governance arrangements will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the merger of NHS England and Health Education England on the implementation of the NHS long-term workforce plan.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has been developed jointly by NHS England and Health Education England (HEE), reflecting their close working relationship irrespective of the merger. The merger builds on cooperation and joint working between HEE and NHS England and will help ensure that the merged organisation performs its functions as effectively as possible, including on the implementation of the Long-Term Workforce Plan.
The Department will continue to monitor and track the performance of the new NHS England through the NHS England mandate.
Asked by: Robert Neill (Conservative - Bromley and Chislehurst)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the merger of Health Education England and NHS England will not impact the implementation of the NHS long-term workforce plan.
Answered by Will Quince
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has been developed jointly by NHS England and Health Education England (HEE), reflecting their close working relationship irrespective of the merger. The merger builds on cooperation and joint working between HEE and NHS England and will help ensure that the merged organisation performs its functions as effectively as possible, including on the implementation of the Long-Term Workforce Plan.
The Department will continue to monitor and track the performance of the new NHS England through the NHS England mandate.