HM Courts and Tribunals Service: ICT

(asked on 30th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Common Platform on the number of roles at Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service.


Answered by
James Cartlidge Portrait
James Cartlidge
Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 25th April 2022

Common Platform has been designed to provide the ability to view and share information across all stakeholder groups, and provides a single location for the sharing of case information and notifying parties when new case material is available for them to view. It incorporates functionality to assist HMCTS staff in meeting the expectation that most decisions can be recorded at the time of hearing. This live ‘in-court’ recording of the outcomes of the court proceedings and the sharing of those outcomes with stakeholders such as the police are intended to protect the public and enable those authorities to respond immediately where for example a breach of an order occurs, or further offences are committed.

HMCTS conducted data gathering exercises in 2019 and 2020, where staff allocated their time by activity. This was used to create a baseline for modelling purposes. The impact of the changes introduced by the Crime Programme (including the Common Platform) on the amount of time required to perform activities was then estimated by staff with experience of performing the relevant roles in order to understand the likely impact of the changes. These estimates were used to model the likely impact on numbers of roles at HMCTS, modelled against the Common Platform implementation plan. This modelling is frequently updated to reflect any changes to the implementation plan. We are working with HMCTS staff who work in court and using our model office and model courts to validate the estimates made and ensure the actual impact on roles is understood.

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