Courts: Disability

(asked on 13th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court buildings in the Midlands were inaccessible to (a) defendants and witnesses, (b) members of the public and (c) court staff with disabilities in the week beginning 6 May 2019; and how many of those buildings were only temporarily inaccessible in that week because of broken lifts; and how many of those courts were inaccessible to at least one of those groups for (i) more than one week and (ii) more than one month in the latest period for which figures are available.


Answered by
Paul Maynard Portrait
Paul Maynard
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 21st May 2019

HM Courts & Tribunals Service is committed to ensuring access to courts and tribunals is maintained for staff and service users. We have a reasonable adjustments policy in place to accommodate those with particular access requirements. Disabled access was typically not factored in when many of our court and tribunal buildings were built. However, we have a number of accessible courts that our criminal justice partners are aware of, and these are used to list cases where a defendant might have accessibility needs.

The majority of our buildings were accessible to the user groups listed during the period in question. Of the 44 total courts and tribunals in the Midlands, none were inaccessible to witnesses, staff or members of the public during the week commencing 6 May 2019, whilst 32 were inaccessible to one very specific user group with disabilities (defendants using custodial facilities).

No buildings were temporarily inaccessible due to broken lifts.

We aim to list cases at suitable venues when there are access needs. Where access issues do arise various mitigations are explored, including video-conferencing from a remote site, the use of judicial or staff lifts, or later start times for those who require longer to travel to court.

Since 2015/16, we have invested more than £114m to improve court buildings and, in last year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced an additional £15m to be spent on improving maintenance and security across the estate.

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