Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many legal professionals with caring responsibilities participated in the civil and family Flexible Operating Hours pilot scheme, by (a) sex, (b) jurisdiction and (c) location.

40 family cases were heard at the Manchester Civil Justice Centre during the Flexible Operating Hours pilots.

HMCTS has appointed a consortium of IFF Research and Frontier Economics to carry out an independent evaluation of the Flexible Operating Hours pilots at Manchester Civil Justice Centre and the County Court at Brentford. The evaluation is being conducted as set out in the evaluation plan, published July 2019: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flexible-operating-hours-evaluation-plan-and-summary.

Data has been collected on the number of cases heard in Flexible Operating Hours sessions rather than on numbers of participants. Legal professionals, including those who participated in the pilots and those who opted out, were contacted to take part in in-depth research interviews. Public user surveys distributed to all participants in FOH sessions contained 19 optional questions related to equality and diversity, including questions on caring responsibilities. Data was also collected on reasons for opting out of FOH sessions by way of surveys that included the same equality and diversity questions and by interviews. Analysis of data on legal professionals and litigants in person with caring responsibilities who participated in the pilots in Brentford and Manchester will be included in the independent evaluation report.