Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the data collected by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service on the outcomes of cases across courts and tribunals since March this year can be disaggregated by (1) case type, (2) whether the hearing was conducted remotely or in person, and (3) the protected characteristic of the parties to the case; and, if not, what plans they have to collect such data.

HMCTS continue to work to improve the data it collects, including following the recommendations in Dr Natalie Byrom’s report Digital Justice: HMCTS data strategy and delivering access to justice. The full response to the report is attached.

HMCTS’ legacy technology systems are limited in the data they collect – as new systems and services are introduced, HMCTS is able to improve the position, in order to support its core purpose to provide an efficient and effective courts and tribunals system, which supports an independent judiciary in the administration of justice - enabling the rule of law to be upheld, and providing access to justice for all.

To summarise the current position

(1) Case type

In the Crown Court HMCTS can disaggregate whether a case is triable either way, indictable only, for sentencing or an appeal. In the Magistrates Court HMCTS can report case type by Criminal, Enforcement and Civil, which can be further split by Offence type (ie Indictable, Either-way, Summary Non-Motoring, Summary Motoring, Breaches). In Family courts HMCTS can disaggregate public law and private law cases. Tribunal jurisdictions collect data which allows disaggregation into case type.

(2) Hearing conducted remotely or in person

HMCTS rapidly increased capacity for video and audio hearings as part of the response to Covid-19. At present for most jurisdictions the only information is a manual data collection via a ‘situation report’ (to provide overall picture of use of audio/video) and is not attached to cases. In the Magistrates’ Court there is a case marker to show if defendant appears via audio/video.

(3) Protected characteristics

Legacy systems collect some limited data on protected characteristics. As recommended by Dr Natalie Byrom, work has begun to collect data on users’ protected characteristics. This is data that we have been able to collect for Probate (digital) since 2 June, for Online Civil Money Claims (specified claims) since 21 July, for Divorce (digital) since 29 September and for Probate (paper) since 11 November. HMCTS will introduce this for new digital services entering public beta in 2021. HMCTS recognise that data about individuals’ protected characteristics is sensitive personal information – it is collected on a voluntary basis, held securely and with strict controls. It will only be possible to disaggregate outcomes by protected characteristics if the response rate to the voluntary survey is high enough to ensure individuals cannot be identified.