Susan Acland-Hood, Chief Executive, HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

The legal system in the UK, steeped in rich history and tradition, has been changing and evolving to meet the needs of society over 1,000 years. It is widely regarded as one of the best and most independent in the world.

Our legal system and services are vital cornerstones of our society: key pillars of our economy and democratic way of life; enablers of our success as a nation.

The coronavirus outbreak has presented our justice system, as well as those around the world, with significant and far-reaching challenges. We are keen to share our experiences with other jurisdictions internationally who are going through similar challenges and we will continue to learn lessons from other countries’ experiences. Many of these have been captured on Remote Courts Worldwide, which was set up at the start of the pandemic to help the global community of justice workers to share their experiences of remote alternatives to traditional court hearings and which we support.

The pandemic saw many of our ongoing reform processes accelerated almost overnight — with online technologies providing particular support

As Covid-19 started to impact our lives in the UK, the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice, our most senior justice leaders, made it clear that our response must prioritise urgent cases to keep people safe, protect the vulnerable, safeguard children and ensure that critical decisions affecting many lives could still be made.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service — responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales — made heroic efforts alongside the judiciary and legal professionals to keep the justice system up and running.

Now, as we move out of that response phase, we must look at what we have learnt, share our experiences and knowledge with other justice systems around the world, and implement our plans for longer-term recovery.

Our response to Covid-19

We were part-way through delivering an ambitious £1bn reform programme to modernise the court system when the virus hit, which meant that we had luckily already introduced online access to some services.

The pandemic saw many of these reform processes accelerated almost overnight, with online technologies providing particular support as we increased the capacity of our existing systems and introduced new capabilities. This ensured that as many hearings as possible that do not need a physical courtroom could take place.

Like countries around the world, we are now preparing for an extended period of living with the threat of the virus

Alongside, we reorganised our estate, temporarily closing around half our sites. With fewer physical hearings in fewer courts, cleaning staff could focus efforts more effectively, with court users able to observe strict social distancing rules in all open buildings.

Whilst we weren’t running full jury trials, we still heard huge numbers of plea and trial preparation hearings, sentencing hearings, and other work, with a great deal done virtually. That kept the overall backlog figure from rising as high as it might well have, but figures published recently show it now stands at over 41,000, which represents an increase of about a fifth over the previous twelve months.

We don’t underestimate the significant challenges still to come to get back to working at pre-crisis activity levels and to deal with the outstanding cases that have built up.

Our recovery

Over ninety percent of our court and tribunal buildings have now reopened for essential in-person hearings, following rigorous assessment to make sure they adhere to public health guidance. We are installing physical modifications, where necessary, to maintain a safe environment and will continue to open our sites as they are assessed safe, throughout August.

Like countries around the world, we are now preparing for an extended period of living with the threat of the virus. Our plans allow us to be flexible so we can always respond to the latest public health advice but respond appropriately to an evolving situation in the justice system, focusing on how we can deliver justice in new ways and increasing capacity so we can do more.

Building capacity to deliver justice in new ways

We are identifying suitable venues outside of our own estate, such as former courts, local authority and other public buildings, or commercial hires, such as conference venues, to boost capacity. This will allow traditional court buildings to manage more work while maintaining social distancing – whether that be by hosting full hearings or allowing victims and witnesses to attend remotely.

This recovery work and ongoing evaluation will ultimately help inform a refreshed operating model in a way that keeps us in tune with the shifting global landscape and true to the values of reform

Additionally, work is underway to design other arrangements to maximise capacity, like extending sitting hours, where possible.

Our online services will continue to accelerate and expand their effective use across all jurisdictions to maximise impact. This includes new hardware to improve the quality of video hearings and, over the summer, we’ll complete the rollout of a new video platform into all crown and magistrates’ courts, as well as civil and family jurisdictions.

In May, we re-started jury trials in a number of buildings — one of the first among other comparable jurisdictions globally. Like all our reopened buildings, these sites, which included the historic Old Bailey, were carefully assessed. More will follow and all jury trials will take place under special arrangements to maintain the safety of all participants.

Next steps

As we move forwards, we will learn from the experiences of recent months and adjust our plans accordingly to build an improved resilience against any future impacts.

This recovery work and ongoing evaluation will ultimately help inform a refreshed operating model in a way that keeps us in tune with the shifting global landscape and true to the values of reform.

Getting it right will mean the system which owes its success to that same rich history and tradition is capable of emerging - not only intact from this crisis, but more efficient, dynamic and resilient: a smarter system for a different future. — Susan Acland-Hood

HMCTS recently published an overview of its response to Covid-19.

(Picture credit: Unsplash)

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