Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Common Platform roll-out on staff (a) workload, (b) stress levels, and (c) morale.

HMCTS has embarked upon a transformative change agenda, with a view to modernise and improve the outcomes significantly for the users who rely on courts/tribunals, and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the system. Insofar as workload is concerned, the point of the system is to automate more, and make staff (and professional partner/user) lives easier, providing a more efficient and consistent service.

For stress and morale, the implementation of change always needs to be effectively managed. We are committed with supporting our workforce through this process, our longstanding daily team meetings across our courts provides a manager with a temperature check on how teams are feeling about change. Where stress indictors are apparent, a member of staff or their line manager will use an individual stress risk assessment to discuss, define and mitigate stress. Alongside that, our annual staff survey provides us with a real understanding of the impact change has on our staff.