Asked by: James McMurdock (Reform UK - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time was between application to the Employment Tribunal and hearing in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts and Tribunals Service does not hold the requested information.
Asked by: Katie White (Labour - Leeds North West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to speed up proceedings within the Family Court system; and what initiatives are being implemented to enhance the digitisation of documents and processes.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Delays in the court process can have a significant impact on children and families. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is committed to improving timeliness of cases and reducing the outstanding caseload.
The Family Justice Board agreed system-wide national targets for reducing delay in 2024/25. These are focused on closing the longest running cases in private and public law, resulting in a reduction of the private law cases by 10% and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluded within the statutory 26-week timeframe.
The HMCTS Reform Programme has introduced several new digital services within the Family Courts, enhancing and automating the administration of family court orders. These services encompass Divorce, Financial Remedy, and Public Law Proceedings. Currently, HMCTS is piloting a new digital service for private law proceedings, aiming to replicate the administrative improvements seen in other family services. This service is scheduled to be implemented across England and Wales by the end of 2025.
Asked by: Ben Spencer (Conservative - Runnymede and Weybridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what performance metrics exist for the Civil National Business Centre; and whether those metrics are being met.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
HM Courts & Tribunals Service publishes weekly performance metrics for the Civil National Business Centre. The target is 5 working days and 11 out of 15 workstreams are currently in target.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of appeals to the First-tier Tribunal against local authority decisions relating to special education needs are upheld.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
In the Academic Year 2023-24 (the latest period for which statistics have been published), 16,726 appeals were disposed, of which 11,157 appeals had outcomes decided. Of the 11,157 decided, 11,007 were decided in favour of the appellant (upheld1). This represents 66% of all outcomes (conceded, decided and withdrawn) and 99% of the total appeals decided in this Academic Year.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service (which administers the First-tier Tribunal for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)) is working with colleagues from the Department for Education to understand the increase in Education, Health Care Plans (EHCPs); the increasing demand on the Tribunal; and also, how to improve initial decision making by Local Authorities.
Information about appeal outcomes to SEND is published at: Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2024 - GOV.UK.
1Appeals are counted as upheld when the majority of the Local Authority’s decision is overturned.
Asked by: Henry Tufnell (Labour - Mid and South Pembrokeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to reduce civil court backlogs.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The courts, as the cornerstone of the civil justice system, play a crucial role in supporting economic growth, enabling businesses and citizens to resolve disputes in a timely fashion and uphold their rights.
Though most civil claims made in the county courts result in a default judgment or out-of-court settlement, there have been long standing challenges with delays in the 3% of claims that require a full trial. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is working in partnership with the judiciary to address this.
We have increased the use of mediation, making mediation a requirement in all defended claims for under £10,000. This enables more claims to reach a consensual resolution at an earlier stage and frees up resource to deal with those claims that require judicial determination. In addition, increased digital working through our reformed systems allow money claims, including those involving businesses with legal representation, to reach trial readiness over three times quicker than paper claims.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the unit of measurement for court funding to judicial working days from sitting days.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The funding of HM Courts and Tribunals Service is agreed annually between the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals, via the Concordat process.
Sitting days are an important metric used in this process, because they currently provide the best basis for estimating the number of case disposals that can be achieved for a given level of funding. This is essential to assess any funding proposal’s impact on waiting times, caseloads and access to justice.
Judicial working time incorporates other important tasks (including work outside the hearing room, training, recruitment and leadership work) in addition to the time sitting in courts and tribunals. Work is underway to consider whether the definition of a ‘sitting day’ can be updated and improved to account for work outside of the hearing room that directly helps to progress cases towards disposal.
As the Lord Chancellor has previously set out, she is determined that the Concordat process under her will be different and improved.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans to use remote court hearings to ease the burden on the courts system.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The decision to hold a hearing remotely, or enable participants to attend remotely, rests with the judiciary. HM Courts and Tribunal Service continues to support and enable remote hearings by optimising the courts and tribunals estate and building technological capability. This empowers the judiciary to conduct remote and hybrid hearings at their discretion, allowing for increased accessibility and flexibility in the day-to-day business of courts and tribunals.
Asked by: David Burton-Sampson (Labour - Southend West and Leigh)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce the backlog in small claims business cases.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The courts, as the cornerstone of the civil justice system, play a crucial role in supporting economic growth, enabling businesses and citizens to resolve disputes in a timely fashion and uphold their rights.
Though most civil claims made in the county courts result in a default judgment or out-of-court settlement, there have been long standing challenges with delays in the 3% of claims that require a full trial. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is working in partnership with the judiciary to address this.
We have increased the use of mediation, making mediation a requirement in all defended claims for under £10,000. This enables more claims to reach a consensual resolution at an earlier stage and frees up resource to deal with those claims that require judicial determination. In addition, increased digital working through our reformed systems allow money claims, including those involving businesses with legal representation, to reach trial readiness over three times quicker than paper claims.
Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Employment Tribunal cases had been outstanding for more than 12 months in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
A case may be outstanding for many reasons, often driven by the behaviour and choices of the parties. HM Courts & Tribunals Service does not hold information on the number of outstanding cases for more than 12 months.
Asked by: Catherine Fookes (Labour - Monmouthshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessments her Department has made of the adequacy of Personal Independence Payment tribunal wait times; and what steps she is taking to reduce them.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are working to reduce the outstanding caseload in the Social Entitlement Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal. Reducing the outstanding caseload is the key measure to bringing down the waiting times for tribunal hearings.
HM Courts & Tribunals Service continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology as appropriate. If an expedited hearing is requested, a Judge or Legal Officer will make a decision on that issue, taking all the circumstances into account.
Data on Tribunals performance is published by the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis. Receipts, disposals and the outstanding caseload for individual Chambers in the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal, the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.