Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what protections are currently in place for police whistle-blowers reporting misconduct within their own force.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police officers and staff have protections under ‘whistleblowing’ law, meaning they are protected from being unfairly dismissed or from suffering any detriment due to having made a protected disclosure. The Police (Conduct) Regulations 2020 expressly reflect this.
Further, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which is a prescribed body to whom police whistleblowers can make protected disclosures, runs a dedicated reporting line for police officers and staff.
The College of Policing’s Code of Practice for Ethical Policing puts a duty on Chief Officers to facilitate and protect whistleblowers. Many police forces provide a confidential, internal reporting system to encourage reporting of concerns.
Part 2 of the Angiolini Inquiry is considering a range of cultural issues in policing, including whistleblowing processes, and the Government will consider any recommendations it makes carefully.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help protect female whistle-blowers in male-dominated industries.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is taking a range of actions to strengthen whistleblowing protections for workers, including female workers.
Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to clarify that workers are protected from detriment or dismissal by their employer if they ‘blow the whistle’ on sexual harassment, as long as the conditions in the legislation are met. This is an important reform that may encourage more workers to speak up about sexual harassment.
In addition, the Government will introduce legislation in this Parliament to disbar senior NHS leaders who have been dishonest or covered up unsafe practice from working in leadership roles in the NHS again.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the Financial Conduct Authority responds in full to complainants against companies it has given permits to operate.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The FCA does not generally have a role in relation to managing or intervening with individual complaints between the firms it regulates and their customers.
Under the independent Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) Dispute Resolution Rules, firms that are regulated by the FCA are required to operate complaints handling procedures to deal with complaints promptly and fairly.
Where complaints are not resolved through a firm’s own complaints procedures, the customer can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS is an independent body established by Parliament to provide consumers with a cost-free and quick route to resolve disputes with financial services firms. Firms are required under the FCA’s rules to co-operate with the FOS and comply promptly with any decision that the FOS may make.
The FCA is directly involved in some types of complaint, for example where a person has information about potential wrongdoing or misconduct, or an individual wants to raise a whistleblowing concern. People who are worried they have been the victim of relevant scams can also make a report to the FCA. While the FCA cannot resolve individual disputes, it can take information provided into account as part of its ongoing supervision of a firm and wider monitoring of practices in the sector. The FCA is required not to disclose confidential information it receives in the course of carrying on its functions, and will not normally be able to discuss this with the person making the complaint due to statutory restrictions on disclosing certain information.
Anyone directly affected by the way in which the FCA has exercised, or failed to exercise, its functions (other than its legislative functions) under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 may also complain about the FCA using the Financial Regulators Complaints Scheme. This would include, for example, complaints about the FCA’s actions supervising a relevant firm. The FCA website gives details of how to make a complaint about the regulators at https://www.fca.org.uk/about/complain-about-regulators
The FCA is fully accountable to Parliament for how it discharges its statutory functions, and there are a range of mechanisms in place to provide accountability and oversight. Treasury Ministers and officials meet regularly with the FCA to discuss a wide range of issues, including its overall performance in furthering its statutory objectives.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many whistleblowing reports relating to HM Courts & Tribunals Service's digital systems have been received in each of the past five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There have been two whistleblowing reports over the last five years (reported 2024-25) that relate to HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s digital systems.
Asked by: Luke Taylor (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with Metropolitan Police leaders on safeguards to protect whistleblowers who report (a) misogyny and (b) racism.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary and I have regular meetings with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and other police leaders on a range of issues including police conduct.
Police officers have a statutory duty to report wrongdoing by their colleagues when they see it, and the College of Policing’s Code of Practice for Ethical Policing puts a duty on Chief Officers to facilitate and protect whistleblowers. The Metropolitan Police Service has a specialist unit to handle any concerns raised by “whistleblowers” with provision to come forward anonymously and to provide additional support to those who are accorded “whistleblower status” over and above their protections in wider employment and whistleblowing law. In addition, the Independent Office for Police Conduct runs a dedicated telephone line for police officers and staff.
Part 2 of the Angiolini Inquiry is also considering a range of cultural issues in policing, including whistleblowing processes, and the Government will consider any recommendations it makes carefully.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that Ofsted inspections are (a) standardised and (b) include safe sleep practice.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Ofsted will receive additional funding as part of the Best Start in Life Strategy to enhance the quality and consistency of early years inspections, and we will fund Ofsted to move towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, in parity with schools.
Ofsted’s inspectors for early years inspections are early years professionals with relevant knowledge of safer sleep practice and are capable of assessing a provider’s adherence to the relevant suitability and safer sleeping requirements in the early years foundation stage (EYFS). In September 2025 we strengthened the safeguarding requirements in the EYFS statutory framework, including:
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department plans to pause or review court digitisation efforts in light of the reported failures in HMCTS IT systems.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Given the important and sensitive work undertaken across the civil, family and tribunal jurisdictions, and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal in particular, it is entirely understandable that there will be concern at reports of an IT bug. It is important to reaffirm the Ministry of Justice’s commitment to a fair, open, and transparent justice system. Public trust in our courts is paramount, and any suggestion that this trust may have been compromised is taken extremely seriously.
There is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. However, actions are underway by HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the technical error has not resulted in adverse outcomes or materially influenced judicial decisions. Recognising the importance of the effective running of HMCTS’s digital case managements systems, a technical fix was applied as a priority within the relevant jurisdictions with the final fix applied in January 2025.
In 2023, under the previous Government, HMCTS identified that a technical issue in the Civil, Family and Tribunals case management system was having an impact on some services because of the way that services were interacting with the Core Case Data (CCD) database. This technical issue had the potential to cause some documents and data fields to be hidden from view in certain cases across Civil, Family, and Tribunal jurisdictions.
Following a risk-based assessment, HMCTS initially undertook targeted investigations, which have since been significantly expanded. In Tribunals, the area affected was SSCS cases. In recent weeks, HMCTS has carried out additional work which has continued to assure that the technical issue was indeed of very low incidence and confirmed that there is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. Further assurance work is ongoing.
In Civil and Family jurisdictions, no impact on judicial decisions has been identified to date. In Family Public Law, operational mitigations – such as local authorities supplying full bundles directly to the court – reduce the risk of missing documents on the CCD system affecting case outcomes.
Due to the sensitivity of these matters, further re-assurance work is still under way. Any further steps will be determined and communicated to parties should this work identify any cases of concern.
HMCTS follows established escalation protocols to ensure that technical issues are assessed and, where appropriate, disclosed to judges and legal professionals. In light of this episode, Ministers have asked that these processes are strengthened, including improvements to incident management and governance structures to update the risk assessment criteria on which HMCTS considers communication about technical problems to relevant affected partners or users, and strengthening the systematic handling of cross-cutting or architectural risks.
HMCTS staff can raise concerns through internal whistleblowing channels, which are managed independently and in line with departmental policy. All concerns are investigated and escalated appropriately.
The internal report referenced in media coverage was part of a whistleblowing investigation conducted in line with Ministry of Justice policies. In line with standard practice, we do not publish internal HR and whistleblowing reports. Likewise, it would not be appropriate to comment on questions about specific internal disciplinary investigations, other than to confirm that departmental policy and process are followed as required.
There are no plans to pause court digitisation. While technical challenges are an inevitable part of digital transformation, they are investigated and triaged according to risk. We are continuing to digitise and improve our services to support swift access to justice.
Over the span of the HMCTS Reform Programme there will have been many organisations involved in the development of the HMCTS case management systems, of which there are several. Major delivery partners are listed in Reform Programme documentation and procurement records, which are publicly available. The main suppliers which have worked on the development of the Civil, Family and Tribunals Platform (that includes Core Case Data) during the period of 2016 to present are:
Atos
Capgemini
CGI
Cognizant
Methods
PA Consulting
Scrumconnect
Transform UK
Solirius Consulting
Version 1
This includes the provision of any services in the development of the case management system, such as: development, quality assurance testing, architecture, user-centred design, data architecture, delivery management amongst others.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any (a) HMCTS and (b) Ministry of Justice staff have been subject to disciplinary investigation in connection with the handling of the IT system failures.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Given the important and sensitive work undertaken across the civil, family and tribunal jurisdictions, and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal in particular, it is entirely understandable that there will be concern at reports of an IT bug. It is important to reaffirm the Ministry of Justice’s commitment to a fair, open, and transparent justice system. Public trust in our courts is paramount, and any suggestion that this trust may have been compromised is taken extremely seriously.
There is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. However, actions are underway by HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the technical error has not resulted in adverse outcomes or materially influenced judicial decisions. Recognising the importance of the effective running of HMCTS’s digital case managements systems, a technical fix was applied as a priority within the relevant jurisdictions with the final fix applied in January 2025.
In 2023, under the previous Government, HMCTS identified that a technical issue in the Civil, Family and Tribunals case management system was having an impact on some services because of the way that services were interacting with the Core Case Data (CCD) database. This technical issue had the potential to cause some documents and data fields to be hidden from view in certain cases across Civil, Family, and Tribunal jurisdictions.
Following a risk-based assessment, HMCTS initially undertook targeted investigations, which have since been significantly expanded. In Tribunals, the area affected was SSCS cases. In recent weeks, HMCTS has carried out additional work which has continued to assure that the technical issue was indeed of very low incidence and confirmed that there is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. Further assurance work is ongoing.
In Civil and Family jurisdictions, no impact on judicial decisions has been identified to date. In Family Public Law, operational mitigations – such as local authorities supplying full bundles directly to the court – reduce the risk of missing documents on the CCD system affecting case outcomes.
Due to the sensitivity of these matters, further re-assurance work is still under way. Any further steps will be determined and communicated to parties should this work identify any cases of concern.
HMCTS follows established escalation protocols to ensure that technical issues are assessed and, where appropriate, disclosed to judges and legal professionals. In light of this episode, Ministers have asked that these processes are strengthened, including improvements to incident management and governance structures to update the risk assessment criteria on which HMCTS considers communication about technical problems to relevant affected partners or users, and strengthening the systematic handling of cross-cutting or architectural risks.
HMCTS staff can raise concerns through internal whistleblowing channels, which are managed independently and in line with departmental policy. All concerns are investigated and escalated appropriately.
The internal report referenced in media coverage was part of a whistleblowing investigation conducted in line with Ministry of Justice policies. In line with standard practice, we do not publish internal HR and whistleblowing reports. Likewise, it would not be appropriate to comment on questions about specific internal disciplinary investigations, other than to confirm that departmental policy and process are followed as required.
There are no plans to pause court digitisation. While technical challenges are an inevitable part of digital transformation, they are investigated and triaged according to risk. We are continuing to digitise and improve our services to support swift access to justice.
Over the span of the HMCTS Reform Programme there will have been many organisations involved in the development of the HMCTS case management systems, of which there are several. Major delivery partners are listed in Reform Programme documentation and procurement records, which are publicly available. The main suppliers which have worked on the development of the Civil, Family and Tribunals Platform (that includes Core Case Data) during the period of 2016 to present are:
Atos
Capgemini
CGI
Cognizant
Methods
PA Consulting
Scrumconnect
Transform UK
Solirius Consulting
Version 1
This includes the provision of any services in the development of the case management system, such as: development, quality assurance testing, architecture, user-centred design, data architecture, delivery management amongst others.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to overhaul the governance and oversight structures of HMCTS.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Given the important and sensitive work undertaken across the civil, family and tribunal jurisdictions, and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal in particular, it is entirely understandable that there will be concern at reports of an IT bug. It is important to reaffirm the Ministry of Justice’s commitment to a fair, open, and transparent justice system. Public trust in our courts is paramount, and any suggestion that this trust may have been compromised is taken extremely seriously.
There is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. However, actions are underway by HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the technical error has not resulted in adverse outcomes or materially influenced judicial decisions. Recognising the importance of the effective running of HMCTS’s digital case managements systems, a technical fix was applied as a priority within the relevant jurisdictions with the final fix applied in January 2025.
In 2023, under the previous Government, HMCTS identified that a technical issue in the Civil, Family and Tribunals case management system was having an impact on some services because of the way that services were interacting with the Core Case Data (CCD) database. This technical issue had the potential to cause some documents and data fields to be hidden from view in certain cases across Civil, Family, and Tribunal jurisdictions.
Following a risk-based assessment, HMCTS initially undertook targeted investigations, which have since been significantly expanded. In Tribunals, the area affected was SSCS cases. In recent weeks, HMCTS has carried out additional work which has continued to assure that the technical issue was indeed of very low incidence and confirmed that there is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. Further assurance work is ongoing.
In Civil and Family jurisdictions, no impact on judicial decisions has been identified to date. In Family Public Law, operational mitigations – such as local authorities supplying full bundles directly to the court – reduce the risk of missing documents on the CCD system affecting case outcomes.
Due to the sensitivity of these matters, further re-assurance work is still under way. Any further steps will be determined and communicated to parties should this work identify any cases of concern.
HMCTS follows established escalation protocols to ensure that technical issues are assessed and, where appropriate, disclosed to judges and legal professionals. In light of this episode, Ministers have asked that these processes are strengthened, including improvements to incident management and governance structures to update the risk assessment criteria on which HMCTS considers communication about technical problems to relevant affected partners or users, and strengthening the systematic handling of cross-cutting or architectural risks.
HMCTS staff can raise concerns through internal whistleblowing channels, which are managed independently and in line with departmental policy. All concerns are investigated and escalated appropriately.
The internal report referenced in media coverage was part of a whistleblowing investigation conducted in line with Ministry of Justice policies. In line with standard practice, we do not publish internal HR and whistleblowing reports. Likewise, it would not be appropriate to comment on questions about specific internal disciplinary investigations, other than to confirm that departmental policy and process are followed as required.
There are no plans to pause court digitisation. While technical challenges are an inevitable part of digital transformation, they are investigated and triaged according to risk. We are continuing to digitise and improve our services to support swift access to justice.
Over the span of the HMCTS Reform Programme there will have been many organisations involved in the development of the HMCTS case management systems, of which there are several. Major delivery partners are listed in Reform Programme documentation and procurement records, which are publicly available. The main suppliers which have worked on the development of the Civil, Family and Tribunals Platform (that includes Core Case Data) during the period of 2016 to present are:
Atos
Capgemini
CGI
Cognizant
Methods
PA Consulting
Scrumconnect
Transform UK
Solirius Consulting
Version 1
This includes the provision of any services in the development of the case management system, such as: development, quality assurance testing, architecture, user-centred design, data architecture, delivery management amongst others.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will publish a list of all organisations involved in the development of the HMCTS case management software systems.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Given the important and sensitive work undertaken across the civil, family and tribunal jurisdictions, and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal in particular, it is entirely understandable that there will be concern at reports of an IT bug. It is important to reaffirm the Ministry of Justice’s commitment to a fair, open, and transparent justice system. Public trust in our courts is paramount, and any suggestion that this trust may have been compromised is taken extremely seriously.
There is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. However, actions are underway by HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the technical error has not resulted in adverse outcomes or materially influenced judicial decisions. Recognising the importance of the effective running of HMCTS’s digital case managements systems, a technical fix was applied as a priority within the relevant jurisdictions with the final fix applied in January 2025.
In 2023, under the previous Government, HMCTS identified that a technical issue in the Civil, Family and Tribunals case management system was having an impact on some services because of the way that services were interacting with the Core Case Data (CCD) database. This technical issue had the potential to cause some documents and data fields to be hidden from view in certain cases across Civil, Family, and Tribunal jurisdictions.
Following a risk-based assessment, HMCTS initially undertook targeted investigations, which have since been significantly expanded. In Tribunals, the area affected was SSCS cases. In recent weeks, HMCTS has carried out additional work which has continued to assure that the technical issue was indeed of very low incidence and confirmed that there is no evidence of any impact on case outcomes to date. Further assurance work is ongoing.
In Civil and Family jurisdictions, no impact on judicial decisions has been identified to date. In Family Public Law, operational mitigations – such as local authorities supplying full bundles directly to the court – reduce the risk of missing documents on the CCD system affecting case outcomes.
Due to the sensitivity of these matters, further re-assurance work is still under way. Any further steps will be determined and communicated to parties should this work identify any cases of concern.
HMCTS follows established escalation protocols to ensure that technical issues are assessed and, where appropriate, disclosed to judges and legal professionals. In light of this episode, Ministers have asked that these processes are strengthened, including improvements to incident management and governance structures to update the risk assessment criteria on which HMCTS considers communication about technical problems to relevant affected partners or users, and strengthening the systematic handling of cross-cutting or architectural risks.
HMCTS staff can raise concerns through internal whistleblowing channels, which are managed independently and in line with departmental policy. All concerns are investigated and escalated appropriately.
The internal report referenced in media coverage was part of a whistleblowing investigation conducted in line with Ministry of Justice policies. In line with standard practice, we do not publish internal HR and whistleblowing reports. Likewise, it would not be appropriate to comment on questions about specific internal disciplinary investigations, other than to confirm that departmental policy and process are followed as required.
There are no plans to pause court digitisation. While technical challenges are an inevitable part of digital transformation, they are investigated and triaged according to risk. We are continuing to digitise and improve our services to support swift access to justice.
Over the span of the HMCTS Reform Programme there will have been many organisations involved in the development of the HMCTS case management systems, of which there are several. Major delivery partners are listed in Reform Programme documentation and procurement records, which are publicly available. The main suppliers which have worked on the development of the Civil, Family and Tribunals Platform (that includes Core Case Data) during the period of 2016 to present are:
Atos
Capgemini
CGI
Cognizant
Methods
PA Consulting
Scrumconnect
Transform UK
Solirius Consulting
Version 1
This includes the provision of any services in the development of the case management system, such as: development, quality assurance testing, architecture, user-centred design, data architecture, delivery management amongst others.