Welcome to the first edition of our regional newsletter for South East England. This is part of a pilot aimed at improving the way we communicate with our regional stakeholders and court and tribunal users. We hope you will find it informative and welcome any feedback.
Operational updates
Civil orders and correspondence
The South East aims to process all civil orders within three days. Prior to the recent IT issues, we made good progress in this area and we’re now working through a recovery plan. As of 18 February, 11 courts processed civil orders in three days or less and 13 courts took between 4- 10 days. The county courts that currently take longer than 10 days are: Peterborough, Cambridge and Brighton.
Most courts in the South East respond to enquiries in less than 10 days. The following county courts currently take over 10 days to respond: Peterborough, Cambridge, Watford, Canterbury, Dartford, Maidstone, Medway, Chelmsford, and Brighton.
Family orders and correspondence
The South East aims to process all family orders within three days. As of 18 February, six of our courts met this target and 11 took between 4 - 10 days. Dartford, Brighton, Maidstone and Chelmsford Family Courts currently take 10 days of more.
Most family courts take less than 10 days to respond to enquiries. The following family courts take 10 days or more: Watford, Dartford, Maidstone, Chelmsford, Norwich, Ipswich, Brighton and Milton Keynes.
Improving our buildings
New heating controls for Maidstone and Canterbury
Work is about to start at Maidstone Combined Court and Canterbury Combined Court to install new building management systems, which control the temperature in the buildings. These are complete replacements and when complete, will provide a more effective and efficient means of controlling the temperature of both court buildings.
New hearing rooms across the South East
Peterborough Combined Court has completed renovation of a large hearing room from two smaller hearing rooms on the first floor. There is also a new hearing room on the ground floor, which is Equality Act compliant. These hearing rooms are suitable for civil, family and tribunal hearings and non-custodial magistrates’ court hearings.
Milton Keynes County and Family Court has a new hearing room, suitable for civil, family and tribunal hearings.
Two new hearing rooms have been built on the ground floor of Chelmsford County and Family Court for Civil and Social Security and Child Support tribunal hearings. They’ll be available from April 2019.
Fixing lifts in Maidstone and Reading
Work has started on repairing the external public platform lift at Maidstone Combined Court and is due to be completed by the end of March 2019.
Work is due to start on repairing the public lift at Reading County and Family Court, once parts have been delivered. In the meantime, anyone who requires a lift can use the staff/judicial lift and cases can be moved subject to judicial agreement.
Catering facilities – general
We recently negotiated a regional vending contract with Selecta and we’re in the process of establishing if courts and tribunals with no catering facilities can be included in the contract, or if alternative catering can be arranged.
Catering facilities – Aylesbury Crown Court
A mobile sandwich van will attend the court at 11:15am every morning for all court staff and users and vending machines are also now available in the building.
Local court user updates
Forthcoming changes to telephone call handling for Reading County and Family Courts
Reading County and Family Court is changing how it handles calls based on court user feedback. An automated system will be set up to direct calls to the relevant team, rather than passing through a call handling team. This should be in place by April 2019 and will allow for more calls to be answered by the court administration team.
Norfolk, Essex and Suffolk Magistrates’ Courts
We’ve received positive feedback since the committals for trials started to be input at our administrative centre, Osprey House. This will be extended to include the committals for sentence by the end of February 2019.
There are also plans to move all administrative resulting from Norwich Magistrates’ Court to Osprey House by the end of April 2019. Osprey House already completes the resulting admin for all cases in Suffolk and Essex. This move will ensure consistency across the courts.
Regional project updates
Regional warrant of control team
The South East is establishing a regional warrant of control support team based in Oxford Combined Court, due to the increase in civil enforcement work over the last 18 months. The support team will ensure that all warrants are subject to administrative attempts to collect payment prior to the warrant being passed to the bailiffs for enforcement.
Surrey and Sussex warrant of control work will move to Oxford Combined Court with effect from 4 March 2019. The timings for the remaining three clusters is still to be confirmed.
Summer Civil “blitz” courts at the Royal Courts of Justice
Small claim and fast track cases from the South East will be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) from 1 August 2019 to 27 September 2019. This will allow feeder courts (within easy travel links to London) from across the region to list their work into the RCJ, enabling local courts to list other types of work.
Single Justice Procedure
The Single Justice Procedure (SJP) enables cases to be dealt with by a single magistrate without the attendance of either prosecutor or defendant outside of the traditional courtroom setting, potentially allowing prosecutor resource to be diverted to other work and releasing court capacity. The SJP applies to cases involving adults charged with summary only, non-imprisonable offences.
Single Justice Procedure (SJP) – driving disqualifications
The South East has rolled out SJP disqualifications, which has made the process for disqualifying defendants from speeding more effective as courts can now upload lists in bulk, saving court and resource time.
Single Justice Procedure (SJP) – Local Authority Prosecutions
SJP notices for local authority prosecutions has started for offences such as parking, littering and non-school attendance. Both administrative processes and SJP sessions will be centralised in the region.
Additionally, Automated Track Case Management, a new digital service, is being rolled out to allow SJP processes to be completed digitally. To prepare the South East for this important development, SJP notices must be implemented for all eligible prosecutors. All local authorities should be live by the end of March 2019.
Magistrates’ Courts going paperless
Magistrates’ Courts in the South East are going paperless following the implementation of Digital Mark Up. This has mostly been achieved with just a few courts outstanding.
Magistrates’ Court Civil Fees
Responsibility for the collection of Magistrates’ Court civil fees, with the exception of Search Warrants and Utility Company Warrants of Entry, has been transferred to the following County Courts.
- Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire – Luton County Court
- Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk – Southend County Court
- Kent – Canterbury County Court
- Surrey and Sussex – Worthing County Court
- Thames Valley – Oxford County Court
Initial results indicate that the changes have been successful and we are already seeing an improvement in the collection of fees. A full evaluation will be completed by the end of March 2019.
Events and meetings
Norwich Crown Court user group meeting, Thursday 28 March
If you are interested in attending, please contact Norwich Crown Court at: enquiries.norwich.crowncourt@justice.gov.uk
Court open days and community events
Final of the Suffolk junior mock trial competition, Friday 15 March, Ipswich Crown Court
His Honour Judge Overbury, the Community and Diversity judge for Suffolk, created a ‘Jonny Rotten’ mock trial for students. 21 schools have taken part in the competition, all of which were sent the script in advance went to court to perform in gowns, wigs and props. They were also able to ask Judge Overbury questions and were given a certificate to mark the occasion. The final two schools go head-to-head on 15 March 2019, in front of guests and the High Sheriff.
Stevenage Magistrates’ Court mock trial event, Saturday 9 March
Stevenage Magistrates’ Court will host a mock trial competition organised by the Citizenship Foundation, in partnership with the Magistrates’ Association and hosted by Magistrates from the two Hertfordshire benches. Four schools from Hertfordshire have entered and each team will have a go at prosecuting and defending in front of a bench of magistrates made up of fellow students, marked by real life judges and magistrates. HHJ Michael Baker will present the prize to the winning team.
Court relocation updates
As is the case for all hearings, if any court user has difficulty in attending a hearing or needs any special arrangements to be made they should contact the court where the case is to be heard.
Maidenhead Magistrates’ Court
Maidenhead Magistrates’ Court closed in December 2018; all hearings are being listed in Reading or the wider Thames Valley.
Banbury Magistrates’ Court, County Court and Family Court
Banbury Magistrates’ Court, County Court and Family Court closed in January 2019 and the majority of work is now being heard at Oxford Magistrates’ and Oxford Combined Court.
Chichester Combined Court
Chichester Combine Court closed in December 2018 and civil and family cases are now being listed in Worthing, elsewhere in Sussex or in the recently established hearing accommodation in Pallant House, Chichester. Suitable civil and family cases are identified, on the basis of geography, by the judiciary and hearings will take place every Friday. HMCTS worked in partnership with Chichester District Council to establish the Pallant House facilities.
Southend County Court and Family Court
Building work is underway at Southend Magistrates’ Court to accommodate civil, family and tribunal work from Southend County and Family Court. We expect the County and Family Court to relocate to the Magistrates’ Court this autumn. Further updates will be provided through written communication and court user group meetings.
Colchester Social Security and Child Support Tribunal
Colchester Social Security and Child Support Tribunal will close on 31 March 2019 and work will be relocated to Chelmsford County and Family Court, following the completion of works to increase the number of courtrooms in Chelmsford.
Harlow Social Security and Child Support Tribunal
Harlow Social Security and Child Support Tribunal will close on 18 April 2019 and work will be relocated to Chelmsford County and Family Court, following the completion of works to increase the number of hearing rooms in Chelmsford.
Regional activities and charity work
South East staff participated in “Time to Talk” events in February to raise awareness of mental health problems. Mental health problems affect one in four of us yet people are still afraid to talk about it.
Feedback
If you have any feedback on any of the content or if there are any topics you’d like to hear more about, please send an us an email.
|
