Need to know: issue 39

• Staff harassment protocol

• Reminder: contact number for DTS

• CTSC contact details

• Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2023
• New Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) guidance
• Updated guidance for case remittals
• Extradition: Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TaCA) guidance
• Electronic Monitoring intranet pages
• Common Platform webinars for defence professionals

• Customer Investigations Team name change

• Child maintenance payment fees
• Payments for off-contract interpreters

• Adoption project national rollout

• FPL: pre-case management hearing meeting pilot

• Court of Protection observer requests

• SSCS: reasonable adjustments for documents

Staff harassment protocol

We've published our new Staff Harassment Protocol and guidance on what to do with social media postings against HMCTS staff. These have been developed to support staff should they experience harassment or direct threat of harm at work or online. Both documents also apply to agency staff.

The Staff Harassment Protocol provides all our staff with the same level of support as Judicial Office Holders if they are the subject of a significant threat to their physical safety or the victim of harassment as a result of their work. The social media guidance is designed to support staff to effectively report content online directly to the social media platforms for removal.

A joint webinar outlining more details on both will be advertised to staff in the coming weeks. 

Please see the Staff Personal Security and Social Media and Online Guidance for more information or email digital.comms@justice.gov.uk (social media guidance) or your Regional Security and Safety Officer (Staff Harassment Policy) with any questions. 

Reminder: contact number for DTS

As a reminder, in January this year, the contact details for the Digital and Technology (DTS) HMCTS Service Desk were changed. Previously there were separate numbers for different services, including ones for Cloud Video Platform (CVP) support and DTS crime support.

These numbers have all been replaced by one single number: 0203 989 6060.

A call forwarding has been in place, but will be removed at the end of September.

No change is being made to judiciary support lines or CTSC support models. For these, you should continue to follow existing processes as normal.

Customer Investigations Team name change

From October, the Customer Investigations Team will be called the User Investigations Team.

Their new email address will be userinvestigations@justice.gov.uk. Please make sure you update any guidance or templates you have that refers to the old team name.

Child maintenance payment fees

When taking child maintenance payment fees, you must ensure that you provide the correct information required by the Department for Working Pensions (DWP)

.

You should include the 12-digit reference number, which will start with “121”, the defendant’s surname, and date of hearing (where appropriate) in the description field. This will help the Payment by Account (PBA) reconciliation for DWP. 

For more information, please see the specific examples provided.

Payments for off-contract interpreters

From 2 October 2023, invoices for off-contract interpreters will be sent to the court or office for processing, rather than SSCL. Invoices will be processed by court teams on P2P01 webform and will require Statement of Financial Authority (SFA) approval. The non-purchase order route will no longer be available.

You can read the full guidance on the intranet.

CTSC contact details

Now that all magistrates’ courts have gone live with Common Platform, we wanted to remind everyone of the contact details for the Courts and Tribunal Service Centre (CTSC), so that you can contact the CTSC with queries or referrals as appropriate.

For queries referring pieces of work to be done, or feeding back on individual cases, you should email professionalcontactcrime@justice.gov.uk

If you need to escalate a query and flag repeated issues, you should email ctsc-crime-tls-escalations@justice.gov.uk

These contact details can be used on Saturdays and bank holidays as well as during the week.

You can find all of the relevant standard operating procedures (SOPs) on the intranet, under “My Work”. We also have list of which tasks are allocated to the courts and the CTSC.

Criminal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2023

Changes to the Criminal Procedure Rules come into force on Monday 2 October 2023.

You can read more about the changes in the explanatory guidance on GOV.UK.

New Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) guidance

We have published new guidance and process map on outgoing Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA). The guidance provides information on requests and the use of the new standard form between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

If a court user requires assistance in arranging an MLA request, staff can assist by referencing to (but not providing) the guidance. Users should be advised that it’s their responsibility to arrange the MLA request and not HMCTS’s.

Updated guidance for case remittals

We have amended the resulting guidance for remittals to magistrates’ courts from Crown Court. It now includes Common Platform resulting codes for the following results:

• Remittal on unconditional bail
• Remittal – Adjournment
• Remittal in youth detention accommodation
• Remitted in local authority accommodation
• Remitted in local authority accommodation with bail direction

Extradition: Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TaCA) guidance

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TaCA) allows for streamlined extradition arrangements between the UK and the EU. TaCA warrants replace European Arrest Warrants, which were in place until 2020; these new extradition arrangements have been in place since 1 January 2021.

Different types of extradition applications (inc. TaCA) must be dealt with by different courts and judiciary. We have drafted new guidance to help understand which types of extradition applications must be made to which courts.    

Electronic Monitoring intranet pages

We have added a link on the magistrates’ court intranet page to the Electronic Monitoring (EM) pages. The EM pages were previously already linked from the Crown Court intranet page. The EM guidance is relevant to both Crown and magistrates’ courts.

If you have any suggestions or queries about these pages, please contact CCTD Crime Support.

Common Platform webinars for defence professionals

We’re running interactive webinars in October and November to support defence professionals in using Common Platform, particularly focusing on the digital Preparation for Effective Trial (PET) and Better Case Management (BCM) forms.

These sessions will walk attendees through the steps required to access, view and edit the forms including logging into Common Platform, associating to a case and viewing the full case details. They will also have the opportunity to ask questions about using Common Platform and get support from our Implementation Team.

Please encourage defence practitioners in your area to sign up. Sessions will run outside of court hours, and numbers are limited to make sure each session can focus on attendees’ requirements.

Adoption project national rollout

Today (27 September 2023), we have started the national rollout of the online post-placement application project to three regions; Wales, South West and North East of England.

This will be followed with London and South East on 11 October 2023, and Midlands and North West on 25 October 2023.

You can read more about the changes, guidance and support documents on the intranet. We have also created a new standard operating procedure for receipt of portal applications.

FPL: pre-case management hearing meeting pilot

The Department for Education has agreed a pilot for pre-case management hearing (CMH) meetings for selected local authorities within care proceedings.

The pilot will test the practicalities and impact on an earlier meeting between a social worker and the children's guardian. The aim of the earlier meeting is to share and understand information about the family prior to the CMH.

The meeting will take place after the court has accepted the local authority’s application and the children’s guardian appointed, but before the advocates’ meeting.

This is not a pre-court hearing, so there is no additional work for HMCTS. However, you should make sure to engage with your local authorities and list CMHs in accordance with the Public Law Outline.

The pilot is part of a broader initiative to reduce unnecessary delay in care proceedings and it will run from September to December 2023.

Court of Protection observer requests

A new observer request protocol for the Court of Protection came into effect from Monday 4 September 2023.

The protocol clarifies the requirements around whether the public hearing is listed remotely or by in-person attendance, and details the wording of the email to be used.

The protocol can be found on the Court of Protection intranet page.

SSCS: reasonable adjustments for documents

We have issued guidance regarding reformed appeals and the reasonable adjustment process in place for documents.

You can read more in the latest Jurisdictional and Operational Support Unit update.

Issue 39: 27 September 2023