HMCTS heads online for 2020 Public User Event

HMCTS welcomed the highest ever number of attendees to the fourth iteration of its Annual Public User Event, which switched to an online format this year in response to the impacts of COVID-19.

Online sessions were spread across three days this week (3, 4, 5 November), covering the work of criminal, civil, family, tribunals and cross-jurisdictional reform projects over the past 12 months, in a year that has been significantly impacted by the programme’s need to respond to the pandemic.

Professional and public users attended this year’s event and were given the opportunity to engage with the latest services and ask questions to those responsible for delivering the reform programme.

As the event concluded, HMCTS Strategy & Change Director, Gemma Hewison, reflected:

“I was delighted that in spite of the disruption caused by COVID-19, we were able to put on our showpiece event for public users once again, attracting record numbers in the process. The innovation displayed by our Public User Engagement team to make this week happen, and the efforts gone to by those working across the reform programme to deliver their sessions during what has been an intensely busy few months for HMCTS, goes to show how dedicated we are to putting the people who use our services at the heart of everything we do.

“I am hugely grateful to everyone who attended for their involvement and invaluable contributions, and am feeling energised as we lead the programme into its next phase.”

Jurisdictional overviews

Ahead of the event, deputy directors provided overarching summaries of progress made this year in the criminal, civil, family and tribunals jurisdictions. Their overviews can be viewed below.

Gillian Brooks, Service Owner for Crime – criminal jurisdiction overview and welcome

Simon Vowles, Service Owner for Civil – civil jurisdiction overview and welcome

Adam Lennon, Service Owner for Family – family jurisdiction overview and welcome

Daniel Flury, Service Owner for Tribunals – tribunals jurisdiction overview and welcome

Presentations

Attendees were given the opportunity to choose from a range of sessions across the three days, depending on their area of interest or expertise. Recordings of these sessions are available:

Day one: Civil and crime jurisdictions

This playlist includes a range of sessions. For civil, it includes changes to the civil money claims service, as well as some of the response work being completed for possession. Crime presentations include information about the rollout of Section 28, Common Platform, misconceptions about jury service and how we are improving our up-front engagement with defendants.

Day two: Tribunals and cross-cutting jurisdictions

For tribunals, this playlist focuses on the changes being made as a part of our reform programme. It also includes presentations from a number of projects that cut across multiple jurisdictions, such as remote hearings, the future operations teams and work to understand users with additional complex needs.

Day three: Family jurisdiction and COVID-19 topics

Many digital services from the family jurisdiction are now live and this playlist includes demonstrations of some of those services, such as the C100 and family public law, as well as other services within the Family Courts. COVID-19 topics include sessions about HMCTS’ response to the impacts of the pandemic, court safety, consideration of vulnerable users and our new Nightingale Courts.