New Service Centre opens in Newport

The Newport centre opens today (Monday 18 July) and is our fifth and final Service Centre following sites opened in Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham, Loughborough and Salford. The centres are an important part of the government’s £1 billion reform programme.

This centre brings staff together under one roof to provide support and guidance about cases. This increased capacity helps court users who need information about criminal cases, and complements the teams in Salford and Stoke-on-Trent who already advise on criminal cases and the Single Justice Service. These teams allow court staff to focus on helping people attending hearings and court in-person.

Service Centres answer more than one million queries each year. They allow us to answer calls and queries quickly and offer better access to justice by providing a service that is more consistent. They also handle several important services that the public relies on, such as applications for probate and supporting video hearings.

Paul Harris, Operations Director, said:

I’m delighted that our new Service Centre is now open. It delivers on a promise we made at the beginning of our reform programme to make it easier for court and tribunal users to find information on their cases.

The Newport Service Centre will help callers with queries about criminal cases. Common queries they’ll advise on include listing enquiries, interpreter bookings and enquiries about hearing results.

Service Centres have achieved a huge amount and bring value to court and tribunal users every day. For example, the new digital divorce process has improved the service at Stoke service centre. A majority of divorces are now concluded within 20 weeks and the number of divorces rejected has been reduced from 40% to less than 1%.

The opening of the Newport Service Centre completes this part of our £1 billion investment to reform courts and tribunals by providing more and better ways to access justice for everyone that needs it.