The government is reviewing a controversial digital system that prompted dozens of magistrates’ court staff to strike last month, the lord chief justice has told MPs.

Lord Burnett of Maldon told the House of Commons justice select committee that the purpose of Common Platform was to replace ‘antiquated systems that at any moment could fall over and if they did we would be in real trouble’. However, Common Platform had run into ‘lots of technical problems, more than it should have done’.

Burnett said HM Courts & Tribunals Service was working hard to fix the problems. The Ministry of Justice has also instigated a ‘light touch review’ of the technical aspects of the system, which the judiciary is contributing to.

The Common Platform, which is currently live in 101 courts, is intended to enable parties in a criminal case to access relevant information on one system. Rollout of the system which has been beset with problems, was paused last year.

The committee heard that the aspect causing the most trouble was ‘resulting’, where legal advisers in the magistrates’ court and clerks in the Crown court input the result of a hearing.

The system is designed to enable ‘contemporaneous resulting’, the committee heard. However, that ‘resulting’ was proving difficult in many cases, slowed the process down in some cases, and put staff ‘under a great deal of strain’.

Burnett said: ‘Looking forward, we cannot carry on with [the legacy systems]. Common Platform is the only show in town. HMCTS have got to be able to sort the problems.’

Last month legal advisers and court associates at more than 60 magistrates’ courts went on strike for nine days.

Burnett said: ‘For me what was striking about it, this was not a group of people saying “we want more pay”, or “we want to work fewer hours”. It was people saying “we’re trying to make this thing work and we can’t and it is really putting us under pressure”. It is vital that the technical problems, the glitches, that have affected this system are sorted and those who use it are trained and have confidence in “resulting”.’

 

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