CCR2 Public-Sector Collections


Access to justice and civil- court reform: fact or fiction?


The time has come for real reform of the service offered to creditors collecting through the courts, or the opportunity may be missed


Rob Thompson Vice chair, Civil Court Users Association RobertThompson @brachers.co.uk


‘Access to Justice, Fact or Fiction?’ is the title of the Civil Court User Association’s annual conference, due to take place in Birmingham on 15 October 2019. As far as money claims are concerned, the


court service has rarely, if ever, been at such a crucial and pivotal moment in deciding how best to provide justice to court users and then implement those changes. With vast sums of money to spend on the


court-reform project and a clear mandate from the recent Civil Justice Review conducted by Lord Briggs, these should be exciting times. Why then do so many court users apparently remain disillusioned? I believe that the answers are obvious.


Expensive The court service is incredibly expensive. Charging up to £10,000 just to issue a Claim Form is frankly absurd and cannot be justified. The notion that the civil courts should be self-financing is itself a contentious one.


Even if that concept is accepted, the


money could be ring-fenced to ensure a good level of service, yet it is not. The fees could also be positioned so that users pay for the service they require, rather than being front-loaded so that a fortune is spent on a claim which goes no further than a default judgment. The impact of these ever-increasing fees


is clear to see. A continuing decline in multi-track and fast-track claims, with justice priced out of the market. Small claims increase. It is an affront to the concept of justice that people who owe a small amount of money are more likely to have a judgment entered against them than those who owe a larger amount of money. Leaving that aside, maybe the reform


programme will at least see an improvement in levels of service? Given the context set out above, and unless there is also a change to the fees, it is difficult to see that it would ever be able to provide anything close to value for money.


However, maybe it could at least make


those fees a little more palatable? It can be difficult to keep track of the


potential benefits, or otherwise, of the changes being proposed within the reform programme, given the seemingly stop-start nature of progress to date. There is clearly an ongoing emphasis on


digitalisation and centralisation. This is generally welcome and should provide benefits to court users, some of which we are already seeing. In his Civil Justice Review, Lord Briggs


expressed very strongly the need for increased efficiency, embracing modern technology and ending the vast quantities of paper being shuffled around. It is, moreover, clear from the reforms


that there is also a great deal of emphasis on enhancing communication and promoting engagement. This again follows the clearly expressed views of Lord Briggs, in making the court process far more accessible and transparent, especially for litigants in person. However, I would suggest it is critical


In his Civil Justice Review, Lord Briggs expressed very strongly the need for increased efficiency, embracing modern technology and ending the vast quantities of paper being shuffled around


30 www.CCRMagazine.com


that care is taken in how that message is conveyed. Making it clear to a litigant in person


that a claim can be defended or that an application can be made to set aside a judgment or to stay a writ of control is no doubt a good thing. However, making that a very quick and easy thing to do, possibly at the last moment in the process and without any warning about the circumstances where it may not be appropriate, or any other safeguards to prevent a deluge of spurious applications – that is a different story.


September 2019


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52