The civil justice system in the UK is in crisis because of a £160 million backlog of essential IT investment, a senior judge has said.

Speaking at the Society for Advanced Legal Studies last month, Lord Justice Brooke, vice-president of the Court of Appeal's civil division, warned that the situation was bleak. 'We are now having to do our best to spread a small amount of money as far as it will go,' he said.


The judge, who was in charge of court modernisation for 19 years until June this year, blamed a decision by the Treasury in July 2002 to pull the plug on a plan to upgrade the civil and family courts' IT systems.


He said: 'All we could do with the money left to us was to provide an inferior IT infrastructure for civil and family courts conducting three-quarters of that business, and to do our best to provide diary systems from software designed for offices, not courts.


'Two-and-a-half years ago I really thought we were on the way to creating new arrangements for civil and family justice of which this country could be proud. Now I see no light on the horizon at all.'


One of the problems identified by Lord Justice Brooke is that the CREST and CASEMAN back office systems lack the functionality to serve the linked diary and electronic case file, case management and case record systems the courts need. The LINK infrastructure project, which is being rolled out to civil and family court centres, is considered 'good for morale, but it does not and cannot help staff and judges with the paper mountain'.


The judge cited the successful Money Claims Online service - where simple money claims of up to £100,000 can be issued against one or two defendants - as an example of what could be achieved with proper funding.


And he contrasted the civil justice system with its well-resourced criminal counterpart. 'I do not have many worries about the criminal courts. Government has shown that it is willing to finance them properly.'


However, Lord Justice Brooke said IT was not the only problem with the civil justice system - it also faces a £160 million backlog of essential court maintenance, a huge turnover in court staff and 'antediluvian filing systems'.



The Treasury's insistence on its full cost recovery regime meant that 'things can only get worse - much worse' (see [2004] Gazette, 2 December, 1).



A spokeswoman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said it would be 'unfair' to say that the civil justice system is in crisis.


She said: 'Investment in IT is at an unprecedented level in the civil and family justice system and Lord Justice Brooke makes this clear. We may not be where we want to be but we are getting there.'