Legal professionals are slow to adopt digital justice services until they are made mandatory – and even then, revert to other channels if the service does not meet their needs. This is one of the findings of the first overarching evaluation of digital services introduced under the HM Courts & Tribunals Service reform programme. 

The evaluation, published by the Ministry of Justice yesterday, examined the digitisation of seven services: damages; divorce; family public law; financial remedy; online civil money claims; probate; and social security and child support. It concludes that public users ‘generally had positive experiences’. Professional users’ experiences were ‘more mixed’, expressing ‘frustration with the uploading and filing of documentation, and the judiciary felt that the move to self-serve had shifted too much of the administrative burden onto them’. 

Welcoming the evaluation, Law Society president Richard Atkinson said it ‘clearly shows that investment in reliable technology can improve efficiency in this vital public service and strengthen access to justice. Our 21st Century Justice project demonstrated that a justice system fit for purpose requires meeting people’s needs through the responsible deployment of technology.’

However, to achieve the programme’s aims, Atkinson said investment needs to be sustained: ‘Gaps in functionality and inadequate user support risk creating problems, undermining improvements and preventing the system from working fairly.’