Strong teamwork and leadership ensures that we can fulfil our new responsibilities and deliver excellent customer service.
We have demonstrated our commitment to consumer satisfaction with our legal, judicial and court services by appointing Consumer Champions within the Court Service and the Departmental Headquarters. We aim to provide a service to the public that is accessible to all, straightforward to use and responsive to the needs of our customers.
The Crown Court is examining better ways of using internet technology to provide information to court users. We are looking particularly at the needs of witnesses, victims and jurors. On 11 October 2001, Ipswich became the first Crown Court centre to have its own website, containing general information about the Court and links to other criminal justice organisations, such as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). More importantly, the site was developed in conjunction with the local Witness Service and features a virtual experience of giving evidence at court. Witnesses are introduced to the physical environment of the courtroom and to the proceedings in which they will take part. Although the Ipswich site is specifically for witnesses, everyone can use it.
The Integrating Business and Information Systems (IBIS) unit of the Home Office has developed a similar virtual walkthrough from a juror's perspective. The experience, together with a website for Southwark Crown Court centre, was launched on 6 December 2001 (see Section 1.I).
The Public Guardianship Office (PGO) has introduced a follow-up courtesy telephone call to new Receivers to clarify anything of which they may be unsure. The calls are made 15 days after the Receiver has received the Order.
We have a broad programme to improve consumers' access to all of the areas in which we deliver services.
Targets
To ensure that by March 2004 90 per cent of people in police stations requesting the service of a duty solicitor receive the service within 45 minutes (SDA63: see page 16).
To increase access to advice by securing a year-on-year increase in the number of CLS Information Points (SDA64: see page 34).
To pilot online access to court services through the Courts and Tribunals Modernisation Programme, and in partnership with other agencies (eg issue of claims in civil proceedings (Money Claim Online), information provision in all jurisdictions) and development of customer service centres (SDA65).
The Court Service has taken the first step in providing a full range of online services by responding to customer demand in the county court. Many people would like to use the centralised process that the Bulk Centre offers, so we have introduced Money Claim Online (MCOL). MCOL uses the latest web technology and existing Bulk Centre infrastructure. Customers can request the issue of fixed sum claims up to £100,000 and file requests for judgment (default/admission) and warrants of execution online. They can also pay fees online using debit or credit cards. Defendants can submit their acknowledgements and defences by e-mail, and the service is supported by a helpdesk and an online small claims user guide.
Links
Money Claim Online: www.moneyclaim.gov.uk
We held our second Customer Service exhibition at the Royal Courts of Justice. This allowed customers and customer service officers to talk to staff from courts all over the country about the range and variety of services that we now offer.
Community Legal Service Partnerships (CLSPs) now cover 95 per cent of the population in England and Wales. The partnerships include representatives of the Commission, local authorities, and other providers and users of legal and advice services. Local CLSPs support approved projects that aim to improve the delivery of legal services in innovative ways. The projects are part-funded by the Partnership Innovation Budget, which is a key element in the development of the Community Legal Service (see Section 3.I).
County court duty schemes for possession cases provide in-court advice and representation to people whose homes are at risk. The Commission introduced a pilot project, which began in January 2002, to establish the most effective way of implementing such schemes within the Community Legal Service.
We continually increase the range of information available on our websites. Each week, the LCD website receives an average 11,000 unique visits, the Court Service website receives around 55,000 unique visits and Just Ask!, the Community Legal Service website, receives around 12,000 unique visits. The PGO website was launched on 1 October 2001. It contains information about the organisation's services, commitment to customers, complaints procedure, fees and charges, as well as application forms and news for receivers and professional bodies. The PGO also publishes a quarterly newsletter, Reaching Out, with information and advice for receivers. We have obtained Plain English accreditation for a range of published documents for the public about the PGO and its services.
Links
Lord Chancellor's Department: www.lcd.gov.uk
Court Service: www.courtservice.gov.uk
Just Ask!: www.justask.org.uk
Public Guardianship Office: www.guardianship.gov.uk
In partnership with our criminal justice partners in London and Manchester, we will pilot extended court sitting hours in the magistrates' courts. We want to examine the benefits for victims, witnesses and other members of the public who attend court during these extended hours. The PGO contact call centre now operates extended hours of 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday and we are planning a second pilot for the magistrates' courts for an extended hours information service.
The Legal Services Commission has developed a Quality Mark for legal advice websites, intended to give users confidence in the sites they access (see Section 3.III). Only organisations that meet our rigorous standards can display the CLS website Quality Mark. They must demonstrate that their information is accurate and addresses the needs of visually impaired people. The LSC has also launched a Web Standards Project, run by the London Advice Services Alliance (LASA), to support voluntary sector agencies, local councils and solicitors in meeting Quality Mark requirements. The project will help agencies to classify their pages so that users can easily find quality-assured legal information through the CLS Just Ask! website (see Section 3.IV).
Twenty-two courts were awarded Charter Marks in 2001 in recognition of their excellence in delivering services to the public. Currently, 47 Crown and county courts and 6 magistrates' courts have Charter Mark status.
Target
To have doubled by March 2004 the number of Crown and county courts which have achieved Charter Mark accreditation; and by March 2002 to have 100 per cent of magistrates' courts with a charter in place that meets specified standards (SDA66).
The Legal Services Commission was awarded beacon status in October 2001 for its work on partnerships. It was one of 16 awards made, and the Commission was the only national body whose beacon status extended across the entire organisation. Their work towards developing the Quality Mark was taken into consideration, in addition to their Community Legal Service Partnership activities. Barnsley Magistrates' Court was also awarded beacon status and held four successful learning activity days during 2001. Four further days are planned for 2002. Barnsley also represented the magistrates' courts service at the second Court Service Customer Service Exhibition.
We regularly consult our users and potential users about our services. We also consult bodies and groups including the legal profession, the advice sector, criminal justice agencies, other government departments, disabled people and members of ethnic minority communities. Courts hold open days, and encourage visitors to give their opinions on the services provided.
Court Service local surveys tell court managers what users think of the court services. We are conducting a national survey to measure court users' overall satisfaction. The first two waves of this survey consulted over 38,000 customers across the country: 79 per cent said that they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the overall service they received.
The Code of Practice on Written Consultation came into effect on 1 January 2001. It applies to all UK national public consultations that are in electronic or printed form. All of our consultation papers are available on our website and also on UK online's register of government consultations.
As part of the 2000 Spending Review, we set ourselves challenging targets that focus on our consumers' needs. Our performance against these targets is set out below, together with our performance against other central government service standards:
Targets
To reply to 85 per cent of Ministerial Correspondence within 20 working days by 2001-02 and 85 per cent within 17 working days by 2003-04 (SDA67).
To reply to 80 per cent of public correspondence within 15 working days by 2001-02 and 85 per cent by 2003-04 (SDA68).
| Standard | Performance | |
|---|---|---|
| 2000-2001 | 2001-2002 | |
| 1. To answer your letters quickly and clearly. | ||
| Ministerial correspondence: | ||
| LCD HQ: target 20 working days | 73% | 77% [3] |
| Court Service HQ: target 20 working days/15 working days | 94% | 75% [3] |
| Public Guardianship Office: target 15 working days [1] | - | 52% [3] |
| Legal Services Commission: target 20 working days/15 working days | 95% | 93% [3] |
| Public correspondence: | ||
| LCD HQ: target 20 working days/15 working days | 84% | 85% [3] |
| Court Service HQ: target 15 working days | 87% | 92% |
| Court Service: target 10 working days [2] | 98% | 98% [3] |
| Public Guardianship Office: target 15 working days [1] | - | 92% [3] |
| Legal Services Commission: target 20 working days/15 working days | 78% | 83% |
| Standard | Performance 2001-2002 |
|---|---|
| 2. To see you within 10 minutes of any appointment you have made at our offices. If you have not already made an appointment, we will see you within 10 minutes of you having made a request at reception. | Performance is monitored by the courts within Key Performance Indicator 1 - "the quality of service provided to court users" - and is published in the Court Service Annual Report. |
| 3. Answer telephone calls quickly and helpfully. We will answer calls to telephone enquiry points within 30 seconds. | 90% - 96% of calls answered within target. |
| 4. Provide clear and straightforward information about our services and those of related providers, along with one or more telephone enquiry numbers and e-mail addresses to help you or to put you in touch with someone who can. | Achieved. Telephone enquiry numbers and e-mail enquiry addresses in place. |
| 5. Have a complaints procedure for the service we provide, publicise it, including on the internet, and send you the information if you ask. | Achieved. Complaints procedures are available on request and on departmental websites. |
| 6. Do everything reasonably possible to make our services available to everyone, including people with special needs. We will consult users and potential users regularly about the service we provide and report on the result. | Achieved - see Section 7.II. |
We remain fully committed to the five principles of good regulation: transparency, accountability, targeting, consistency and proportionality. This commitment is reflected in our objectives to provide a fair, swift and effective system of justice and to make civil and family law clearer. Baroness Scotland is the Minister responsible for regulatory reform in our Department.
We held seminars for staff on assessing the impact of their policy proposals. We stressed the need to assess the likely effectiveness of new and existing regulations against the five principles of good regulation. Up to December 2001, we included Partial Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs) in four consultation papers. We published full RIAs with the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill and the Land Registration Bill. All RIAs are available on our website.
The Regulatory Reform Act 2000 gave us a powerful tool to simplify or get rid of burdensome, overlapping, over-complex, or outdated legislation. We have been exploring with the Regulatory Impact Unit how to use Regulatory Reform Order (RRO) in some areas of our work. The Government is currently considering a number of the Law Commission's reports, some of which, if accepted, might be suitable for implementation by RRO.
We are improving the regulatory framework that encourages competition and innovation in legal services, increases consumer choice and supports exports through modern regulation of the legal sector. We are working with the Law Society to identify changes to the Solicitors Act that might help us to deliver this. Additional opportunities for regulatory reform may emerge as work on the Office of Fair Trading Report Competition in Professions is taken forward.
We must change the way we work in order to fulfil the Department's new role and responsibilities. We need leaders at every level. We must manage programmes where policy development and implementation depend on each other; we need to build teams of people from many areas; and our staff must have the necessary skills to meet their challenges.
Our new aim, objectives and values provide a strong framework. Through them, we will focus on the diverse needs of our customers; develop the evidence base for our policies; form new partnerships and share goals with others; and be more forward and outward looking.
To achieve our full potential, we will encourage greater openness and creativity among our staff. We are organising a programme of workshops designed to show staff how they can make a difference through new approaches to their everyday work. We will incorporate the messages we have received from our Peer Review, focus groups, recent staff attitude surveys and an internal communications survey. These changes and other related steps are described below.
We aim to understand and respond to the needs of people from all sections of society and to value the contributions of our staff. Our Equality and Diversity Action Plan sets out how we will improve our policy-making, our services and our working environment.
Our staff must understand the relevance of diversity issues to their work. We have run a programme of one-day awareness events for all staff, and we will review training needs with the aim of incorporating diversity issues into all training. We must also take diversity into account in business planning and we are building links with other public sector organisations to ensure that we play a leading role in promoting equality and diversity within government. We are reviewing our human resources policies and procedures so we employ a more diverse range of people - we want to become an employer of choice for people from under-represented groups. We are developing guidance for our policy makers to help them assess the impact of our work on different groups in society and we are improving the way we listen to our service users. Meeting our new duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 is a priority, as is adopting a similar approach to equality for other under-represented groups.
The latest version of the LCD e-Business Strategy was published in autumn 2001. It sets out the vision we hope to achieve by the year 2005, the target date set by the Prime Minister for all departments to offer their services electronically to citizens. The key points of our vision are:
In support of that vision, the Strategy highlights the breadth of e-business initiatives under way across the Department, including:
Our Research Secretariat commissions research to provide sound evidence on which to base policy development, implementation and evaluation. During the year, as part of our rolling programme of research, new projects were commissioned on:
Publications over the year included reports on judicial case management; ethnic monitoring and the civil justice system; and court based Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) initiatives for non-family civil disputes.
Our research capacity had previously been expanded by a programme of research on the courts and diversity, and the first three projects in this programme will report during 2002-03. These will cover perceptions of lack of trust in the criminal courts; ethnicity, culture and language in care proceedings; and ethnicity, access and outcomes in housing possession cases. A second phase of this programme has now been developed and further projects will be commissioned during the next year.
We will meet the challenges of changing times. The Department's Headquarters and Associated Offices obtained Investors in People (IiP) accreditation in December 1998, and were re-accredited in June 2000. They are now pressing ahead with improvements to training, team briefing and business planning which will assist in meeting the revised IiP standards at the next review. The Court Service was first accredited in December 1999 and received re-accreditation in April 2001. It is in the top 50 per cent of all IiP accredited organisations and in the top 25 per cent of all government departments which have met the standard. Our emphasis on communication, leadership, business planning and our people systems are all intended to turn our vision and values into reality, and bring benefits to our customers.
We are working on using our information better, not only between the Department's main businesses but also to share knowledge with others. Work has continued to develop the new departmental Management Information System (MIS). Implementation of phase one started in March 2002 with the introduction of a facility on our computer network to support departmental planning, performance reporting and accountability. The system will modernise the way the department conducts its planning processes. The remaining facilities under phase one will be delivered later in the year and for the first time will provide managers and staff across LCD HQ and the Court Service with access to case level data held in the main operational systems. This will enhance our ability to support more evidence-based policy initiatives.
We have completed a second benchmarking exercise using the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. The programme builds on our achievements and focuses on developing leadership and improving our planning and customer service.
Our external Peer Review showed us how others see us. We can benefit from the experienced judgment of people who run or work in other organisations and spread good practice. Following the review, we are making several significant changes. We are strengthening the role of the Corporate Board and of corporate functions, such as planning, finance, and human resources. We are improving our management culture by developing leadership, tackling inappropriate behaviour, celebrating diversity, equipping our staff with the right skills and working more effectively with our users. We will provide a clear vision for our staff and users and explain our values.
We will take a more structured approach to our project management to deliver on our Strategic Objective and PSA commitments. A cross-department board is currently taking forward a Business and Systems Infrastructure Change (BASIC) Programme which manages policy-making and development by using programme and project techniques. We will implement a similar structured approach to all our business so that our managers and teams can support, organise and deliver work through projects and programmes.
The Court Service Project and Programme Management Protocols have been in place for two years. This has improved the way we manage Court Service projects, with emphasis on risk management and working with partners. We have clarified our priorities and improved project communication. Since May 2001 we have introduced Continuous Improvement Review guidance, which ensures that lessons learned are fed back into the organisation to help improve future projects.
Corporate governance is the system by which organisations ensure that effective management systems, including financial monitoring and control systems, are in place. A cross-Department project board is currently co-ordinating departmental governance activities; we are on course to implement fully and test our procedures in support of our Statement of Internal Control (SIC), in accordance with HM Treasury's timetable for April 2003.
We have developed a 'framework' for managing the risks to the Department's objectives, from strategic level to divisional activities. This will form a central part of our corporate governance arrangements, and will support the annual SIC. The practical methods designed for the assessment of risk will assist in the efficient and effective management of risk, with the goals of maximising opportunities and minimising the potential for loss.