The Court Service already makes provision for some businesses to pursue
debt-related cases in the county court using electronic media. Transactions
associated with such cases already account for over 30% of all county
court business. The Court Service plans to extend the current service
to provide electronic links in 1999, and to open it up to all solicitors
and the public before 2002. It will then be possible to transact about
75% of civil business electronically. In addition, the Court Service will
be participating in trials of intelligent kiosk technology to make information
and forms relating to civil proceedings available as a complete service
in public places and exploring the opportunity of using the Internet to
deliver services to the home. These trials will continue during 1999,
although any national roll-out will depend on the opportunities for participation
with other organisations.
The initial pilot connection to the Government Secure Intranet was made
in 1998/99. Implementation for the rest of the Department and the Court
Service will be carried out in stages during 1999/00. It is anticipated
that this will pave the way for more business to be conducted with the
public through the Internet and provide new opportunities for inter-agency
working at an operational level.
Year 2000 compliance projects have been running in the Department since
1996. Guidelines set for all departments by the Central IT Unit in the
Cabinet Office stipulate that remedial work on all IT systems should have
been completed by the end of March 1999. The projects in LCD Headquarters
and the Court Service have met this target. In addition, the Court Service
is working with the managing agents of the Court Service Estate to ensure
Year 2000 compliance for all embedded systems in our courts and offices,
for example, building management systems.
Work in the Public Trust Office will not be complete until August 1999
because of slippage on the major Funds Accounting System. However, the
business critical elements of this system were in place by the end of
March 1999. For the magistrates' courts, remedial work will extend to
June 1999 because of the necessity for a hardware upgrade only announced
halfway through 1998/99 by the supplier. Work on business continuity and
contingency planning continues, and the validation of completed work is
being conducted by the project teams, the Department's Internal Assurance
Division and also in some areas by external experts.
