Technology in the civil courts—fact or fiction? David Oldham gives his verdict
IT was at the core of the Woolf Reforms. Procedural judges were to have the technological tools they needed to case-manage effectively and efficiently. Is that how it has worked out over the last decade? Procedural judges have done their best with the limited software with which they have been provided, but we are way behind the level of IT development which was promised and indeed needed.
Insufficient funds
The biggest problem of course is the lack of money. Provision of IT systems is expensive, and the government has not given the Courts Service sufficient funding to meet the Woolf objectives. Court staff have to work with fairly antiquated systems, which are periodically uprated and there is no uniformity across the courts.
e-filing
Currently, proposals to work towards an electronic filing system for courts have been shelved. This means that courts and judges still have to work with paper files which can (and do) get lost on a regular basis. There are fewer staff to manage the files and keep them up to date.
