County courts: Cause for complaint

As a result of growing frustrations and clients' concerns about the quality of county court services, the Property Litigation Association (PLA) has launched an initiative to encourage court users to give case-specific feedback on their experiences.

The PLA hopes that presenting its members' feedback will allow HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to target specific areas for improvement.

The response received ties
in with widespread anecdotal evidence of recurring and significant administrative failings and clients losing faith in the civil justice system.

The feedback received by the PLA reveals a number of common themes:

• Court staff giving incorrect
  or inconsistent information
  to practitioners and clients;

• Unacceptable delays, for example in the production
  of orders and in arranging hearing dates. Feedback shows it is taking some
  courts over eight weeks to turn around post and return issued applications;

• Appointments to issue proceedings and applications being refused; and

• It is no longer possible to
  get a face-to-face service
  to ensure claims are issued before critical deadlines, unless a claim needs to
  be issued within 24 hours.

According to its annual report, HMCTS received 15,272 complaints in the year ending
31 March 2014, compared with 13,451 in the previous year - a 13.5 per cent rise. This significant increase comes at a time when HMCTS has reduced its annual operating costs by around £200m, primarily by reducing staff numbers by over 3,700.

Whatever the issue, it’s clear that increases in funding are required to address declining standards of service.

However, there is no indication from the government that this is likely to happen, as increased revenue from court fees is not intended to be ring-fenced or reinvested in HMCTS, but allocated in such a way that the central funding from the chancellor can be reduced.

One solution is to allocate jurisdiction for certain property disputes to the First-tier (Property Chamber) Tribunal. This might be of particular use in relation to the renewal of business leases, especially as the tribunal currently deals with residential lease extensions.

There might also be a case in favour of extending the tribunal’s powers to deal with certain residential possession claims, for example those based on non-payment of service charges where the tribunal has determined what those charges should be.

Other proposed solutions include improving staff training and court IT systems; more active case management; document security systems; and claim process factsheets for litigants in person.

Of course, the proposed solutions require an increase in funding when investment in the public sector is declining. But something must be done to improve the current situation, which has left thousands of county court users unhappy with the service they are receiving. SJ

Keith Conway is a partner at Clyde & Co