Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is undergoing a £1bn Reform Programme. The reform programme aims to ‘bring new technology and modern ways of working to the way justice is administered’. Each of the Programme’s service projects has been looking to re-design the end to end service, increasing the automation and digitisation of processes, such as online forms and payments. The intention was that as many service users as possible will take up these digital offers. However, the HMCTS customer is a varied one, and there is a need to support a potentially significant number of digitally excluded users who cannot or choose not to go online by themselves. This principle underpins the HMCTS vision of a justice system that is accessible to all. HMCTS also recognises that the customer faces a wide range of digital exclusion barriers that they may require assistance and support to overcome.

We define ‘access’ as the ability for any person to find and use the necessary resources to interact and journey through court and tribunal services, without having to overcome any unreasonable barriers to doing so. There are many barriers that may hinder members of the public from accessing our future services. This may include, for example, financial constraints, lack of internet access, low confidence in using digital services, poor literacy or disability. The key role of this service is to provide users of HMCTS services who may face barriers to accessing digital platforms with the bespoke support required to successfully access justice services digitally. The reason a user may require support may differ from user to user, and users may have multiple causes of digital exclusion that require addressing.