UK Courts have been using a case management platform that caused data corruption, meaning judges could have made rulings based on incomplete evidence, the BBC has reported.
A BBC investigation found that a bug in the case management software used by HM Courts and Tribunal Service to track evidence , meant data could be obscured.
The result was “medical records, contact details and other evidence were sometimes not visible as part of case files used in court.” This meant judges in civil, family and tribunal courts could have made significant rulings without seeing all the evidence.
The software was known by various names, including Case Manager, MyHMCTS, and CCD.
The UK’s justice system has been struggling for years, with creaking IT systems part of the problem. The National Audit Office last year said that the Ministry of Justice, of which HMCTS, was weighed down by technical debt and failing to meet its own goals on ICT upgrades. It said a £1.3bn court reform program overseen by HMCTS had been particularly problematic.
An HMCTS spokesperson today confirmed that there had been an issue with the CFT casement management system in England and Wales, which is used to administer the progress of a case before it is heard.
It’s understood that while documents might have been obscured from view, they were always on the system and other parties in the case would have had their own access to evidence.
The spokesperson said that the issue had now been resolved, and “our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues.”
The service would continue to press ahead with its modernisation plans, including digitisation, the spokesperson said, to “provide quicker, simpler access to justice.”
While the issues with the case management system may have been resolved, there are plenty of other ICT related issues for HMCTS to deal with.
Last week it heralded an AI action plan.
But earlier this year, in a foreword to its annual report and accounts, the independent chair of its service board, Sir Richard Broadbent, wrote: “Improving and extending digital justice provides a better service to users but is also one factor in revealing shortcomings, particularly in data.” The board was giving “particular attention” to data quality, he added.
The report noted a “risk that our data is incomplete and/or of poor quality.”
It also said the service had been focusing on addressing issues with Common Platform, the case management system for the criminal courts, “with the aim of significantly improving the stability of the platform.”
