Family Law

'Significant reforms of the civil and family courts have been tested via pilot schemes, such as the online civil money claims pilot – commonly, if inaccurately, referred to as the online court – the probate pilot scheme and the online divorce pilot scheme. These pilots are working well.

'First, I mention the online divorce pilot. The pilot has now moved to general availability since 1 May. Over 600 applications were received in the first week and a total of 2,600 as of this Monday. In the paper-based world, an uncontested divorce requires a petitioner to fill out a form and file it with the court.'

'Our current work position is
We are currently processing: 

• Petitions received on 4 June 2018
• Acknowledgement of Service received on 14 May 2018
• applications for Decree Nisi received on 14 May 2018
• Correspondence and emails received on 23 May 2018
• Form A's received on 29 May 2018
• Consent order applications received on 29 May 2018
• Decree Absolutes received on the day

The Judiciary are currently processing:

• Applications for Decree Nisi received on 23 April 2018. Once seen by Judiciary which will take approximately 29 Days, the administration staff will then process the decision within 28 days. If the application is granted a pronouncement date will be set for a further 4-5 weeks on from processing.
• Applications received on 30 May 2018, the answer to these will be processed by the admin team in approximately 59 working days from that day.'

'We know this is not good enough – we have been short of staff in Bury, but should have picked up the issues earlier – we are now using extra staff (and help from other divorce centres) to sort this, and you should start to see improvement soon.'

After revealing yesterday that the ‘on demand’ information bulletin of the divorce centre for London & the South East at Bury St Edmunds (BSE) had not been updated for two days, yesterday afternoon at 16.36 it was brought up to date but not in the usual way.

The daily bulletin is intended to show the work position at the divorce centre and provides general information to assist practitioners. The intention was to enable solicitors and others to assess when work sent to the divorce centre will be processed, and reduce the need to telephone or write for progress updates.

I had already highlighted the significant delays which BSE had itself disclosed, including a backlog with administrative staff of 59 working days.

Instead of the usual progress report I got the following response from BSE:

'The information on this auto response is currently under development. An updated version will appear soon.'

I am in touch with Susan Acland-Hood, CEO of HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), who has responsibility for delivery of its major modernisation programme. I await her response.

In the meantime, whatever the reason for the message, there is an information black out. This will only lead to solicitors trying to telephone or write to the court which will put even more strain on a hard-pressed, hard working team.