HM Courts and Tribunals Service

HCMTS’s consideration of Mr D’s ‘Help With Fees’ application

4. Mrs G complains about HMCTS’s decision to subsidise Mr D’s fees for an October 2021 court hearing through its ‘Help With Fees’ scheme. She says HMCTS did not follow the right process when considering of Mr D’s ‘Help With Fees’ application. She says HMCTS: • did not allow Mrs G to give evidence about Mr D’s application because it does not allow third parties to get involved, and did not give her the name or contact details of the ‘Help With Fees’ team despite her requests. Mrs G says this is unfair, unjust and amounts to maladministration (fault) • did not investigate Mr D’s financial status despite Mrs G’s requests or link her concerns about his finances to a court-ordered investigation into his financial status • has not given Mrs G information she requested about Mr D’s application, his court fees and his finances.

HMCTS’s communication and complaint handling

5. Mrs G also complains about HMCTS’s communication and complaint handling. She says HMCTS: • did not send her a complaint reference number • did not reply to letters of complaint she sent it on 22 October, 25 November 2021, 13 January, 6 February and 24 March 2022, and did not process these letters as formal complaints • did not send her a copy of its complaints procedure despite her requests.

6. Mrs G says she has ‘suffered a waste of [her] time, costs, grief, despair and anguish’ because of the complaint handling. She also says HMCTS has discriminated against her and denied her ‘basic human rights’ because it will not give her the financial support it gave to Mr D, or allow her to appeal or challenge his application.

7. Mrs G would like HMCTS to provide a detailed response to her letters of complaint. She would like personal apologies from named HMCTS staff and financial compensation of £837.50.

8. Mrs G has been involved in a series of court hearings against Mr D since 2018. Mr D applied for financial support to cover the cost of his court fees for some of these hearings through HMCTS’s ‘Help With Fees’ scheme. Mrs G first became concerned about the way HMCTS handled Mr D’s applications and his payment of court fees in October 2020. She complained to HMCTS in November 2020. We completed a primary investigation into this complaint in September 2021.

9. Mrs G has been involved in further court hearings against Mr D. She has continued to raise concerns about Mr D’s ‘Help With Fees’ applications and court fee payments with HMCTS throughout 2021 and into early 2022.

HMCTS’s consideration of Mr D’s ’Help With Fees’ application

12. In her initial complaint, Mrs G raised concerns that Mr D did not pay his court fees. She also said she objected to HMCTS’s decision to subsidise Mr D’s court fees through its ‘Help With Fees’ scheme. She asked HMCTS to investigate Mr D’s financial status and to allow her to make representations to challenge his application. In January 2021, HMCTS told Mrs G its scheme did not allow third parties to challenge applications and she would not be informed of the outcome of any investigation into Mr D’s finances. Mrs G referred this complaint to us. We decided there were no signs that HMCTS had done anything seriously wrong.

13. Mrs G has continued to raise concerns with HMCTS about Mr D’s applications and court fees. On 18 January 2021, she sent HMCTS a complaint and requested information about Mr D’s finances, his communications with HMCTS, and his applications. HMCTS sent Mrs G a final response on 14 April 2021 saying it was not able to give Mrs G this information.

14. Mrs G continued to send HMCTS complaints and correspondence throughout 2021 and into early 2022. In these complaints Mrs G repeated the concerns she previously raised and asked HMCTS to send her the information she had asked for before. The complaints Mrs G referred to us for investigation are connected to Mr D’s court fees and ‘Help With Fees’ applications for an October 2021 hearing.

15. HMCTS sent Mrs G a final complaint response on 1 November 2021 saying it already addressed Mrs G’s concerns in its earlier responses to her complaints. HMCTS also said ‘there’s nothing [we] can usefully add to our previous replies,’ and that it would not write to Mrs G about the matter anymore.

16. Before we decide if we should do a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not seen any signs that something went wrong with HMCTS’s handling of Mrs G’s complaints.

17. HMCTS’s 1 November 2021 complaint response is in line with page 19 of its complaints handling guidance. This guidance says when a customer gets a response to a complaint but continues to contact HMCTS about the matter, staff should decide if the issues complained about remain the same and refer the customer back to their earlier responses if appropriate.

18. We reviewed HMCTS’s complaint files and consider Mrs G’s October 2021 complaints to repeat the concerns she raised in her earlier complaints. Mrs G also repeats her requests for information about Mr D.

19. Mrs G says the letters of complaint she sent from 22 October 2021 to March 2023 should be considered separate from her earlier complaints because they relate to a different series of court hearings. Having reviewed the complaint files we do not consider Mrs G’s October 2021 complaint to include issues that HMCTS has not already addressed in its earlier responses. Mrs G also did not provide HMCTS with new information to support her concerns. We think HMCTS responded to Mrs G’s October 2021 complaint in keeping with its complaints handling guidance.

20. Mrs G told us she disagrees with HMCTS’s decision to refer her to its earlier complaint responses. She says the court instructed HMCTS to process each of her complaints separately in judgments it issued in August and November 2022. But these judgments are connected to Mr D’s applications to consolidate court hearings. We discussed this matter with HMCTS and it said the judgments do not affect its complaint handling because the judgments do not comment on the complaints process. We also reviewed the judgments and we consider they do not comment or give directions about the way HMCTS or we should handle Mrs G’s complaints. For these reasons, the evidence shows HMCTS acted reasonably in deciding not to investigate Mrs G’s complaints again.

21. We have seen no signs that anything went seriously wrong in this part of Mrs G’s complaint and we are not investigating it further.

Communication and complaint handling – replying to complaints and giving a complaint reference number

22. We reviewed HMCTS’s complaint files for Mrs G’s November 2020 to October 2021 complaints. This includes Mrs G’s letters of complaint and HMCTS’s responses. In its 1 November 2021 response to complaints Mrs G submitted in October 2021, HMCTS provided Mrs G with a complaint reference number. The complaint response letter also said it had already addressed the concerns she raised in her complaint in its earlier responses. Mrs G repeats these concerns in the letters of complaint she sent from October 2021 to March 2022. HMCTS said its 1 November 2021 letter was its final response and it said ‘we won’t be writing to you about this again’. HMCTS did not reply to the letters Mrs G sent from October 2021 to March 2022.

23. We consider HMCTS’s response to be in line with its complaint handling guidance that we referred to above. The guidance also advises HMCTS staff to consider restricting communication with complainants who continue to write about the same things. In this case, HMCTS clearly told Mrs G on 1 November 2021 that she had finished the complaint process and it would not write to her again. HMCTS followed its guidance and its 1 November 2021 response is consistent with our UK Central Government Complaint Standards which say organisations should give service users clear information about the complaints process. In this case, HMCTS makes it clear that it will not continue to respond to further correspondence from Mrs G in connection to her complaint.

24. We have not seen any signs that something went wrong.

Communication and complaint handling – sending a copy of the complaints procedure

25. We wrote to HMCTS about this part of Mrs G’s complaint. HMCTS told us it has received a high volume of complaints from Mrs G, and she requests a copy of its complaints procedure in each complaint. HMCTS sent us a copy of a complaint acknowledgement email it sent Mrs G on 15 August 2021, the same day she sent a complaint to HMCTS and requested a copy of its complaints procedure. HMCTS sent Mrs G a copy of its complaints procedure. HMCTS’s complaints procedure is also publicly available on its website, and HMCTS’s 15 August 2021 email included a link to its complaints procedure.

26. HMCTS gave Mrs G the information she requested. This is in keeping with our ‘Principles of Good Administration’ that say organisations should have clear and transparent policies and should give people the information and advice they request. This means HMCTS has acted in line with the relevant guidance and we have not seen any signs that it got things wrong.

1. The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has considered Mrs G’s complaint about HM Courts & Tribunals Service’s (HMCTS) decision to grant financial assistance to a third-party individual, Mr D, through its ‘Help With Fees’ scheme. We have also considered Mrs G’s complaint about HMCTS’s complaint handling.

2. We recognise the events which led Mrs G to complain are very important to her and we appreciate she has invested a lot of time and effort into making her complaints. We also recognise that Mrs G’s complaints are connected to legal proceedings which have had a longstanding impact on her life.

3. We have exchanged correspondence with Mrs G and carefully considered the issues she raised in her complaints. Having done so, we have seen no sign that anything went seriously wrong in HMCTS’s actions. The evidence suggests HMCTS acted in line with the relevant standards.