4. Miss A complains that HMCTS delayed drawing an order, the court did not reply to her emails and that her Help with Fees Application was not processed.
5. As a result, she suffered from stress.
6. As an outcome she would like an apology and financial remedy.
7. Miss A has an ongoing civil claim. The case was first heard at Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court on 10 July 2023. Following this hearing the appeal was then transferred to Central London County Court in July 2023.
8. Miss A has been unhappy with the handling of her case and raised a complaint with HMCTS in December 2023.
9. Miss A has a final appeal hearing for her case listed for 8 January 2025.
Delay in drawing order
What Miss A told us
13. Miss A said there was a delay in the order being drawn following the hearing that took place on 10 July 2023.
14. She said she thought this was misconduct related to the Judge so raised a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Investigation Office. She was advised that the court documents from the Judge had been signed and stamped and collected by the court usher the same day.
15. Miss A then realised the delay was due to HMCTS as it draws the orders. As she was unhappy with the delay she raised a complaint with HMCTS on 17 November 2023.
What HMCTS said
16. HMCTS provided a first contact response on 7 May 2024. It said that Miss A’s case was heard on 10 July 2023. The Judge’s order was drawn on 20 November 2023.
17. It apologised for the delay and explained that the court was experiencing high volumes of work which had resulted in backlogs and that it was currently looking at ways to improve its service.
18. On 28 September 2024 HMCTS provided a review response, it said that the initial response was detailed and structured and fully explained the process and actions taken. There was nothing further it could add to the response, and it was satisfied that it had been addressed.
19. In its appeal response dated 1 October 2024 it repeated what it told Miss A in its initial response and added that the order drawn on 20 November 2023 represents in full what the Judge ordered in the hearing on 10 July 2023.
Our view
20. HMCTS provided us with a copy the order dated 20 November 2023, and we can see that the judge ordered that the case was dismissed.
21. We understand the delays Miss A experienced were due to high volumes of work the court were receiving at the time. We appreciate the frustration the wait will have caused Miss A. Government departments including HMCTS have limited resources, and it is for HMCTS to manage them as it sees fit. We appreciate that at busy times departments may not be able to meet their usual commitments or timeframes and that this can be unavoidable. There is no specific timescale in which HMCTS should complete an order once it has been made, although we agree in this case that Miss A had to wait a significant amount of time.
22. The delay Miss A experienced was unfortunate, but we do not consider the delay so significant that it requires further action from us. This is because we cannot say this has led to a negative impact to Miss A which has not yet been put right.
23. When we consider complaints, we look to see what impact an issue had on a complainant. We see no indication that the delay in drawing the order had any impact on the progress of Miss A’s case as her appeal sent to the relevant court shortly after the original hearing date.
24. We acknowledge that it would have been frustrating for Miss A to have waited four months for her order to be drawn. We note that she attended the hearing and therefore would have been able to hear in person the judge’s decision and therefore was aware of the contents of the drawn order.
25. As HMCTS has apologised to Miss A for the delays in issuing the order, there is no further action we can take.
Failure to respond to emails
What Miss A told us
26. Miss A says that Central London County Court did not reply to her emails chasing progress on her appeal case for five months.
What HMCTS said
27. In its first contact response HMCTS explained that in relation to this her appeal had been sent to Central London County Court on 9 August 2023. If she wished to enquire about the progress of the appeal, it provided the relevant contact details for her to do so.
28. It said that if she was unhappy with the way Central London County Court dealt with her appeal, she would need to follow the relevant complaints procedure and provided details on how to do so.
29. HMCTS did not add anything further in its review response.
30. In its appeal response it apologised that the court did not respond to her emails and acknowledged that she was frustrated by the time her case was taking but that it had not made a mistake in the administration of her case.
31. It said it could see that an order was sent to her on 13 September 2024 advising her that her case will be heard by a circuit judge on the first available date.
Our view
32. We can see that HMCTS provided Miss A with details on how to contact the court and then later provided details on how she could raise a complaint.
33. We can also see that HMCTS did apologise for the court not responding to any emails she may have sent, however this did not impact her case progressing it was just taking a long time.
34. We understand that it would have been frustrating for Miss A to have waited for responses and that her case was taking a long time. We can see that HMCTS has offered an apology for this frustration. In line with our guidance on remedy, we consider an apology an appropriate response to put things right here. We cannot see that this caused any delay in her case progressing.
35. We also note that a hearing has been set for January 2025.
Help with Fees application
What Miss A told us
36. Miss A told us HMCTS did not process her Help with Fees application for six months.
37. She told us that no matter how she contacted them the court did not process her Help with Fees application.
38. She says she sent two applications on the 22 July 2023 and on 3 October 2023 and was not refunded until February 2024 and March 2024.
39. She raised a complaint with HMCTS as she was unhappy with the delay.
What HMCTS said
40. In its first contact reply HMCTS explained that Miss A filed a request for a Help with Fees refund on 3 October 2023 for her appeal fee. This was then processed on 27 October 2023 and the refund approved on 16 February 2024. It said she should have received payment within 10 days of that date, but if she had not to let HMCTS know.
41. It said she filed for a Help with Fee refund on 24 July 2023 for the hearing fee and this was processed on 1 November 2023.
42. It said that the Help with Fees (HWF) system is an automatic system that checks income, savings, benefits and investments against the HWF criteria. As the system is automatic it can only input the information provided by Miss A. The system will then acknowledge if the application can be refused or approved.
43. It said that a member of staff input the information Miss A provided, and the system determined that she was not eligible for Help with Fees refund.
44. HMCTS said following correspondence between Miss A and HMCTS staff, Miss A provided evidence, and her Help with Fees refund for the hearing was processed on 8 December 2023. Her refund was approved on 26 February 2024, and she should have received payment within 10 days of this date. It asked her to get in touch if she had not yet received this.
45. It apologised for any delays and explained that the court has been experiencing high volume of work which resulted in backlogs.
46. HMCTS did not have anything further to add in its review response. In its appeal response it repeated what it said in its first contact response on 7 May 2024.
Our view
47. HMCTS told us that an application for Help with Fees must be entered by the applying party within three months from the date that the relevant fee has been paid.
48. It told us that there is no specific timescale for when a refund request needs to be processed by the court. It told us that at the time of Miss A’s application the court were dealing with high volumes of work which meant that the refund was not approved for some time.
49. We reviewed the Get help paying court and tribunal fees guidance online, which explains that you can apply for a refund if you have already paid the fees and that it needs to be within a three month period. If applying for a refund the applicant needs to provide details about their savings, investments, benefits and income they had at the time they paid the fee rather than the date they are applying on.
50. There is no specific timescale for when applications are processed by, the guidance says if an application is unsuccessful or the applicant needs to provide more information they will receive a letter.
51. We have also considered the Ombudsman’s Principle of Good Administration which says Public bodies should behave helpfully, dealing with people promptly, within reasonable timescales and within any published time limits. They should tell people if things take longer than the public body has stated, or than people can reasonably expect them to take.
52. Whilst this means that there should be no reasonable or unavoidable delays, in Miss A’s case we have seen no evidence that the applications were delayed due to a mistake, the delays were caused due to the volume of applications the court received at the time.
53. We can see that although the second refund was declined, this was then reprocessed when Miss A provided further information, this is inline with the Get help paying court and tribunals fee guidance which says that further information such as proof of income may be requested and reviewed following the submission of an application before being approved. There is no indication to show that the refunds were declined.
54. We understand that the delays were due to the high volume of work that the court were experiencing at the time, and whilst we agree that it is not ideal that it took Miss A some months to receive her refund, this was out of HMCTS’ control due to the backlog of work it was dealing with and was therefore unavoidable.
55. We accept that it would have been stressful for Miss A to wait for the refunds but ultimately, we cannot see that she was disadvantaged as each time she applied the refund was approved and she received the money she was entitled to.
56. We understand that Miss A has been frustrated with the process and time taken for her case. We hope that she is reassured that we are satisfied HMCTS has offered reasonable apologies for the frustration caused by the delays and Miss A’s case is still currently ongoing with a hearing set for next year.
1. We have carefully considered Miss A’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). We appreciate that this matter has caused Miss A a considerable amount of stress, we are sorry to hear about her experience.
2. In considering the evidence submitted to us we have decided not to take any further action. This is because although we can see there were some delays, we can see that HMCTS as acknowledged and apologised for the stress this caused, and we cannot say that this had any negative effect on the overall progress of her case.
3. We will explain the reasons for our decision in detail below.