HM Courts and Tribunals Service

5. Mr K complains about the service he received from HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) following an application (to set aside a court order) he made in September 2020. In, he says it failed to process his application(s) or deal with his complaint appropriately.

6. As a result, he says he has suffered a great deal of anxiety and stress, and his case has been struck out. He says his health has deteriorated.

7. He would like an acknowledgement of failings, financial remedy and service improvements.

8. Mr K has said despite submitting multiple applications over the years, including a critical application on 16 September 2020, to set aside a court order, he says he received no response, severely affecting his legal standing and resulting in a protracted delay in his case.

9. He says, a hearing scheduled for April 26, 2022, was moved forward with minimal notice to March 15, 2022, leaving him with insufficient time to prepare.

10. He says his response submission was rejected over a minor administrative issue, with no further recourse provided.

11. He says his application on May 11, 2022, for an extension to submit a witness statement, which was also lost by the court.

12. HMCTS has said the application 13 May 2022, was received by the court and was returned on 24 May 2022 as enough copies were not provided and the court could not process without sufficient copies.

13. There was an application received by the court on 10 March 2022 and the court emailed Mr K about this requesting the fees.

14. In a later response (8 December 2022) HMCTS apologised its initial response was confusing. It accepted the application made on the 16 September 2020 was not returned to Mr K but instead referred to the Judge.

15. It said looking at the Courts computer system a member of staff had recorded the letter was in relation to a claimant’s application on 16 September 2021, which is the incorrect year. If the team leader did not fully open the letter they would have just gone by this information and would not have been aware of the error. HMCTS apologised for the oversight.

16. HMCTS said the Court file had been referred to the Circuit Judge for directions in relation to the outstanding applications. The Judge directed several instructions.

17. The Court was able to list the extended 3-hour hearing on 18 January 2023 10:00am to avoid any further delays with your matter.

18. HMCTS offered Mr K £800 for the upset caused by not following his instructions and for not replying to his emails asking for an outcome on the data incident breach.

Application

21. It is clear from the evidence we have seen from Mr K and HMCTS that the application dated 16 September 2020, was not returned to Mr K but instead referred to a judge for consideration. HMCTS has also accepted the application was sent to the defendant solicitors in error and against Mr K’s instructions.

22. Although, we fully appreciate the level of distress and upset this has caused Mr K we are not convinced there is a lasting impact, given we cannot scrutinise a judicial decision.

23. Ultimately the application was eventually referred to a judge and at that point they made instructions on the back of it. If Mr K feels this affected his ‘legal standing’ unfortunately this is not something we can consider.

24. In respect to HMCTS failed to adhere to Mr K’s request and sending the application to the defendants’ solicitors, again we are not convinced there is a lasting impact. This is because, we cannot speculate on legal proceedings and HMCTS has offered £800 in recognition of its error (for the upset caused).

25. We are satisfied this is enough to put things right regarding this and is in line with our principles of good administration – putting things right.

26. It is worth noting that Mr K may wish to approach the information commissioner’s office regarding any potential data breaches, as they are best place to deal with such issues.

27. Furthermore, Mr K has requested financial remedy of £30000, this is not something we would ever be likely to achieve given the impact we have identified in this case.

28. Finally, Mr K raised concerns about defendants’ applications being unsigned – HMCTS has correctly stated that as these applications were accepted by a judge, we nor them, can comment on this judicial matter.

Complaint handling

29. Mr K has said on June 23, 2022, he formally submitted a complaint to HMCTS regarding the delays and lost applications, which he says had significantly impaired his ability to pursue his case and resulted in a deteriorating health condition.

30. He says due to the lack of response from HMCTS regarding the confidentiality breach, he submitted a second complaint on January 16, 2023, concerning the breach of data protection.

HMCTS’ response

31. HMCTS has said on 13 June 2023 Mr K replied stating both his complaints were not dealt with within 10 days. HMCTS apologised for this.

Our decision

32. We can see there was a delay in dealing with his complaint, as it took HMCTS from 23 June 2022 to 26 July 2022 to deal with his initial concerns and we appreciate the distress and upset Mr K was caused because of this delay.

33. HMCTS has apologised for the delay and for its initial response being confusing.

34. We understand how frustrating the delay was for Mr K, we are satisfied HMCTS’ apology is enough to put matters right for him given there is no lasting or significant impact.

35. This is in line with our principles of good administration – putting things right.

36. Once more we have no doubt that the experience has been highly upsetting and frustrating form Mr K but for the reasons stated above, we have decided to take no further action.

1. We have carefully considered Mr K complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

2. We are satisfied HMCTS ahs done enough to put things right in respect to the distress caused for sending his application to the defendant’s solicitor.

3. We are also satisfied that the apology from HMCTS regarding poor complaint handling is a reasonable response given the delays were not significant.

4. We appreciate the experience with HMCTS has been extremely frustrating for Mr K and understand our decision may be disappointing. We do accept that things did go wrong but are satisfied enough has been done to put these right.