10. Before we decide if we should conduct 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 found any indications that something has gone wrong.
11. In his complaint form, and in his phone call with us, Mr Y said on the day of his hearing the court’s legal advisor who had been scheduled to attend the hearing called in sick. Mr Y believes that when the court staff scheduled cover for this absence, they wrongly noted his hearing was due to last one day, rather than one and a half days. As a result, he complains that staff booked cover for his case which was not long enough to last all of his scheduled hearing, which led to the judicial decision to vacate the hearing and reschedule it.
12. Mr Y was understandably unhappy with the situation as the rescheduled hearing would last longer than the expected one and a half days. Also, the legal counsel he had appointed to represent him in September 2024 would not agree to refund any of the costs paid and expected a significant amount of money to attend the future hearing. This meant Mr Y spent around £2,400 securing counsel for a hearing which did not happen, which was clearly frustrating for him.
13. As a result, Mr Y complained to HMCTS and received three responses before he approached us. In all responses (dated September 2024, March 2025 and April 2025) HMCTS told him it did not believe court administration staff were responsible for the injustice felt by Mr Y and therefore would not reimburse the financial losses he said he incurred.
14. In HMCTS’ second response (dated 27 March 2025) staff informed Mr Y:
‘…HMCTS cannot be held responsible for costs incurred due to unforeseen circumstances… instead of adjourning the case outright a Legal Advisor agreed to come in from annual leave to hear your case in the hope that as it was listed for one and a half days it could be dealt with in one, but it became apparent that matters had not progressed since the previous hearing in March 2024 and would need the full time allowed... we do not consider this to be caused by an 'oversight', court staff acted promptly and properly, trying to get the case heard without the need to adjourn.’
15. In HMCTS’ third response to Mr Y, staff also said:
‘as Legal Advisors are independent of the admin team, I’m unable to review or comment on any decisions they make in a judicial capacity, such as the decision to adjourn your case. We’re only able to consider claims for wasted costs where an administrative mistake has been made and, on this occasion, this wasn’t the case.’
16. On reviewing Mr Y’s case, we asked questions of HMCTS and how it had come to conclusions regarding his complaint. We also asked HMCTS how the cover for the legal advisor on the day of Mr Y’s hearing was arranged.
17. It advised us that if a legal advisor calls in sick, court staff would not immediately be involved in sourcing a replacement or arranging cover. They said the legal advisor calling in sick would speak directly to their manager who would then try to source cover amongst other legal advisors in their team. For this reason, HMCTS do not have any email evidence of this process. They reported to us court staff would become involved if no legal advisor cover could be secured by the legal advisor’s manager.
18. HMCTS also reported to us that regarding Mr Y’s case:
‘(they) didn’t over list the magistrates list on that day; the Legal Advisor called in sick, and every effort was made to ensure that the hearing went ahead. The decision not to compensate the complainant (Mr Y) was made because the administrative team at Watford and the Legal Team were not at fault and made every effort possible to ensure the hearing was not adjourned.’
19. We next considered the responses from HMCTS. While not providing the outcome Mr Y was seeking, we found staff worked in line with our principles of good administration.
20. On balance, looking at the responses provided to both Mr Y and to us, it seems that the legal advisor who called in sick and those involved with providing cover for them did follow policies and procedures. The fact they did manage to get a member of staff to cover the hearing for one day to hear it on the prospect it could be done in one day shows they were looking to provide the best public service possible. We cannot find fault in this.
21. The responses provided by HMCTS also show we have no documentary evidence to support the complaint by Mr Y that the legal counsel cover was not organised correctly, as cover is organised by word of mouth and internally. Considering the responses from the organisation, it does look like staff involved on the day attempted to get the hearing done within one day and therefore the decision to vacate is purely judicial.
22. Our principles of good administration state public bodies should provide effective service, using appropriately trained and competent staff. They should also behave helpfully, communicate effectively, and have regard to the relevant legislation.
23. It is clear from reviewing the complaint responses provided to Mr Y and the responses given to us from HMCTS that staff upheld these principles. Staff showed efforts were made to ensure whether someone could attempt to resolve the hearing within one day to make use of the legal advisor who was available.
24. The accounts we saw from HMCTS do not indicate staff were unaware and made a mistake in believing Mr Y’s hearing was scheduled for one day. Rather, noting the available legal adviser could only work for one day, staff looked into whether the court could utilise this adviser and complete his hearing in one day.
25. As these are consistent accounts from the organisation involved in arranging cover, we consider this compelling evidence about the information staff worked with to try and arrange this cover.
26. Considering this evidence, we cannot see staff made the mistakes Mr Y alleges in noting his hearing was only scheduled for one day. They tried to act helpfully in checking whether an appropriately trained member of staff could cover his hearing based on their availability. Unfortunately, their availability, which was just for one day, meant this was not possible.
27. The fact the hearing was eventually vacated and needed one and a half, and then two days to be resolved, was out of HMCTS’ control as it is solely an administrative function of the court.
28. In this case we see no evidence HMCTS got things wrong and no reason to consider Mr Y’s complaint further. We hope the reasoning above goes some way in assuring Mr Y that we have considered his complaint thoroughly.