First complaint financial remedy
18. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the event(s) complained about had a negative effect which the organisation has not put right. Having done so we have found HMCTS has already done enough to put right the impact of these events.
19. Mr U complains about the level of financial remedy offered to him by HMCTS. He says this does not reflect the seriousness of his concerns, or the multiple systemic failings and maladministration. He says the £150 offered is unacceptable, derisory and shows no recognition of the appalling level of service he received and demonstrates a complete failure to understand the potential detriment to the outcome of his claim or his right to a fair and impartial hearing.
20. Mr U’s first complaint was about difficulties he experienced in contacting the court to pay the hearing fee which he was concerned could mean his claim was struck out, concerns about submitting his evidence as he wanted to use a link to his google drive but this was not accepted. He then added further concerns about the lack of information about how, where to and in what format he submits his evidence, incorrect information he was given on how he could present his evidence in court and him having to complete form N244 which he says was unnecessary but also the court had not acknowledged receipt after he had submitted it.
21. In its first complaint response HMCTS acknowledged that it had not returned his calls on at least four occasions and apologised for this, it also acknowledged that the Notice of Trial does not provide information on how to pay the trial fee. It said that google drive is not an acceptable method of delivering documents to court for the judge to use, and that if a file is to large to send or for it to print then a hard-copy must be filed. It acknowledged that the notice of hearing does not advice how documents should be filed but does contain a postal address and the courts email address is available online. It also apologised that it did not advise him that his email with the google drive link did not comply with the Civil Procedure Rules. It said that the court does not have a projector and apologised if he was given incorrect advice about this. It said he could bring his laptop to court but if he wanted to rely on video evidence he needed to apply for permission via form N244. It then advised that the N244 form he had already submitted requesting permission to rely on expert evidence was a necessary form and requested information on how it had been submitted.
22. In it review stage response, HMCTS again apologised that it failed to call him back on at least four occasions. It also apologised that it took three months to confirm his N244 application to rely on expert advice had been referred to a judge and subsequently approved. It also said that a judge has also said that whether an application is required or a letter is sufficient in this situation is for a judge to decide and provide further directions. As such his initial email about this evidence could have been referred to a judge straightaway instead of him being asked by the court staff to complete the N244 application. It apologised for both these aspects and upheld his complaint and offered Mr U £150. In its final response this offer was maintained.
23. As Mr U is only concerned about the level of financial remedy offered to him, we have looked at HMCTS’ complaint handling guidance together with our own Financial Remedy guidance in order to consider whether the amount offered was reasonable or not.
24. HMCTS’ complaint handling guidance explains that it should consider the ways the customer has been impacted when considering whether to offer a financial remedy. It says ‘If there has been some general inconvenience or frustration (e.g difficulty getting through on the phone, late reply to letter, case not progressing as fast as the customer would like), you would say sorry but not offer a payment’. The guidance also gives payment ranges and examples of circumstances which may fall within in each range. For the range of £100-£250 it gives examples such as ‘not fully addressing all the issues of complaint at early stages – causing additional frustration and distress’ and ‘a hearing being cancelled solely because of an administrative mistake causing additional stress and inconvenience’.
25. Our own financial remedy guidance sets out the different levels of for financial remedy and also provides examples of circumstances within each level. Level 2 says ‘distress, worry, annoyance and similar injustice of the sort which a healthy adult would be expected to deal with on a regular basis, without external support, and which does not impact on the person’s day to day functioning, or their ability to live a normal life’.
26. Mr U told us that it has been time consuming and stressful to navigate the court progress and says he has had to go to extreme lengths to progress his claim. We are in no doubt that the repeated request for his calls to be returned in order for him to pay the hearing fee would have been stressful as without this being paid his claim could not progress and he feared that it would be struck out as a result. Furthermore, HMCTS have said that it should have referred his initial enquiry regarding expert advice to a judge instead of him completing form N244 which we can understand was frustrating for Mr U to learn.
27. We appreciate that Mr U does not feel it reflects the potential detriment to his case and could have affected his right to a fair trial. We would only expect HMCTS to remedy the impact directly caused by its maladministration and not any potential impact as ultimately this did not happen as the case was ruled in Mr U’s favour. Even if it had not gone in his favour, we could never say that it would have been any different if the maladministration had not happened as it was a judicial decision which is not in our remit to explore. As such we are satisfied that HMCTS has done enough to remedy the stress and inconvenience caused to Mr U. We are also satisfied that the level of financial remedy is in line with its own guidance and also our financial remedy guidance.
Perjury allegations
28. 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.
29. Mr U complains that HMCTS did not follow the correct process when he raised concerns that perjury had been committed by the defendant prior to and during the final hearing in December 2024. He says he asked HMCTS to refer the matter to the presiding judge but it failed to do this. He says that though HMCTS says it referred the matter to a judge, he does not believe this is correct as HMCTS have never produced a court order to show this and the response it did provide was not in the usual format. He says that in order for the matter to be referred to the presiding judge he had to complete an N244 application and pay a fee. He says this supports his belief that the matter was never referred to a judge.
30. In its complaint response dated April 2025, HMCTS says:
‘You’ve also mentioned that you are unhappy that your allegations of perjury weren’t mentioned in Judge [named]’s Judgement. Please be assured that we have referred your emails about this to a Judge for directions who made the following comments:
“We regret this it is not appropriate for the judiciary or staff to enter into correspondence with a party, nor to offer advice. You may find it appropriate to seek independent legal advice from a solicitor, or a barrister (via the direct access scheme), or from your local Citizens Advice Bureau, or other advice provider. Details of locations of these sources of help (whose advice may be free in some cases), and contact details, may be found online.”
I know you feel that the Judge should have referred your case to the Law Officer for consideration, but I hope you’ll understand that it’s not possible for the court staff to comment on the direction issued by a judge or review the details that Judge [named] chose to include in their order. We also can’t comment any of the evidence you have provided in support of your case. This isn’t through lack of concern, the judiciary are completely independent of HMCTS and we can’t look at anything they do or decide.’
31. In a further complaint response dated February 2025, HMCTS says:
‘Your concerns regarding the Judge’s decision not to refer your allegations of perjury to the ‘Law Officer’ were reviewed by District Judge [named]. The Judge provided a Judicial direction, which, although not in the form of a formal order, remains a Judicial decision. Court staff cannot question or comment on Judicial decisions and the complaints portal (or corresponding by email with court staff) is not the appropriate avenue for challenging them. If you are unhappy with the Judicial decision then the court of action for you to consider is to seek legal advice to determine whether to appeal the decision. HMCTS cannot help you decide or resolve it through its administrative complaints process.’
32. As Mr U disputes that the matter was referred to a judge at all we asked HMCTS to send us a copy of the judge’s directions, which it did. We can see that the judge provided directions to the court staff by way of email on 28 January 2025 and this was communicated to Mr U by letter from the court staff in early February 2025. We also asked HMCTS why it was not referred to the presiding judge from the hearing in December. It told us that concerns about perjury involving a judge cannot be considered by the same judge as it would cause a conflict of interest, it is for this reason that the matter was referred to another judge who gave the directions as outlined in the complaint response.
33. The Guide to Judicial Conduct says:
‘The question is not whether the judicial office holder would in fact be biased (which would, of course require recusal). Judicial office holders must recuse themselves from any case where a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that they would be biased.’
34. We also asked HMCTS why he later needed to submit an application in order for it to be referred to the presiding judge. It said that if a court user wants the court to take action because they believe perjury has occurred, a formal application must be made. This is because the court needs a clear request, supporting evidence and notice to the other party before deciding whether to do things like review a judgement or refer the matter to the authorities.
35. We can understand Mr U’s concern that HMCTS had not referred his concerns to a judge as the response he received was not a signed court order that he had received in the past. We can further understand why he felt that then having to complete an application to have the matter considered by the presiding judge confirmed his suspicions that HMCTS had never referred it to a judge. Particularly as he tried to obtain the judge’s directions by way of a Subject Access Request (SAR) and it was never given to him citing exceptions as a reason.
36. As Mr U’s concerns were regarding perjury it was necessary as per the Guide to Judicial Conduct to refer the matter to another judge. We have seen the judge’s directions from January 2025 and can see that it is exactly as written in both the letter sent to him in February and its complaint response in April 2025. While we acknowledge Mr U’s concern about this, it is not for the court staff to question the judge’s directions, only to act upon them. The directions are simply to send the response to Mr U and nothing further and this is what the administrative staff did. As such we cannot say HMCTS has done anything wrong here as it referred the matter to a judge and provided the directions to Mr U. Judicial decisions also do not fall within our remit to consider. Furthermore, the only way to appeal a judicial decision is through and application to the court which he later submitted and received a decision for.
37. We recognise Mr U’s concerns with the situation as a whole, particularly in view of the lengths he has gone to in pursuit of obtaining the judges directions. We are sorry to hear that he lost confidence in the court system and he was caused stress and upset in pursing this matter.
High court writ application
38. Mr U complains that his high court writ application was returned without any explanation for why. He says this meant he had to spend more time trying to contact HMCTS to establish the reason. He says he experienced issues when contacting the court as calls were disconnected both when speaking with someone and waiting in the queue. He says this happened on a number of occasions and caused delays in him being able to enforce the judgement. Mr U told us that no changes were made to the writ application when it was returned to the court.
39. In its complaint response dated February 2025 HMCTS explained that the order from the hearing in December reflects what the judge ordered and it could not explain why the writ had been returned if the details on it were as per the court order. He was advised to contact the High Court Writs Team directly, however, it advised it had also done this on his behalf.
40. In its complaint response dated March 2025 HMCTS says:
‘Waiting 45 minutes to speak to someone, only to be put on hold and then cut off, isn’t acceptable. You shouldn’t have had to call back and then queue all over again, and I’m sorry that happened. I’m also sorry that when you did call back, the disconnected again after playing the recorded message. We should have attempted to call you back when your call dropped, and made a note of this on our case management system, I’m sorry we didn’t.
I’ve looked at your case and complaint, I can see your writ was issued on 6th March and is not with the High Court enforcement officers. Before that, Your application was returned on 11th February because the date and amount on the application didn’t match the information we had. You’ve said that the details provided by [bailiff company] were correct, and I can see how frustrating it must have been to have it sent back without further explanation.
We can’t make corrections to writ applications, they’ve to go back to the applicant. That’s why it was returned. I agree that we should’ve given you a clearer explanation at the time instead of just sending it back without more detail. You shouldn’t have had to chance this up yourself.’
41. In its complaint response dated in April 2025 HMCTS says:
‘I understand you’ve felt unheard and that the process hasn’t been easy for you. I’m sorry for the distress this has caused, and I ‘m sorry that the communication hasn’t met your expectations. I can see how upsetting this situation has been for you, and I’m sorry for the distress it has caused.’
42. We asked HMCTS why the writ application was returned and why an explanation was not provided. It told us that the date and/or amount did not match the details contained in the order from December and that it was a mistake that this was not provided to Mr U when it was returned. In view of the fact that Mr U told us that no changes were made to the write application, we also asked HMCTS what happened to allow the application to be processed when it was returned. It told us that it does not have copies of the first or second versions of the writ application in order to answer this question.
43. It is clear that if there was an issue with the information contained within the writ application that this needed to be returned to Mr U to be corrected. However, HMCTS should have provided an explanation as to why it was being returned and it did not do this. As a result Mr U had to contact the court in order to find out what the issue was, and he clearly experienced difficulties in doing so. It should be noted that even if HMCTS had provided an explanation for why the writ was returned, it is likely that Mr U would still have contacted the court as he disputed that the information was incorrect. However, this does not take away from the stress and frustration the situation when his experienced difficulties speaking to the court.
44. HMCTS have apologised for the writ being retuned without an explanation and also for the difficulties he experienced when contacting the court. We are satisfied that it has done enough to put this right.
Complaint Handling
45. Mr U complains about the overall handling of his complaints by HMCTS. He says responses were delayed, information he had provided was lost, it complicated matters by using multiple reference for one complaint, sent him a number of conflicting ‘final responses’ which were unrelated to the issues he raised.
46. We can see that Mr U has raised four complaints overall. His first complaint was in June 2024, as he had not received a response to this he raised a further complaint in early July 2024 which raised the same issues as the first complaint. He then raised two further complaints in February 2025.
47. Having reviewed all the complaint files from HMCTS, the only reference we have seen about lost documents relates to an application he submitted for permission to rely on expert evidence which was not directly related to the complaint but was addressed in a complaint response. We can also see that an incorrect complaint reference was used on one first stage complaint response, this was addressed and an apology for the confusion was provided in the second stage response. We have looked at the final responses issued and have seen no evidence of any of them being conflicting. However, we can see that there have been some delays in HMCTS providing responses to Mr U’s complaints. This is not in line with our Principles of Good Complaint Handling which says public bodies should ‘deal with complaints promptly, avoiding unnecessary delay, and in line with published service standards where appropriate’.
48. Where the delays occurred, we can see HMCTS apologised for this and explained that this was due to staffing levels. We do not doubt that the delays in receiving responses to his complaints was frustrating and stressful for Mr U. As such we do not consider that it has gone far enough to put this right for Mr U. Therefore, we asked HMCTS to pay Mr U an additional £100 which it has agreed to do and it will contact Mr U directly to arrange this.
Summary
49. Overall, we are sorry to hear of the effect these matters have had on Mr U. It has clearly been difficult, stressful and time-consuming navigating the court system since submitting his money claim online. While there have been clear errors by HMCTS during this time, we are satisfied that it has acknowledged where things have gone wrong and have done enough to put this right. As such we are not considering this complaint further.
50. We understand that this is not the outcome Mr U was hoping for but we hope we have fully explained our reasons for this.