The single County Court

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "The single County Court"

Claud Washington
5 years ago
Views:

1 The single County Court Introduction A single County Court and a single Family Court will be established in April You will have received separate communications explaining the changes involved with the introduction of the single Family Court. This note focuses on the change you can expect with the introduction of the single County Court. Key Changes The key change is that the current geographical jurisdictional boundaries of each of the current 173 county courts will be removed to create one national County Court for the whole of England and Wales. The County Court (as will the Family Court) will act in the same way as the Crown Court. This change and the consequential impacts that you and your teams need to be aware of are explained in more detail in the following paragraphs. 1. One national County Court for England and Wales There are currently 173 county courts in England and Wales. Each county court has its own district boundary. With the introduction of the single County Court, we will have 1 national County Court jurisdiction with 173 county court hearing centres (the current county court buildings) and 2 national business centres (the CCMCC at Salford/Loughborough and the CCBC at Northampton). Old New 173 county courts 173 county court hearing centres 173 county court districts 1 national County Court jurisdiction 2. Issuing a Claim/Application The 173 county court district boundaries that currently limit a county courts ability to carry out certain tasks, i.e. courts are not able to issue claims with a particular postcode or enforce in certain areas, will be removed. What does this mean for our customers? The removal of these district boundaries gives customers flexibility to choose their entry point to the County Court. A customer can choose to submit their claim or application at the hearing centre most convenient to their home or place of work, or, the hearing centre that they feel will process their claim most effectively. In practice, customers will be encouraged (within the rules, public literature and on CourtFinder) to file their claims at the appropriate business centre or the court

2 hearing centre where the hearing is likely to take place, i.e. the court hearing centre serving the address of the debtor. CourtFinder has been updated to guide customers to the most appropriate hearing centre. The postcode look-up functionality that is used within PCOL has recently been introduced to CourtFinder so that customers can be directed to the most appropriate centre by simply inserting the appropriate postcode. Customer Restrictions Despite this key change there remain some important restrictions: All paper claims for Part 7 money claims only must continue to be made at CCMCC. All bulk customer and MCOL claims must continue to be made at CCBC. Customers will be required to file subsequent applications and correspondence associated to a particular claim at the business or hearing centre where the case is proceeding. What does it mean for me? NB: More detailed staff guidance on the changes to entry points, changes to how we process certain claims and new arrangements for transfer between hearing centres will be issued shortly. Despite the removal of county court boundaries many aspects of current practice will remain. So whilst the court might issue a claim for an address that is outside the court s old county court boundary, claims will still be issued on CaseMan (or the appropriate I.T system) against a particular business or hearing centre, claims will continue to be transferred between locations where necessary, hearings will still be heard in the court hearing venue serving the address of the defendant or claimant as appropriate, and, enforcement proceedings will continue to be enforced by those court hearing centres serving the appropriate address, as they are currently determined. 3. Key I.T Changes There will be changes to county court IT outputs in three key areas; the header, body and seal. Header - Within the address line of the county court hearing venue Example: Manchester County Court will be replaced with In the County Court at Manchester. Body You will also see changes to the text inserted in the body of IT outputs. Example: Your hearing is at Manchester County Court will be replaced with your hearing is in the County Court at Manchester

3 Example: On behalf of the Court Manager at Manchester County Court will become On behalf of the Manager at the County Court in Manchester. NB: Please note that you should make these changes to any templates you hold locally in preparation for go-live in April. We will issue further guidance, including screen shots of the IT change you will see. Seal Where an electronic seal is placed on the document by the IT system a new seal will be used which will be the same as the manual seals that you will use when manually sealing documents locally. The seal will look like: Order the new seal The new single County Court seal is available to order from the Banner online catalogue. The new seal must be ordered as soon as possible. Existing seals should continue to be utilised until 21 April and not destroyed thereafter until directed to. The new seals must not be utilised until 22 April Banner Catalogue codes for county court seals: HMCTS COUNTY COURT SEAL 30MM STAMP HMCTS COUNTY COURT SEAL 20MM STAMP HMCTS BILINGUAL COUNTY COURT SEAL 30MM STAMP HMCTS BILINGUAL COUNTY COURT SEAL 20MM STAMP NB: Please note you are not required to use a bi-lingual seal but County Court hearing centres in Wales may wish to do so. 4. Claim Issue You will see small changes to the way in which claims are issued. The introduction of the single County Court has broken the link between Northampton County Court and CCMCC and CCBC. You will no longer see the name Northampton on documents issued by these centres. Claims issued by CCMCC will now be issued in the name of the County Court Money Claims Centre.

4 Claims issued on MCOL or via CCBC will be issued in the name of the County Court Business Centre. Claims issued in a County Court hearing centre will state In the County Court at. The hearing venues location, i.e. Manchester, will be inserted after the word at. Old In the Northampton (CCMCC) In the Northampton (CCBC) In Manchester County Court New In the County Court Money Claims Centre In the County Court Business Centre In the County Court at Manchester 5. Designated Money Claims The term designated money claim will be removed from the Civil Procedure Rules and all public literature and guidance. The term confused customers and it was not a helpful way of describing the claims issued by CCMCC and CCBC. Claims issued by these centres will now simply be called Part 7 money only claims. This is a more informative and accurate description of the claims and will help avoid confusion and ambiguity. Old Designated Money Claim New Part 7 money only claim 6. CCBC The County Court Bulk Centre will be changing its name to the County Court Business Centre. This centre is responsible for bulk customer Part 7 money only claims and MCOL and research has found that customers were put off using MCOL because of the word bulk centre. This change should therefore encourage greater use of the on-line system. Old County Court Bulk Centre New County Court Business Centre 7. Listing The introduction of the single County Court will not change local listing practices and court staff will continue to support the judiciary in managing listing, logistics, clerks and interpreters in accordance with current practices. Court hearing centre lists will continue to be shared between civil and family. E-dairy will be updated so that lists are printed with the heading In the County Court and the Family Court at...

5 8. Ticketed Judiciary Under the current Civil Procedure Rules a county court is conferred with a specialist jurisdiction i.e. Chancery or Mercantile, and within those venues cases of this specialist nature can be heard. The single County Court will now place specialist jurisdiction on a judge. This is called ticketing. Nominated judges will be ticketed with a specialism, such as Chancery, and this means that a ticketed judge could hear a Chancery case within a county court hearing centre that was not previously conferred with this jurisdiction. This gives courts flexibility in listing and means that courts can work across their clusters to list cases before judges more efficiently. Despite this key change, the issuing and administration of these claims will remain the same and be managed by the county court hearing centres that currently have responsibility for specialist work, ensuring we maintain the expertise of the staff at those centres. 9. Hearings and Preferred Court Despite the removal of the county court boundaries, customers will not have the freedom to choose the hearing centre in which they would like the hearing to take place. The appropriate hearing centre is determined by the Civil Procedure Rules, i.e. the county court hearing centre serving the address of the defendant or claimant, as appropriate. This does not affect the preferred court procedure, where an undefended claim will be transferred to the county court hearing centre as indicated on the claim form. 10. Enforcement The single County Court will change the current relationship between the bailiff and the District Judge. The District Judge will no longer be legally responsible for the actions of the bailiff; HMCTS will become responsible, as it is for every other member of staff. Bailiffs, like court administrative staff, will operate under the jurisdiction of the single County Court thereby removing district boundaries and the associated restrictions. Whilst this means a bailiff in Newcastle could enforce a warrant in London, in reality they will not. Enforcement proceedings will continue to be transferred to the most appropriate county court hearing centre for execution. However, it will provide far more flexibility where addresses sit close to current boundaries e.g. issues such as bailiffs being able to enforce on one side of a street but not on the other will

6 disappear. This will enable Clusters to manage resource more flexibly across an area to support demand and fluctuating workloads. 11. Appeal Routes The single County Court will not change the appeal process. However, new rules will require that the order refusing permission to appeal must specify the court at which any further application for permission should be made, and the level of judge who should hear the application. 12. Insolvency There are no changes to the insolvency procedures or jurisdictions. The insolvency jurisdictions are conferred by the Insolvency Rules and the issuing and administration of these claims will remain the same and be managed by the county court hearing centres that currently have insolvency jurisdiction, and customers will be required to make their applications at those centres. However, insolvency will be a specialism ticketed to particular judge, and those judges will be able to hear insolvency cases at all county court hearing centres, providing courts with flexibility in listing. 13. Possession Claims There are no changes to the way in which possession claims issued via PCOL will be made. They will continue to be allocated to the appropriate court hearing centre based on the address of the property. 14. Claims or applications made to an inappropriate hearing centre As there will be one national County Court for England and Wales with no boundary restrictions you will not be able to return a claim or application to a customer because it is outside of your court boundary, as you can now. Should you receive a claim for CCMCC, you will be required to take receipt of that claim and transfer it to CCMCC for issuing. CCMCC and CCBC are not county court hearing centres. As such, if a claim is incorrectly sent to CCMCC or CCBC, it can be returned to the customer. Customers will be required to file subsequent applications and correspondence associated to a particular claim (once it has been issued) at the business or hearing centre in receipt of the case. NB: More detailed staff guidance on the changes to entry points, the impact that will have on issue dates and limitation, changes to how we process certain claims and new arrangements for transfers between hearing centres, will be issued shortly.

7 15. Managing Workloads The removal of current court boundaries does not affect a Clusters ability to manage workloads. A court hearing centre with the support of its Cluster can still move work to another court to reduce backlogs; however, the work must be issued and processed in the name of the court hearing centre where it was originally receipted. 16. Impact on the High Court or District Registries The introduction of the single County Court does not have any impact on the District Registries or the High Court. These jurisdictions do not change and the courts which currently deal with them will continue to do so. 17. Impact on Fees The single County Court will not impact on court fees. You may be aware that the Ministry of Justice is currently consulting the public on changes to court fees but this is a separate project and any developments will be communicated to you in due course. 18. Transitional Arrangements There will be some transitional arrangements to help facilitate the move to a single County Court. NB: Guidance will be issued on these arrangements in February. When will the single County Court Launch? We are aiming to launch the single County and single Family Court on the 22 April. However this date has yet to be formally approved by Ministers so please do not publicise it with customers. We will confirm the date as we have Ministerial approval and issue a note to key customers and stakeholders. How do the single County Court and single Family Court work together? As you will know, in April you will also see the establishment of the single Family Court. For the first time family procedures within the magistrates and county court will be brought under one national Family Court for England and Wales. As with the introduction of the single County Court this is a significant and important change. In order for both new courts to operate effectively they will continue to share the same court hearing centres and the staff and judiciary at those centres.

8 Communications Throughout February we will start to issue national communications to key stakeholders such as the Law Society, Bar Council, Civil Court Users Association and advice agencies. We will also be working with the Master of the Rolls office to provide communication to the judiciary. In parallel we will be providing you with important information: - Guidance on transitional arrangements - An implementation guide getting ready for the single County Court - Guidance on County Court entry points and transfer arrangements - Further detail about changes to court procedures - A list of the job cards and SOPs that will be amended - A list of the pre-printed forms and leaflets that will be amended - Posters with key messages for County Court customers - Links to national communications to key stakeholder groups - You with some key standard lines for your court users meetings National Training We are currently working with L&D to update any national online or face-to-face training. No specific single County Court training will be provided for staff, bailiffs or the judiciary. Any essential guidance will be provided via communications, SOPs, jobs cards and guidance. Job Cards and SOPs With the level of change we are introducing to the civil and family jurisdictions at the moment we are taking a pragmatic approach to updating SOPs and job cards. Those impacted by procedural and rule change will be prioritised. Leaflets and Forms We are currently working with the Prison Services Printing Team to ensure that all the leaflets and forms that you will need to replace in preparation for the single County Court are available for April. Further guidance on the forms and leaflets that you will have to destroy and replace will be issued in mid-february. Stationery Manual Seals banner are currently making the new County Court and Family Court manual seals a standard item on the catalogue. This will be available to order in February and an e-news item will be issued with instructions on how to order. Franking Machines / Court Address Stamps You might want to start thinking about whether you need to order a new address stamp and make changes to your local franking machines to update the name of your court, i.e. If it current says

9 Manchester County Court you will need to change this to The County Court at Manchester. NB: Please note that funding for any stationary changes will have to come out of local budgets. What do you need to do? - Share this introductory guide with your staff at TIBs and give them time to read the document - Consider and make arrangements for amending any local training guides, crib sheets, letter templates, IT pro-formers with the information outlined within this introduction, i.e. updating references to The County Court or changing the name of CCBC - Make time to look at court displays and signage at the counter and in court reception areas do you need to and can you change any of the information? i.e. references to The County Court or changing the name of CCBC - Look out for further TIBits and Enews updates Questions? Should you have any question about the single court please refer to our intranet page for further information: If you can t find the answer you were looking for or you have a good idea that might help us to implement single County Court more effectively send us an at: Civil&FamilyBusinessSupport@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

Please refer to Formfinder for a list of all court forms

Please refer to Formfinder for a list of all court forms EX50 Civil and Family Court Fees From 6 March 2017 Important information This leaflet sets out a selection of civil and family court fees. It is not the full list, neither is it the authority on fees.