Doncaster Civil Justice Centre

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020

Doncaster County Court: Consistently Poor Service Standards

This blog is in danger of becoming a post largely carping on about service level failures by court staff at HMCTS.

Having said that the errors they make are sufficiently numerous and serious in consequence that they’re like busses: there’s always another one along in a minute. This makes it very easy to produce material for this blog. Although I’m likely to get bored of telling you about all of these errors long before HMCTS stop making them.

Doncaster: the County Court here fails to serve the people of the city well.

The kind of service level failures court staff specialise in would – in any normal workplace – result in disciplinary proceedings. But HMCTS is presently sufficiently desperate to retain any form of staff to keep at least a semblance of function in civil courts that even the most spectacularly gaff-prone employees are retained. Better the devil you know than someone even more slackly incompetent.

The end result of this for court users is of course loss of time, expense and waste of effort.

And so it has been today in relation to a claim at Doncaster County Court, (already noted for more than its fair share of errors in handling this particular claim) at which yet another service level failure has take place.

In several occasions in the past both parties have been all set for trial only for the trial to be cancelled when all are in attendance. Grounds: over-running of a prior matter, file in poor condition etc. On one occasion the file was even lost!

There’s always an excuse for appalling service but the basic grounds ultimately come down to two things: an inability on the part of court staff to administrate claims properly and the failure of District Judges to deploy appropriate oversight of a case or to get a grip on case management issues.

An application in this claim was made in April 2020. Estimated time to hearing was 12 weeks, which of course came and went without any Notice of Hearing.

Two other hearings In the same claim took place in October and November at which the application could have been scheduled to be heard. Needless to say it wasn’t even though the District Judge made clear she was aware of its existence.

This is a critical fact: that staff failed to schedule the application in a way that would have dealt with it reasonably at an appropriate time within the claim, saving the parties time and effort. Having acknowledged receipt of the application they simply forgot all about it

…until the point I sent them a timely reminder in relation to the application. This brought a further hearing date. Which again drags all the parties over to Doncaster for what ultimately ends up as a futile exercise.

When the matter of the application could have been heard within other hearings in the same claim but wasn’t because court staff forgot about it we have clear evidence that the civil court system has collapsed and cannot now administrate in even the most basic respects.

How do many legal professionals react to their cases being so poorly run? Often by keeping their heads down and accepting the situation. To speak out in public or in the court itself would perhaps cause damage to careers and lead the judiciary to take against them on future appearances. And so nothing in the civil system improves.

HMCTS service standards are… well not very good at all really!

November 10, 2020November 11, 2020

Anatomy of Child Protection Failures in Doncaster.

In Doncaster in early January 2020 a child died. His name was Keigan O’Brien.

Doncaster overall has an appalling reputation as a place in which children can grow up safely and free from fear of harm. Several incidents in recent years have put the city’s child protection measures into the national spotlight. At one point the relevant responsibilities would have rested with the local authority.

However Doncaster Children’s Services Trust (DCST) is an offshoot organisation set up by Doncaster Council. This follows a series of disastrous child protection failures from Doncaster Council (itself a noticeably underperforming local authority) and the establishment of DCST was clearly to place some element of distance between the Council and child protection services in the city. A useful tactic for the senior organisation avoiding blame and bad publicity. But the service provided by DCST is still the same appallingly poor standard as when matters were under the Council’s jurisdiction.

Tellingly the most recent OFSTED reports that DSCT show on their own site end in 2018.

The head of DCST is Jim Foy, the improbably titled LADO or Local Authority Designated Officer. The title is of course a hangover from the days when the service was an in-house Council run operation.

On the occasions this correspondent has encountered him Jim Foy seems a man hopelessly disengaged with the job he has to do and the overall impression is of a man who is the cause of chaos in his employment which others run then around correcting. This is bad enough in any post but in one with the responsibilities of LADO the consequences of failure are catastrophic to service users, their families and the local community.

And so it proved when Jim Foy – in the course of his duties – recorded data on a person who had engaged in a new relationship with a clerical support worker in a Doncaster area school. Not only did he record the data wrongly but he also recorded a matter which was not an offence in British criminal law. He failed to spot either of these errors. He then used this incorrect data to confront the clerical support worker and used it to try to force her out of her employment.
When later faced with clear evidence that he had recorded the data incorrectly Jim Foy refused to amend or correct the error. Instead only after matters were investigated by the UK’s data regulator, The Information Commissioner’s Office, which found against DCST was the data reluctantly corrected.

The DPA 1998 states at 10(1) that a data controller is required to cease processing of personal data on ground that process of that data likely to cause damage / distress and is unwarranted.

Principal 4 also states that data held on an individual should be both accurate and kept up to date.

The error caused by DCST is twofold then: the recording of incorrect data in the first instance and the failure to correct it in the second. It is assumed that Jim Foy is sufficiently aware of these regulations and how they impact on his responsibilities although the persistent failure to correct the error when notified suggests otherwise.

In a civil case at Doncaster Civil Justice Centre North this week the defence of DCST to the claim of breach of the relevant legislation was not accepted by the judge who saw through the (admittedly very weak) set of arguments defence barrister presented.

The wider issue in this matter is that if DCST is recording data on people wrongly then how can they hope to build a genuine picture of the potential threats to children in their area? The consistent failure of DCST to protect children in the Doncaster region is evidence of where these kinds of systemic failure leads.

There is a cost to the public purse of this. So far there have been five hearings in this claim settled this week at a figure of around £1,000.00 costs to DCST each time they have sent counsel and instructed solicitor. Conservative estimates therefore put the costs to then local taxpayer of defence of a matter which was doomed to fail in any event (including pre-trial preparation etc) at around £9,000.00. This is over the matter of a simple piece of data recorded wrongly from one telephone call.

Nor is this the worst part of this matter.

In a December 2019 hearing and – presumably desperate to gain some form of hold on the Claimant and tactical advantage in the case via obtaining information on him – Jim Foy overheard a conversation at court in the case which resulted in him making enquiries regarding the Claimant’s children which by any examination breach the Claimant’s Article 8 right to privacy. These enquiries were made not only to the databases that DCST would use as a matter of course but also to local police forces.

Jim Foy was running around gathering this data with questionable legality and no operational remit to do so at the same time Keigan O’Brien was being placed in peril by the actions of his parents.

Also at the same time Jim Foy was giving training sessions (https://buy.doncaster.gov.uk/Event/102055) on safeguarding children in the local area.

All this of course could only happen in DCST where actual child protection concerns come second to maintaining underperforming staff in post and ensuring the continuation of the organisation.

November 6, 2020November 6, 2020

Covid Secure Civil Courts?

Severe concerns exist regarding the safety of those being compelled to attend HMCTS civil courts

The official line from HMCTS is clear. That courts in the UK are COVID-19 secure.

The facts tell a different story altogether.

Outbreaks at half a dozen courts in the North East and North West circuits such as Leeds and Liverpool in the last few weeks show that HMCTS’ position is at best ill-informed and hopelessly optimistic. There have been further instances of the virus spreading at other courts across the UK. The PCS union has expressed severe concerns to its members regarding the safety of their workplaces, as has The Bar Council.

PCS members are encouraged to walk out of an unsafe working environment. Given the level of workplace bullying known to go on at civil courts such as York County Court it’s highly unlikely any member of court staff would do this.

Civil court users are not so lucky.

I have a hearing in case at Doncaster next week. The Defendant in the claim has already expressed surprise that the hearing is still set to go ahead despite a second national lockdown.

I have also expressed my own surprise to court staff who simply directed me to a webpage with the usual platitudes and informed that the hearing was still set for next week. The attitude towards safety concerns raised was dismissive and lethargic. This is simply not good enough in a pandemic.

None of the valid concerns I have expressed in communication with the court have received a response.

The simple fact is that a public building cannot be made COVID-19 secure any more than HMCTS can claim to have ensured a building is totally free of dust, oxygen or carbon atoms. Thus everyone attending a hearing at any court will be exposed to a potential risk of a severe illness, as will any of their family members when the attendee returns home.

If HMCTS were an organisation which is able to get the basics of running the civil system right then there would be more confidence in the claim that courts are COVID-19 secure. But the hopelessly inept, slapdash approach that characterises HMCTS pre-pandemic does not inspire confidence.

When people are being compelled to attend civil hearings in circumstances where there have been severe outbreaks in court buildings and staff appear dismissive of safety concerns one has to consider what the priorities of HMCTS are. Public health isn’t one of them.