By Ashley Young
The Law Society has called on the Ministry of Justice to compensate solicitors whose jobs have been disrupted by significant IT failures. The Society has complained that many solicitors suffered heavy disruptions during the meltdown caused by the failure which disorientated large swathes of the legal profession including the British courts in the Uk. The meltdown lasted nearly a week.
Justice minister Lucy Frazer QC told MPs yesterday that the ‘intermittent disruption’ had been caused by an ‘infrastructure failure in our suppliers’ data centre’. Staff in courts and tribunals, the Legal Aid Agency, probation and the ministry’s headquarters were unable to log onto their computers. However, when she made her statement yesterday lunchtime, Frazer said 90% of staff now had working computers and she expected the remainder of court sites to be fully operational by the time they opened today. The chaos has heavily impacted the law profession, according to the Law Society.
The MoJ’s main computer network linking lawyers, judges, probation workers and court staff malfunctioned for long periods of time. Cases were delayed, access to the courts’ digital case system were denied and jurors could not be enrolled. Computer systems were dysfunctional , jurors could not be enrolled, and no advocates could sign into the Ministry of Justice’s XHIBIT system- an online service that logs lawyers’ attendance so they can get paid.
An insider from the Law Society told The Eye Of Media.Com: ” the disruption was particularly bad for solicitors and barristers who had to work around a very difficult set of circumstances outside their control. It is only fair that the Ministry Of Justice bear the brunt of this failure. The full costs are not yet known, but will be revealed in the fullness of time”. Representatives from the MOJ have pointed to the statement given by Lucy Frazer in parliament yesterday in which she stated the Permanent Secretary ‘s plan to meet with the chief executive of the supplier and ”be looking very carefully at the contracts, which include penalty clauses”.
Insiders at the Ministry of Justice spoken to by The Eye Of Media.Com are not willing to officially add anything further to Frazer’s comments. They believe it is too early to provide any guidance this week until everything is fully fixed. The MoJ themselves appear to have been under enormous pressure over the meltdown, and will be addressing matters in due course once they have gone through all relevant considerations. In the meantime, solicitors and barristers all over the country will be waiting for money to cover their costs or inconveniences.
Frazer, who is in charge of the Ministry Of Justice, expressed the ministry’s disappointment that the problem had still not been resolved, restoring the network problems in full’. Richard Heaton, the department’s permanent secretary, was due to meet the chief executive of one of the suppliers, Atos, yesterday afternoon also be writing personally to all members of the judiciary. The impact of the disruption had been broad
When asked about penalty clauses, Frazer said: ‘Of course we will be looking very carefully at the contracts which include penalty clauses.’ The Society has long complained about economic restoration within the criminal justice system and the fact that many criminal firms are struggling to survive.
Miller said: ‘Solicitors have struggled valiantly to try to work around these problems where possible, and continue to maintain their vital role in ensuring that the justice system functions properly in the public interest. They are ill able to bear the financial losses this IT problem has caused them. Our members need to be compensated for the losses they have suffered as a result of these problems.’
Last night the ministry issued another update reiterating that the system failure was not the result of a cyber attack. The department added that defendants had not been detained unlawfully as a result, and neither had prisoners been released unlawfully.