By David Young-
Legal advisers and court associates working in the magistrates court will vote next week on possible industrial action. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union will hold a strike ballot over the use of the HM Courts & Tribunals Service Common Platform.
The union said the decision of the HMCTS Crime Programme Board and senior judiciary to continue the national roll-out came despite months of inaction to resolve concerns about the system and its effect on court staff.
Legal advisers are required to sit in court with them to advise on legal points, practice and procedure and assist with the formulation and drafting of their reasons.
Only last week, The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said its members in England and Wales will walk out over a dispute about legal aid funding.
In a statement, the PCS said: ‘Common Platform remains fundamentally unfit for purpose and PCS members are no longer willing to have to grapple with a system that is negatively and significantly impacting on their health, safety and well-being.’
The ballot for potential walkouts will begin next Thursday and run until 11 August.
The union is demanding that no new cases are inputted onto Common Platform and that the court service undertakes a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for the system in consultation with the PCS.
They also want stress surveys and equality impacts carried out,0 and feedback from early adopter sites where a Common Platform has been rolled out made public. The union also wants assurances there will be no further job losses arising from the system.
The government revealed earlier this year that as at 31 March 2021, HMCTS spent £236m on implementing the Common Platform programme, which included £36m on staffing, £300,000 on consultancy and £199m on developing the system.
In November, the PCS said the system was ‘not fit for purpose’ and that its use had sent work-related stress and anxiety levels among members in HMCTS ‘through the roof’.