Holly Lynch – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Holly Lynch on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of how much his Department will have spent on implementing digitalisation requirements by April 2016 at the courts and tribunals proposed for closure in the recent Proposal on the provision of court and tribunal estate in England and Wales consultation.

Mr Shailesh Vara

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service are committed to delivering a quicker and fairer justice system. The digitalisation programme is on track to deliver £220m of benefits.

Investment of digital technologies to court centres under consultation was immediately paused pending the outcome of this process. £1.35m had previously been spent in courts which have subsequently been announced for closure. The vast majority of this expenditure was in re-usable hardware assets which will be reallocated to other sites within the HMCTS estate. Additionally, the savings from the installations are expected to outweigh average installation costs by the time courts start to close.