HM Courts & Tribunals Service has dismissed claims that a technology failure adversely affected cases, stating that an internal investigation found ‘no evidence’ of any impact on outcomes.
The BBC reported last week that an ‘IT bug’ in case management software had led to ‘data corruption’, citing a leaked internal report. But HMCTS maintained only a ‘small number’ of documents were inaccessible to platform users, and that these would have been available regardless through other means such as parties’ own bundles.
A problem was identified in 2023, though technical issues are understood to have arisen between 2020 and January 2025, before the coding was fixed.
A HMCTS spokesperson said: ‘Our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues. The digitisation of our systems is vital to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era and provide quicker, simpler access to justice for all those who use our services. We will continue to press ahead with our important modernisation.’
intellectual property