ILPC 2027

 This paper is based on empirical research into the impact of court closures on relevant staff. The closures are in part due to overall government budget cuts (austerity) and that the Ministry of Justice is not a protected department. This means they have to save £249m this year in the name of ‘efficiency’.[1]  The MoJ has to reduce its day-to-day spend significantly. HMCTS is faced with a cut of 25%, which will result in additional work for the remaining staff. Staff cuts of a further 5,000 to 6,000 are proposed taking HMCTS down to 11,000 employees. Only five years ago 22,000 staff were employed. HMCTS are looking to digitalise a significant area of work. Closures include: 257 magistrates court rooms (23%); 21 crown court rooms (4%); 139 county court rooms (17%); and 63 tribunal rooms (13%)

The study, therefore, forms part of growing research based evidence into the impact of public sector cuts. In this case the sensitivities beyond the workplace area are acute as together with cuts in legal aid, increased fees, and the move to digitalization there is an ‘attack on justice itself’. The research into the impact on court staff is rooted in a classic labour process approach (Braverman 1974), and linked with other such studies (Carter et al 2011; Proctor and Currie 2004; Carter et al 2011; Taylor 2013).[2] In particular staff were interviewed along with their union representatives from the PCS and FDA, and substantial further evidence was gained from blogs, government papers, and official reports.

The work undertaken has been subject, as others in the civil service, to TW3.[3] TW3 is a classic form of Taylorism at work, and is now being applied to court staff as the MoJ strives to cut in half their administrative staff costs. Much of what is happening in the MoJ fits perfectly with the model of NPM: privatization and outsourcing; fragmented and fractured ‘atomised’ service functions; reduced levels of resourcing; limited access to key public services such as courts and tribunals as well as safe houses and rehabilitation; and attacks on both the individual terms and conditions of staff as well as on their collective bodies.

Debates about public administration are not new. “How far the public sector should be insulated and clearly separated from the private sector in matters of handling business and staff, and how far business should be conducted by professional discretion rather than by pre-set rules or standards, are issues which go to the heart of most doctrinal disputes in public administration”.^[4]

Staff report an increase in unpaid overtime, increased health and safety risks, a worse service to court users which damages staff morale, no promotion prospects, cuts in training, job losses, and a system in crisis.[5] Staff may wish to deliver better services but they are forced to deliver worse ones. Employees turn to their trade unions as the only viable form of protection under such circumstances, but they are under attack nationally through the Trade Union Reform Act^[6], and other more surreptitious means such as the use of staff associations and unaccountable focus groups, and within the wider civil service with the reduction in facility time and therefore their ability to represent their members.^[7]

Staff interviewed for this study  included  justices' clerks, legal advisers, paralegals, court clerks, court managers and administrative staff, court enforcement staff, bailiffs, guards and ushers. Their work includes helping to process claimants and accused through complex experiences. There are ushers to organise those involved in the systems, court support workers, lawyers of various ranks and categories, the judges and justices, and the administrative support workers tasked with making sure the right documents are in the right place at the right time for the right people.

So far the research shows that court staff are experiencing similar treatment as experienced by others across the public sector of work intensification and routinization, problems with fighting back, and a crippling inability to deliver the services required.