› Anonymous writes from court

Anonymous writes from court

Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

The mainstream media are now (finally) beginning to pick up on the asset stripping and hatchet job on the British justice system being perpetrated by Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Earlier this week, Fleet Street Fox of the Mirror posted a piece entitled ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ It’s a pretty comprehensive analysis of what Grayling et al. are planning and the likely implications of their plans.

Included amongst the comments on the post is the one below from ‘Anonymous’ who’s a civil servant working in the courts service. I’ve taken the liberty of tweaking the formatting and capitalising the start of sentences (which the original author failed to do). The quote itself is reproduced by kind permission of Fleet Street Fox.

I’d really like to put my name to this, but as I’m a serving civil servant working within the court service I’m banned from saying anything about my job online (yes really). For the last 5 years the way the courts have been run borders on the imbecilic. I work in a fines dept and have been moved so far away from my original office I now have to commute for 3 hours a day. I’m not management, just regular bottom of the rung, admin worker. They’ve spend obscene amounts on consultants and “LEAN agents” while the actual work that needs to be done piles up because there simply isn’t the staff to do it. I despair of what this government is doing to public services.

The general sense of despondency that emerges from the comment is almost tangible, whilst the amount spent on consultants and their ilk and the general mismanagement both go to reinforce a couple of findings about the Ministry of Justice that are already in the public domain: firstly that the MoJ is not an enjoyable place to work (posts passim); and secondly that the MoJ is not an “intelligent customer” in the words of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee (posts passim).

Author: Steve Woods

Generic carbon-based humanoid life form.

2 thoughts on “Anonymous writes from court”

  2. Steve Woods Post author

    Thanks Travelling Wilbury.

    The Justice Committee’s opinion of the MoJ’s gagging is damning and is reproduced below:

    7. In the course of our inquiry it was alleged that HMCTS had actively discouraged its staff from submitting formal written evidence. As a result, we established a three week online consultation to invite observations, anonymously if necessary, from people who had direct experience of the provision of interpreting and translation services by ALS during the period September and October 2012. We hoped that this would provide a forum for those who might have been reticent to provide formal written evidence, including court and tribunal service staff. The Ministry of Justice initially refused to provide our secretariat with regional contact details to enable the consultation to be publicised to HMCTS staff. It then became apparent that HMCTS had issued an edict instructing their staff not to participate. We also heard from the chair of a magistrates’ court bench who had been dissuaded by HMCTS from sending data on the performance of interpreters to support his evidence.

    8. We wrote to the Secretary of State, Chris Grayling MP, requesting an explanation and
    Helen Grant MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, who investigated the
    matter on his behalf, explained:

    “We took this decision as the Department was already giving its evidence to the
    Committee in written and oral form […] The Civil Service Management Code and
    the Osmotherly Rules say that officials should not take part in research projects or
    surveys designed to establish their personal views on Government policies. In the
    second half of October, we became aware of some interpreters contacting courts
    directly with the details of the forum, accompanied by a press release from an
    interpreters organisation which disagreed with the MoJ’s evidence at the Public
    Accounts Committee. In light of these emails, we decided to email HMCTS Cluster
    Managers to give them some guidance on how to respond to these specific emails.
    […] In my view, this email was an entirely appropriate response to the contact from
    interpreter groups that staff received and did not interfere with the collection of
    evidence by the Committee.”

    The email she referred to stated: “You may be contacted by interpreters inviting/encouraging you to join a forum where anecdotal information about this service is being gathered. As the Department has already provided consolidated evidence to the
    Committee you are requested to refrain from participating, […].”

    9. In respect of alleged interference with testimony submitted by Mr Beeke, a member of
    the magistracy, she explained that, as the respondent had wished to include a copy of a
    local spreadsheet of issues with Capita-ALS which was not possible to verify against ALS’
    own data on complaints, it would have been “suggested” to him that such spreadsheets
    should not be submitted as evidence.

    10. We consider that the actions of the Ministry in respect both of court staff and of the
    magistrate may have constituted a contempt. We find the approach of the Department on
    this matter extremely unhelpful, particularly in the light of the very successful use by this
    Committee of online consultation with their staff in previous reports, such as our reports
    on the role of the prison officer and the role of the probation service. The Department has not previously resisted the use of a process which gives the Committee a broader
    understanding of the experience of staff, and which is not in any way designed to
    challenge the ultimate responsibility of Ministers for the policies of the Department.

    11. It is not for the Ministry of Justice to judge whether steps they took in relation to the
    inquiry did or did not interfere with our collection of evidence. That is a matter for us and
    for the House of Commons. Any act which obstructs or impedes the House in discharging
    its functions may be treated as a contempt of the House.

    12. In considering this matter we have been mindful of the fact that the House exercises its jurisdiction in cases of contempt sparingly and only when essential to prevent substantial interference with the performance of its functions. In this case it appears that our efforts to obtain a full picture of the current effectiveness of interpreting services in courts were hampered by the absence of any substantiation from frontline staff. However we consider that we have sufficient evidence from other sources to make a reliable judgment. We have relied on evidence from other important stakeholders, including the Senior Presiding Judge, the Magistrates’ Association, and the Law Society, along with the testimony of professional interpreters who were observing court proceedings. We have therefore not asked the House to take further action on this matter although we gave serious consideration to doing so. We expect the Ministry of Justice and its agencies to have proper regard to the rights of Parliament and those who give evidence to Committees of the House, and, as our predecessor Committee demonstrated in 2004, we will not hesitate to refer alleged infringements to the House when necessary.

    Orwellian indeed.

    It’s such a shame that the Committee did not consider pursuing the MoJ and its Ministers for contempt of the House.

    That might have blunted their arrogance and ambitions somewhat.

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