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Court and tribunal forms are moving to GOV.UK
Just spotted this and can’t recall seeing anything on here previously about this change.
We [HMCTS] currently make a large number of court and tribunal published forms and guidance notes available through the form finder website. This is used by over 300,000 users each month, and has been online since 2004.
Following an online survey and research, we discovered that our users find form finder in its current design, difficult to use. Public users and litigants in person, in particular, find it difficult to find the correct forms and guidance they need.
To make it easier for users to find the forms they need, we’ve been working with colleagues from MOJ Digital & Technology to move the forms to GOV.UK from 21 March 2018.
On balance a positive move although one is tempted to throw up my arms in despair and headbutt something that it should take an “online survey and research” to discover what anyone could have discovered in 15 frustrating minutes trying to find a specific form. All they had to do was try it themselves.
having spent some time this morning filling in a government provided court form (as opposed from oyez or other commercial provider that we don’t pay for) they often don’t have enough space in the relevant box for the relevant info (this morning i couldn’t even type in the court name and had to use abbreviations!)
i don’t find the court finder that bad, but then i usually know the form i want….
Generally though I think the rush to provide forms online has been accompanied by the same amount of spectacular ineptitude which goes into their formatting offline and DWP are hardly alone there. I have seen maybe 2 good to great online forms in many different areas over the past 20 years. Stuff that you use and think “that’s brilliant. How did they think of that?”.