Delays geting letters from HMC&TS;

Is anyone else having problems with letters fro m HMC&TS; taking along time to arrive? I have had a few cases lately where notice of hearing date has taken five or six days to go from Cardiff to Cornwall and in one case three hearing date letters which were dated 01.04.17 only arrived on 28.04.17, long after the appeals had been heard.

If this is not widespread problem then I will assume it something to do with either our local postal service or letters being misdirected when they get to our post room but I must say that I don’t seem to have any trouble getting other letters.

We’ve had reports recently of entire sessions being listed and no evidence the appellants had been notified.

I had a case very recently where neither the client nor I were informed about the hearing.  Client is in London, I’m in Ipswich.  Tribunal went ahead in our absence and, thankfully (due to the quality of our evidence and, I like to think (!), my written submission), fully upheld the appeal.

I complained to HMCTS whose response was that the notification letters sent to both to the client and I in very different locations were lost in the post.  This is simply not credible; I could accept it if one of us was not informed but not both, some 100 miles apart.  I’ve lodged a second stage complaint.

As regards the Cardiff HMCTS office, I made a complaint a couple of months ago about excessive delays in dealing with my submissions in a case.  The response (by phone) was very revealing - they’ve had a massive surge in PIP appeals alongside cuts in staffing and these are causing enormous problems for them. 

Longer term, what is also of concern is that these problems are helping drive the move towards digitisation and fewer face-to-face hearings.

Here in Liverpool one of my colleagues recently had 3 cases apparently listed for the same session. Neither we nor the 3 clients had received notification at all. All three hearings were adjourned. Is this a recent development with hearing dates being sent out from Cornwall? We’ve never experienced issues like this before

isn’t it more likely to be letters being drafted but not printed/sent out in good time?

grant - 09 May 2017 12:58 PM

Here in Liverpool one of my colleagues recently had 3 cases apparently listed for the same session. Neither we nor the 3 clients had received notification at all. All three hearings were adjourned. Is this a recent development with hearing dates being sent out from Cornwall? We’ve never experienced issues like this before

I’ve not had these problems until fairly recently and like Neil the tribunal service said that they had sent the letters out. In some cases the appellant had received the letter but not me.

I understand that our District judge (who is very proactive and helpful) has been in touch with Cardiff about this and with any luck things might improve.

Yesterday I had a letter from the Tribunals Service. The date on the letter was 08/05/17 and it was stamped as being received in our office on 08/05/17!  It’s a miracle!

On one of the occasions this issue was raised at a Tribunal User Group Meeting a year or so back, the Operations Manager advised that it appeared to be a bulk printing issue and he encouraged examples to be sent in to check if it was possible to identify if there was a problem with the process. 

I think at the time letters for the North West were being sent out from Essex, so there was already something of a disconnect in the system there.