A flagship centre for issuing money claims proceedings in Salford is to merge with its counterpart in Northampton, the Gazette has learned. The development comes just 10 years since Salford’s County Court Money Claims Centre (CCMCC) was set up to streamline the handling of civil claims.   

In a letter to stakeholders dated last month, HM Courts & Tribunals Service reveals that the centre will merge with the County Court Business Centre in Northampton by next May. It states that two centres are not needed because of the greater use of IT under HMCTS’s reform programme. HMCTS said no decision has been made on the future of the Salford building.

The decision follows proposed changes to the management of small claims following two pilot schemes; the ongoing Damages Claim pilot and the online Civil Money Claims pilot, which allowed professional and unrepresented claimants to start money claims online with a value of £10,000 or less. A Civil Justice Council report in April 2021 said HMCTS had processed over 194,000 claims since March 2018.

The HMCTS letter states that work from Northampton and Salford would transition to existing service centres, with some areas of CCMC work currently situated in Salford moving to Northampton over the autumn. HMCTS said it would monitor the process to 'ensure this change doesn’t adversely impact end users', and take into account judicial feedback 'to ensure there is no impact on performance'. The workforce will be 'properly supported during this period of change'.

Civil justice actions remain below pre-Covid 19 levels, according to MoJ statistics in June 2022; county court claims were down 24% from 2019, to 409,000. Of these, 340,000 (83%) were money claims (down 22%).

The Salford CCMCC was opened in February 2012, initially experiencing considerable difficulties in meeting demand and generating customer complaints, leading to Law Society interventions to improve the service and subsequent local recruitment to enhance the service.

Data on processing times from both centres was published on 22 August. Northampton’s online issue service instantly processed claims, defences, and counterclaims via the digital portal, while Salford’s CCMCC took 11 working days from receipt to process a claim.

However, correspondence with Northampton took 22 days compared with Salford’s 13 days. The total processing time from receipt of application to prepared orders took 43 days at Northampton compared to Salford’s 23 days.

A HMCTS spokesperson said the merger is 'part of our £1billion reform programme to improve courts and tribunals using new technology and modern working'.

They added 'No redundancies are planned, staff have already been informed and we will support them throughout this transition', with staff being offered the opportunity to transfer to Salford Courts and Tribunal Service Centre. 

 

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