The agency administering the courts system across the country has significantly grown its use of remote participation in recent years, and now plans further technological expansion in the longer term

HM Courts and Tribunals Service is progressing multimillion-pound long-term plans to expand the use of videoconferencing in the proceedings of the justice system across England and Wales.

In a recently published commercial notice, HMCTS revealed that is “undertaking discovery” work to better understand the potential for remote participation in the coming years and decades.

Through these explorations, the service – an agency of the Ministry of Justice – aims to “understand what solutions, services and innovations are available to support participation in hearings via video, and explore how existing or emerging market solutions might address remote participation challenges”.

To further its understanding of these issues, on 21 January HMCTS is working with techUK to run a webinar for companies that could, potentially, supply the courts service with video systems and services.

At the online discussion event, “HMCTS will set out user needs, potential future capabilities, and challenges the programme is looking to address, [and] programme objectives, problem statements and real-world examples that illustrate the challenges users and staff face today will all be presented”, the notice says.

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In addition to this group event, HMCTS will next month conduct a series of individual meetings with prospective providers. Firms interested in taking part in one of these sessions are asked to complete and return a questionnaire.

The MoJ agency currently expects to enter into a contract with a five-year contract with one or more suppliers in 2029. This deal is forecast to be worth £42m.

But while “this preliminary market engagement will inform HMCTS’ future procurement strategy, at this stage, no decisions have been taken on any future invitations to tender, and HMCTS may or may not conduct” any formal activity in the future.

In its most recent annual report, the courts service stated that video technology is already enabling the justice system to cope with challenges faced during the year, including storms and major civil unrest. The use of remote participation systems grew rapidly during the height the coronavirus crisis in 2020 and 2021.