The problem

His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) administrates criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales. The organisation is undergoing a £1 billion reform programme to improve its systems and services.

HMCTS recognised it was no good updating technology if their teams continued to use old-fashioned, formal and pompous language. This wasn’t just confusing. It was creating an inhuman experience of the justice system.

The solution

We created a new approach to written, verbal and face-to-face communication at HMCTS called ‘The human voice of justice’. We developed it by speaking to people from around the courts service. We then commissioned an independent research agency to test the new approach with a cross-section of court users, including people in vulnerable situations.  

To empower the HMCTS teams to use ’The human voice of justice’, we ran a mixture of face-to-face workshops and online learning, including animations, guidelines and digital training modules. We also ran an internal campaign across the organisation, with posters and videos of people talking about what the human voice of justice meant to them.

The results

‘The human voice of justice’ isn’t just a project – HMCTS now has a team dedicated to embedding it across the organisation. And it’s producing real results. For example, first contact resolution increased in every area of complaints – one team reduced escalations by 73% within three months. 

Giving people permission to communicate like human beings didn’t just change the user experience – it changed the culture at HMCTS. So much so that our work won an Excellence in Employee Engagement award from the Association of Business Psychology. It was also shortlisted for Most Improved Complaint Handling at the UK Complaint Handling Awards.