Evaluation of court and tribunal video hearings

3rd August 2020

Following the publication of an independent evaluation of HMCTS video hearings, Employment Barrister Gareth GrahamGareth GrahamCall: 2006 briefly compares the 3PB team's experiences with the research's key findings.

The research reports on a process evaluation of the user experience of video hearings in the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber). The pool of data is limited, and the pilot used an early technical product to test the concept of video hearings, so it is perhaps of limited direct relevance to the use of CVP in Employment Tribunals.

However, there are some interesting parallels that mirror our own experience of video hearings, such as the inevitable technical difficulties which arise relating to poor Wi-Fi, audibility, and access to documents, and that some users act in a less formal manner during video hearings than they would have had they appeared in tribunal. Nonetheless, users appeared to be content with the experience.

3PB members who have used CVP for employment tribunal proceedings have generally found the experience to be positive. In disciplinary hearings in professional sport, we have found that video hearings are a highly efficient and effective way of managing proceedings.

With recent media reports of a resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe, and the inevitable concern that a ‘second-wave’ may occur in the UK, we remain of the view that video hearings are a very useful tool that can be used to allow matters to proceed fairly and justly in many cases.

The independent evaluation can be viewed here.