Latest news with #ITbug
Telegraph
a day ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Courts service ‘covered up' IT bug that led to missing evidence
The courts service has been accused of 'covering up' an IT bug which caused evidence to go missing. A leaked HM Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS) report found it took several years to react to the flaw which sources claim meant judges in civil, family and tribunal courts made rulings on cases when evidence was incomplete. In what has been likened to the Horizon Post Office scandal, the report, which was leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of data corruption. HCMTS has insisted its investigation has since found 'no evidence' that any case outcomes were affected as a result of the technical issues. But Sir James Munby, the former head of the High Court's family division, described the situation as a 'scandal' and 'shocking'. 'These hearings often decide the fate of people's lives,' Sir James Munby told the BBC. 'An error could mean the difference between a child being removed from an unsafe environment or a vulnerable person missing out on benefits.' Alex Chalk, the former Lord Chancellor, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was 'incredibly troubled' at the supposed cover-up and called for a 'root and branch review'. The bug was detected in case management software used by HMCTS, which administers many courts in England and Wales and tribunals across the UK. It was used by judges, lawyers, case workers and members of the public – all of whom were not aware of the issue. The bug caused data to be obscured from view, meaning evidence was not visible as part of an uploaded case file to be used in court, the BBC reported. The Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal – which handles benefit appeals – is thought to have been most affected, but sources said courts dealing with family, divorce, employment, civil money claims and probate would also have been impacted. 'They're worried about people finding out' One source told the BBC there was 'general horror' at the design of the software, which was introduced in 2018. Another claimed senior management was not willing to 'acknowledge or face the reality' of the situation, despite repeated warnings from the agency's IT staff. 'There is a culture of cover-ups,' one said. 'They're not worried about risk to the public, they're worried about people finding out about the risk to the public. It's terrifying to witness.' One employee was so concerned about the scope of an internal investigation taking place that they raised a formal whistleblower complaint. The report that followed, which is the one that was leaked, found there had been 'large-scale' data breaches that should have been addressed 'as soon as they were known'. However, it found HMCTS had taken several years to respond. A spokesman from HMCTS said: 'Our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues. 'The digitisation of our systems is vital to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era and provide quicker, simpler access to justice for all those who use our services. 'We will continue to press ahead with our important modernisation.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Troubling' courts service IT bug ‘extremely serious'
An IT bug causing 'technical issues' within the body running courts in England and Wales is 'unbelievably serious' and could be compared to the Post Office Horizon scandal, a former lord chancellor has said. The BBC has reported that it took HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) several years to react to the bug, which is said to have caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost, resulting in judges in civil, family and tribunal courts making rulings on cases when evidence was potentially incomplete. HMCTS said there is no evidence to suggest any case outcomes were affected as a result of the issues. The bug was found in case-management software used by HMCTS and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal, which handles benefit appeals, is thought to have been most affected, the BBC said. Referred to as Judicial Case Manager, MyHMCTS or CCD, the BBC said the software is used to manage evidence and track cases, and is used by judges, lawyers, case workers and members of the public. Documents seen by the BBC show the bug caused data to be obscured from view, meaning some evidence was sometimes not visible as part of case files used in court. The BBC said a leaked internal report said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had affected cases. Alex Chalk, former lord chancellor and former justice secretary, said what has happened is 'incredibly serious' and could have involved cases which determine whether a child is taken into care. 'So unbelievably serious. And, so the whistle blowers indicate, it could potentially have bled into other tribunals as well, whether it deals with divorce and so on. 'And the thing that is so troubling is that this report evidently got on to the desk of the senior leadership of HMCTS in March 2024 when I was in office, and it was never brought to my attention. 'And I am incredibly troubled by that, because any lord chancellor, of any stripe, if they discover that there's potentially a situation in the courts which is leading to injustice, then you will immediately want to investigate that, and yet in effect that was covered up and I'm afraid I think that is extremely serious,' Mr Chalk told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The BBC said several sources within HMCTS have likened the situation to the Horizon Post Office scandal. Mr Chalk was asked on the Radio 4 Today programme if what has happened could be compared to the Post Office scandal, and he said: 'It could be.' An HMCTS spokesperson said: 'Our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues. 'The digitisation of our systems is vital to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era and provide quicker, simpler access to justice for all those who use our services. 'We will continue to press ahead with our important modernisation.' It is understood that while the bug resulted in some documents not being accessible to users on the digital platform, they were in fact always present on the system. It is also understood that because of a number of 'fail-safes', parties and judges involved in these cases always had access to the documents they needed.
The Independent
a day ago
- Politics
- The Independent
‘Troubling' courts service IT bug ‘extremely serious'
An IT bug causing 'technical issues' within the body running courts in England and Wales is 'unbelievably serious' and could be compared to the Post Office Horizon scandal, a former lord chancellor has said. The BBC has reported that it took HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) several years to react to the bug, which is said to have caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear lost, resulting in judges in civil, family and tribunal courts making rulings on cases when evidence was potentially incomplete. HMCTS said there is no evidence to suggest any case outcomes were affected as a result of the issues. The bug was found in case-management software used by HMCTS and the Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal, which handles benefit appeals, is thought to have been most affected, the BBC said. Referred to as Judicial Case Manager, MyHMCTS or CCD, the BBC said the software is used to manage evidence and track cases, and is used by judges, lawyers, case workers and members of the public. Documents seen by the BBC show the bug caused data to be obscured from view, meaning some evidence was sometimes not visible as part of case files used in court. The BBC said a leaked internal report said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had affected cases. Alex Chalk, former lord chancellor and former justice secretary, said what has happened is 'incredibly serious' and could have involved cases which determine whether a child is taken into care. 'So unbelievably serious. And, so the whistle blowers indicate, it could potentially have bled into other tribunals as well, whether it deals with divorce and so on. 'And the thing that is so troubling is that this report evidently got on to the desk of the senior leadership of HMCTS in March 2024 when I was in office, and it was never brought to my attention. 'And I am incredibly troubled by that, because any lord chancellor, of any stripe, if they discover that there's potentially a situation in the courts which is leading to injustice, then you will immediately want to investigate that, and yet in effect that was covered up and I'm afraid I think that is extremely serious,' Mr Chalk told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The BBC said several sources within HMCTS have likened the situation to the Horizon Post Office scandal. Mr Chalk was asked on the Radio 4 Today programme if what has happened could be compared to the Post Office scandal, and he said: 'It could be.' An HMCTS spokesperson said: 'Our internal investigation found no evidence that any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues. 'The digitisation of our systems is vital to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era and provide quicker, simpler access to justice for all those who use our services. 'We will continue to press ahead with our important modernisation.' It is understood that while the bug resulted in some documents not being accessible to users on the digital platform, they were in fact always present on the system. It is also understood that because of a number of 'fail-safes', parties and judges involved in these cases always had access to the documents they needed.
BBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Courts service accused of covering up IT bug that caused evidence to go missing
The body running courts in England and Wales has been accused of a cover-up, after a leaked report found it took several years to react to an IT bug that caused evidence to go missing, be overwritten or appear within HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) say that as a result, judges in civil, family and tribunal courts will have made rulings on cases when evidence was internal report, leaked to the BBC, said HMCTS did not know the full extent of the data corruption, including whether or how it had impacted cases, as it had not undertaken a comprehensive also found judges and lawyers had not been informed, as HMCTS management decided it would be "more likely to cause more harm than good".HMCTS says its internal investigation found no evidence that "any case outcomes were affected as a result of these technical issues".However, the former head of the High Court's family division, Sir James Munby, told the BBC the situation was "shocking" and "a scandal". The bug was found in case-management software used by HMCTS, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) agency which administers many courts in England and Wales, and tribunals across the software - known variously as Judicial Case Manager, MyHMCTS or CCD - is used to manage evidence and track cases before the courts. It is used by judges, lawyers, case workers and members of the seen by the BBC show it caused data to be obscured from view, meaning medical records, contact details and other evidence were sometimes not visible as part of case files used in Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) Tribunal - which handles benefit appeals - is thought to have been most have told the BBC that bugs have also impacted case management software used by other courts - including those dealing with family, divorce, employment, civil money claims and probate."These hearings often decide the fate of people's lives," Sir James Munby told the BBC. "An error could mean the difference between a child being removed from an unsafe environment or a vulnerable person missing out on benefits." 'Culture of cover-ups' The BBC has spoken to several separate sources within HMCTS who liken the situation to the Horizon Post Office scandal, where executives tried to suppress evidence of the system's says there was "general horror" at the design of the software, introduced by HMCTS in 2018, which they claim was "not designed properly or robustly" and had a long history of data says there was a general reluctance from senior management to "acknowledge or face the reality" of the situation, despite repeated warnings from the agency's IT staff."There is a culture of cover-ups," one told the BBC. "They're not worried about risk to the public, they're worried about people finding out about the risk to the public. It's terrifying to witness."When asked, the MoJ told us several organisations had been involved in the design and development of the software but did not supply a list. 'Totally insufficient' The BBC has seen documents from the MoJ (obtained through Freedom of Information requests), including emails where the severity of the SSCS issue was discussed.A briefing prepared for the chief executive of HMCTS - dated March 2024 - reveals the risk to proceedings was initially categorised as "high" with the possibility of court outcomes being adversely affected assessed as "very likely", resulting in "severe reputational impact to HMCTS".However, an initial manual investigation by a team within HMCTS reviewed only a subset of the most recent three months' worth of cases heard by the SSCS Tribunal, even though the bug was thought to have been in the system for several years. Out of 609 cases identified as having potential issues, only 109 (17%) were selected for further investigation. Among those, just one was said to have had "potentially significant impact".The briefing suggested standard court procedure would mean that staff would spot any anomalies and manually correct it was decided the risk to all cases was low and "no further checks" were within HMCTS argue that a snapshot of three months' worth of data was "totally insufficient", given the nature of the concerns are shared by a leading IT security expert, Prof Alan Woodward of the University of Surrey, who has worked for the UK government and consults on issues including forensic computing."[HMCTS] conducted their investigation on a limited set of cases", he says. "To say that they found no impact of these faults doesn't make sense to me." Leaked report Documents show an employee of HMCTS was so concerned, they raised a formal whistleblower complaint, which prompted a further internal was led by a senior IT professional from the Prison Service and resulted in a detailed report, distributed internally in November is the report that has been leaked to the was set up to "establish the facts" on data loss and data corruption issues affecting the Social Security and Child Support interviewed 15 witnesses, including software engineers and developers, and reviewed internal documents, such as incident logs and diary found "large scale" data breaches that should have been addressed "as soon as they were known". However, the report said that HMCTS had taken several years to react despite multiple warnings from senior technical staff, from 2019 concluded that because HMCTS had not undertaken a comprehensive investigation, the full extent of data corruption was still unknown, including if case outcomes had been report added that data loss incidents continue to be raised against the IT system used by the civil, family and tribunal concerns raised in the leaked report echo those raised by those speaking to the inside HMCTS express concerns that missing evidence may have gone undetected."This is quite a frightening possibility," one told the BBC, "That information gets lost, no-one notices, and there is a miscarriage of justice. I think that has to be the biggest worry." 'Missing documents' In the family courts, a different IT flaw caused thousands of documents to go missing, sources one instance, it is claimed a fault caused more than 4,000 documents to go missing from hundreds of public family law cases - including child protection BBC understands this bug was discovered in 2023 and may have been present for some years. We have been told it has since been resolved but that no investigation was carried out to establish potential impact on case asked the MoJ if any emergency child protection cases had been did not respond to this a statement, an HMCTS spokesperson told the BBC that "parties and judges involved in these cases always had access to the documents they needed". It vowed to "press ahead" with digitisation, because it was "vital" to bring courts and tribunals into the modern era. 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