Earlier this year, in a speech to the Council of the Law Society of Scotland, Lord Carloway, the Lord President, discussed a five-year redesign of the court room to reflect the 21st century. In his speech, he heralded the development by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) of an Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) as the start of a journey to online processing in civil courts.
The first phase of the ICMS development, which will create the SCTS case management system, launches in October 2016. The system is about to go into live testing in courts, with feedback contributing to the wider ICMS rollout in October.
Eric McQueen, Chief Executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service comments: “With the introduction of the new simple procedure we will make online processing available for most payment actions up to £5000. This includes an online portal to enable the legal profession and the public to commence actions, submit case documents, pay fees and track progress online. We will extend this to all areas of simple procedure by mid-2017, allowing over 60% of all civil business in the sheriff courts to be processed online.”
The commencement date for online processing will be aligned to the introduction of the Simple Procedure Rules which will be published shortly by the Scottish Civil Justice Council.
If you have any queries or would like to receive updates on ICMS development please email enquiries@scotcourts.gov.uk