Transforming our justice system: panel composition in tribunals

Results updated 8 Feb 2017

On 15 September 2016, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Justice, and the Senior President of Tribunals issued a joint statement on their shared vision for the future of Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunal Service.

We invited the public and interested stakeholders to give their views on three specific areas: assisted digital facilities; automatic online conviction and statutory standard penalty; and panel composition in tribunals.

We received a total of 790 responses to the consultation, including from legal practitioners and their representative groups, charities and other third parties, the judiciary and members of the public. We have carefully considered all the responses, and are now publishing our formal Response.

As a result of the consultation, we will be continuing with our proposals to provide assisted digital facilities for users who have trouble with using technology.

We also intend to introduce an automatic online conviction and statutory standard penalty procedure for railway fare evasion, tram fare evasion and possession of unlicensed rod and line. 

Whilst we will be removing the requirement for the Senior President of Tribunals (SPT) to pay regard to historic tribunal composition, we do not intend to proceed with the proposal to introduce a single member panel as the default position in the unified tribunals. Instead, we will amend the First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal (Composition of Tribunal) Order 2008 that the SPT may provide that a panel should consist of one, two or three members, as required, in order to determine the matters before the tribunal justly and fairly.

Files:

• Consultation response, 388.2 KB (PDF document)
• Consultation response: Welsh, 540.8 KB (PDF document)