Digital Support Service
HMCTS currently provides a Digital Support Service to support digitally excluded Court and Tribunal users engage with digitialised HMCTS services. The current contract for the HMCTS National Digital Support Service is due to end in Autumn 2026. We are holding a series of market engagement sessions to enable us to further develop the design of the service and assess interest in the proposals. We are currently exploring how this service could be commissioned as a grant; this session is open to organisations in the voluntary and community sector who have experience supporting Court and Tribunal service users and/or users who have multiple support needs. We welcome attendance from potential intermediary grantees, national providers, and individual support centres.
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Contents
Summary
This is the design and development stage of the grant, this advert is inviting interested organisations to attend a virtual market engagement event which will be delivered via Teams and take place between 9:30 – 13:00 on the 17th June 2025. Please respond by 15:00 16/06/2025 to allow time for invitations to be issued. To state your interest please use this link (https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/HLNY0B/) if there are any issues please email publicengagement@justice.gov.uk with your organisations name and attendee details (name, email address, position).You will receive an email acknowledging that your interest has been registered and will receive an invite link to the Teams meeting by the 10/6/25.Background Information
The Digital Support Service has been live since January 2022 (nationally since June 2022) to help HMCTS users who are digitally excluded (based on access, skills or confidence) to complete digital forms.
This is currently available to unrepresented users in the following services: Divorce, Online Civil Money Claims, Probate, Single Justice Service, Social Security and Child Support tribunals, Help with Fees, Immigration and Asylum Chamber but future service aims to expand to new online services as HMCTS digitises.
The service was established as a response to the digitalisation of services under the Reform program, to ensure that no user is disadvantaged in this process, in alignment with the Equality Act 2010.
Further market engagement sessions will be held following this session and will be advertised on Find a Grant closer to their occurance. The advertised grant funding is currently an estimate the Authority makes no commitment at this stage to the actual value as it is subject to change.
Eligibility
Organisations in the voluntary and community sector who have experience supporting Court and Tribunal service users and/or users who have multiple support needs. We welcome attendance from potential intermediary grantees, national providers, and individual support centres.
Objectives
This will be a collaborative, discussion-led event where we share early thinking and invite open feedback on some of the key questions of the future service:
Which types of organisations would be best suited to deliver the service?
How we can reach the ‘hidden’ users who need support but are not accessing it?
How to ensure quality of support across the different jurisdictional services?
What do effective referral routes into the service looks like?
How can we ensure suitable coverage geographically and across HMCTS services?
Your input will directly inform the service design and how we structure future delivery.
The event structure will be as follows:
Background of the Digital Support Service and Digital Support users
Recap on previous market engagement
The scope of the future service
Discussions on the key questions for design of the service
Please note that the presentation slides will be shared with attendees after the meeting. For additional information, please contact us at the email provided.
Dates
Virtual market engagement event which will be delivered via Teams and take place between 9:30 – 13:00, Tuesday 17th June 2025. Please respond by 15:00 16/06/2025. Please see long description for details on how to register interest.
How to apply
To state your interest please use this link https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/HLNY0B/ if there are any issues please email publicengagement@justice.gov.uk with your organisations name and attendee details (name, email address, position).