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authorities, judiciary and others to second the necessary staff for the HDS pilot
and should co-design the legal contracting for independent, empanelled
lawyers. Primary legislation will be required for the HDS pilot, and we would
expect that the HDEG would advise the Government on drafting and specific
arrangements to empower the DWP to make benefits adjudications. Should
there be support for the HDS, we recommend a HDEG be convened to
oversee the development of the pilot.

Evaluative outcomes

2.75 The HDS pilot should be subject to robust evaluative outcomes, pre-agreed
and co-designed with specialist academic input, which capture an array of
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procedural and access to justice metrics. Below, we outline the evaluative
measures which the HDS pilot ought to be subject to:

116 An illustrative example is the October 2019 Legal Education Foundation report, which recommended
that HMCTS develop and implement robust measures against which to judge the access to justice
implications of the Reform Programme, Dr Natalie Byrom, ‘Digital Justice: HMCTS data strategy and
delivering access to justice: Report and Recommendations’ (Legal Education Foundation, October 2019)
available at https://research.thelegaleducationfoundation.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/09/DigitalJusticeFINAL.pdf

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