Page 123 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

and remote (due to the pandemic) assistance for users of specific HMCTS
online services but who do not have the skills, ability or access to do so on
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their own. Social Security and Child Support appeals is one of the services
Digital Support assists with and the vast majority (68 per cent) of
appointments have been in relation to this.
357
4.56 The telephone element is provided by HMCTS’ Courts and Tribunals Service
Centres. The face-to-face element of the pilot has been delivered by the digital
exclusion charity Good Things Foundation and is run through participating
centres which are primarily public libraries, Citizens Advice bureaux,
community centres and law centres. We are pleased that centres are now able
to type on behalf of the Digital Support user and that in response to Covid-19
centres have been able to provide the service remotely over the phone or call
video via web-based software. This includes being able to complete forms
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by proxy provided that the user understands the service is being completed
online and can check what is entered into the form.

4.57 The Digital Support service is funded to provide digital assistance, rather than
legal advice or other support. However, as highlighted by the Administrative
Justice Council, and recognised by Good Things Foundation itself in its
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360
evaluation of the pilot, users can face numerous barriers to accessing
HMCTS services online and are likely to require a wider package of support
than just Digital Support, including legal or specialist welfare advice. Initially
centres were not allowed to deliver advice in the same session as providing
digital support, however for Phase 4 of the pilot, this is possible in the few
centres which are accredited legal advice providers (although they are only

356 HMCTS, HMCTS Services: Digital Support (May 2021).
357 Other services are Help With Fees, Civil Money Claims, Divorce, Single Justice System and
Probate, which combined accounted for the other 32 per cent of appointments. Good Things
Foundation and HMCTS, HMCTS Digital Support Service: Implementation Review (September 2020)
p. 5.
358 Remote form filling on behalf of the client was previously recommended by JUSTICE in its
Preventing Digital Exclusion (2018) report, para 1.25
359 D. Sechi, Digitisation and accessing justice in the community (see n. 354 above).
360 Good Things Foundation and HMCTS, HMCTS Digital Support Service: Implementation Review
(see n. 357 above) p. 6.

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