Tribunals Service
From SR
History and Roles
The Tribunals Service is a government agency that provides common administrative support to the main central government tribunals. As an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), its launch was the biggest change to the tribunals system in this country in almost half a century.
Tribunals are an important part of the justice system, handling more cases each year than the ordinary civil courts, many involving the most vulnerable people in our society.
Tribunals Review
In May 2000 Sir Andrew Leggatt was asked to carry out a review of tribunals. Sir Andrew's report, 'Tribunals for Users: One System, One Service' was published in August 2001.
Sir Andrew recommended that all tribunals should be supported by one common administrative service, completely independent of those bodies whose decisions the tribunals were reviewing. In March 2003, the Government announced it was going to create an independent Tribunals Service. The new service would initially comprise:
- 16 tribunals administered by the former Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA)
- five additional non-devolved central government tribunals.
Details of these proposals were set out as part of the White Paper 'Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals', which was published in July 2004.
