New centralised Courts Services office set up in Mayo

A new centralised Courts Service office in Castlebar, incorporating two units, is now up and running and is responsible for the administration of Service of EU Documents and handling all Jury Summonses from across the country.

Until recently, these functions were carried out by each local court office and involved hours of manual tasks such as printing, enveloping and processing of replies and applications.

Angela Denning, CEO of the Courts Service, is visiting the office in Castlebar today and is officially launching this new centralised, time saving, and functional office.

Having recently signed the OECD 'declaration to innovate', on behalf of the Courts Service, she as the new leader of the service is committed to an ambitious strategy of modernisation and digitalisation.

She said at the opening that “the jury summons project was part of an innovative programme of reform of our circuit and district operations which aims at supporting better customer service practices. It takes work out of our many offices that can be more efficiently done centrally”.

“In deciding on Castlebar, we considered various criteria and found that there is appropriate staff availability, office space, and a governance structure already in place, with the presence of the western regional office onsite. These elements exist in Castlebar and will support this important new service development.

“We are centralising in Castlebar and not in the capital, in line with the wishes expressed by the staff in a consultation process to create job and promotional opportunities outside Dublin, in pursuing government policies regarding regional balance, and in light of our analysis re availability of space with a scope for extension.

“The Service of EU Documents Unit acts as the Receiving Agency and the Transmitting Agency for the entire country and provides a single point of contact for all queries. The development of expert knowledge will enhance the quality and consistency on the handling of applications for users.

“The Jury Summons Unit (JSU) is now administering jury summonses for the majority of offices around the country in support of County Registrars.

“The Revenue Data Centre are printing and enveloping every jury summons at no cost to the Courts Service.

“An information guide for people called for Jury Service has been developed in consultation with users and with the help of NALA who put it in plain English.

“The guide has received positive feedback from people called for jury service in terms of receiving the information they need regarding what they can expect on the day of Court. It has already reduced the level of phone queries for local offices.

“The official launch today will be attended by the local judiciary, County Registrar, staff involved in the projects, and local key court user groups. Getting these projects off the ground within this 18 month period took the help and commitment of staff and stakeholders including County registrars and Revenue.

“This collaboration underpins the success of these projects and the Courts Service is thankful for those involved.

“Following a combined office review in 2017, over 50 recommendations were made to further enhance our operational delivery framework.

“In this context, the Jury project and the centralisation of service of foreign documents were two important projects.

“It was important to fully support our staff by replacing manual, labour-intensive, expensive processes such as the printing and enveloping of jury summons so as our staff could focus on higher added-value tasks such as informing and helping our customers at public counters or courts.

“We also found that mundane tasks increases junior staff turn-over in a buoyant labour market, and these changes in how we operate will lead us to retain staff by offering more meaningful work.

“The equivalent of seven FTEs time will be redirected to other higher added value tasks and we are in the process of measuring the impact this has had on our customer service

“Centralisation allows the Courts Service to avail of economy of scale and automate these processes.

“In line with public service 2020 and the spirit of greater collaboration across public sector organisations, we worked with Revenue through a Shared Services Agreement. This provided us with a great opportunity to take the mundane envelope stuffing work out of the office and substantially reduce the costs of jury summons administration for the tax payers.

“The Courts Service will be saving circa €100,000 a year primarily through bulk postage and stationary saving. The cooperation will also help to further maximise the use and return for investment made by Revenue on their printing facilities for the tax payers.

“Revenue now print and envelope all the summonses. We conducted extensive testing and Revenue provided great support throughout the process.We have invested in further automation by installing a large envelope opening machine, with up to 500 pieces of post coming in daily to the Castlebar office.

“We rolled out the new process on a phased basis starting in July this year with 8 offices transferring their jury summons work to Castlebar. This proved to be a critical step to the success of the project as it allowed us to identify what worked well and what needed to be improved. It also allowed the JSU staff who were all new the office, time to learn and build up their skills.

“An important part of that is to evaluate how the project has worked so far, so as we can replicate what works well and rectify what did not.The JSU now handles the administration of jury summons for 24 Counties. As an indication of the work involved, between 19th November and the 3rd December the Unit would have issued just under 12,000 jury summonses for Juries across 15 counties

“We still have a final phase to roll out to cover the rest of the offices and this is expected in 2020

“Centralisation allows for the development of expert knowledge.Since it opened in May 2019, the Service of Foreign document unit is now the one point of contact for the local offices and external stakeholders.

“The centralisation is allowing for better and more consistent service delivery with dedicated staff dealing with it.”