HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) have covered up the existence a bug that loses and destroys social security appeal evidence for years, the BBC has revealed. Judges and representatives were never informed of the issue, even though it has been known about for at least 5 years.
According to a leaked report the bug in case management software affects social security tribunal documents more than any others, but it also has an impact on family, divorce and employment cases amongst others.
The bug causes evidence such as medical records and contact details to be hidden and can cause them to be deleted or overwritten.
The affected software was introduced into HMCTS in 2018 to the “general horror” of IT staff because of its unreliability and long history of data loss. But despite repeated warnings, senior staff sought to hide and deny the problem for fear of reputational damage.
A briefing to senior staff in 2004 initially said that the risk to the outcome of cases was high, with the possibility of an adverse affect on cases being “very likely”.
However, after reviewing a sample of just three months worth of cases, HMCTS decided that the risk to all cases was low and “no further checks” were needed.
But, following this review, one employee raised a formal whistleblower complaint and the subsequent investigation in November 2024 found that there had been “large scale” data breaches which should have been addressed immediately, but HMCTS had taken several years to react in spite of many warnings from IT staff from 2019 onwards.
Benefits and Work is particularly concerned that, because the majority of social security appellants are unrepresented, the chances of missing evidence being highlighted and remedied is much less than it would be in say, a family court, where representation is the norm.
If you think you may have been affected by this issue, it would be worth trying to get advice from a law centre or advice agency about the possibility of having the decision in your case looked at again.
