Review of the Role of Non-Legal Tribunal Members
(July 2006)
Baroness Ashton, Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, talks about the Review of the Role of Non-Legal Tribunal Members.
Non-legal members play a hugely important role in tribunals, something that is often overlooked or taken for granted. Bringing tribunals together in a single Tribunals Service gives us the opportunity to look again at how we best use them. That is why I announced a major review of the role of non-legal members at the Council on Tribunals' annual conference last November.
Since then we have collected a huge amount of data about non-legal members from a range of tribunals and we now have, for the first time, a much clearer picture of the totality of non-legal members, including information about numbers, role, qualifications, remuneration and training and appraisal.
We know that there are over 8,000 non-legal members deployed across tribunals, ranging from professional members (including doctors, surveyors and accountants), to those with experience directly relevant to the work of the tribunal, through to the genuinely lay members.
But this only tells us half the story. I am keen to hear more about the issues non-legal members currently face and their views on how they could be used more effectively in the future. I also want to hear views from others in the tribunals system about what they think non-legal members contribute.
I am committed to a future role for non-legal members. The primary purpose of the Review is to consider what that role should be. We will want to consider whether there is, for example, more scope for non-legal members to sit in additional jurisdictions, with the necessary training and support. We will also want to consider whether there is a role for non-legal members in the alternatives to tribunal hearings that we are keen to develop.
I am keen for this consultation process to be as open as possible and have already held three meetings with a cross-section of tribunal members. This will be part of an ongoing dialogue with all tribunal stakeholders, a process which will include a more formal consultation exercise later in the year. This will then inform decisions next year about the future role for non-legal members.