Tribunals Service Launched!
(April 2006)
The Tribunals Service was officially launched on 3 April 2006. The Tribunals Service is a new executive agency of the Department for Constitutional Affairs, designed to provide common administrative support to the main central government tribunals. The launch is the biggest shake-up in the tribunals system for half a century.
The background
In May 2000 the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, appointed Sir Andrew Leggatt to undertake a review of tribunals. The result was a report entitled 'Tribunals for Users: One System, One Service' published in August 2001, which recommended that the only way to achieve greater independence and coherence among tribunals was for them to be supported by a common administrative system, independent of those bodies whose decisions the tribunals were reviewing.
In March 2003 the government responded to the Leggatt report, announcing its intention to create an independent Tribunals Service within the DCA, comprising the tribunals already within DCA, plus five other non-devolved central government tribunals. In the subsequent White Paper 'Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals' the reform of tribunals was set in the wider context of reform of the administrative justice system as a whole, and dispute resolution more generally.
The individual tribunals that currently make up the Tribunals Service are:
- Adjudicator for HM Land Registry
- Asylum & Immigration Tribunal
- Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel
- Employment Tribunals
- Employment Appeal Tribunal
- Finance & Tax Tribunals
- Gender Recognition Panel
- General Commissioners of Income Tax
- Immigration Services Tribunals
- Information Tribunal
- Lands Tribunal
- Mental Health Review Tribunals
- Pensions Appeal Tribunals
- Social Security & Child Support Appeals
- Social Security & Child Support Commissioners
- Special Educational Needs & Disability Tribunal
- Transport Tribunal
The Chief Executive of the Tribunals Service is Peter Handcock, and Jeanne Spinks, formally Chief Executive of the Employment Tribunals Service, has been appointed Operations Director and Deputy Chief Executive.