§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make a statement on the programme to streamline court debt-recovery procedures. [36744]
§ Mr. StreeterThe question concerns a specific operational matter on which the chief executive of the Court Service is best placed to provide an answer and I have accordingly asked the chief executive to reply direct.
Letter from M. D. Huebner to Mrs. Barbara Roche, dated 15 July 1996:
The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department has asked me to reply to your Question about the programme to streamline court debt-recovery procedures.There is an ongoing programme to streamline certain aspects of debt recovery business in the county courts. The Summons Production Centre, which opened in 1990, operates a computerised and highly automated system for issuing summonses and now handles 47% of all summonses issued. There are further plans to centralise and computerise the handling of payments under attachment of earnings orders which will enable all employers to make payments to a single central point. It is also planned to implement a new national computer system in local county courts beginning in 1997.