Digital Support Service
HMCTS provides a Digital Support Service that helps digitally excluded Court and Tribunal users complete online forms. We are holding a market engagement session to present scope and structure of the future service and assess market appetite. This Grant will deliver support for digitally excluded users to complete their online HMCTS forms. It will deliver in-person and remote support for those who don’t have access, confidence or skills to engage online by themselves. We acknowledge that most digitally excluded users will require more than support with completing a digital task, they may require emotional support and generalist guidance, and this will be delivered as part of the grant.
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Contents
Summary
HMCTS provides a Digital Support Service that helps digitally excluded Court and Tribunal users complete online forms. The current contract for the HMCTS National Digital Support Service is due to end in Autumn 2026 and we are now looking to deliver the service as a Grant instead. We are holding a market engagement session to present scope and structure of the future service and assess market appetite.
This Grant will deliver support for digitally excluded users to complete their online HMCTS forms. It will deliver in-person and remote support for those who don’t have access, confidence or skills to engage online by themselves. We acknowledge that most digitally excluded users will require more than support with completing a digital task, they may require emotional support and generalist guidance, and this will be delivered as part of the grant.
The grant will be open for competition in Spring 2026 for organisation based in England and Wales. We will be hosting a presentation on Wednesday 27th August 2025 at 15:00-16:00 to give more details.
This session will provide information on service scope and requirements in preparation for follow up questionnaires and 1:1 meetings in September to assess market capability, capacity and interest.
If you are unable to attend but are interested in competing for this grant, you can request a recording of the presentation by emailing us on publicengagement@justice.gov.uk.
Eligibility
This session is open to third sector organisations who would be able to provide a network of centres to deliver this service locally. This could be through larger organisations, through partnership working or through funding secondary grantees. Those applying for the grant should be based in England or Wales and their network of delivery centres should provide coverage for one or multiple regions (South East, South West, London, East of England, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humbers, North East, North West, Wales and Scotland).
Those delivering the service should have experience of supporting Court and Tribunal service users and/or users who have multiple support needs.
Objectives
Through the presentation potential Grantees will gain a better understanding of our proposal for the Grant; including grant structure, key activities, requirements, payment mechanisms, referral design and performance monitoring.
We will hold 1:1 sessions in September with potential Grantees, where we will go into more detail to understand your capability, capacity and interest in delivering the Digital Support Service, it will provide a further opportunity for additional questions on how we would work together. To do this, we will send a questionnaire to all participants who are interested immediately after the presentation.
Dates
The presentation will be held on Wednesday 27th August 2025 at 15:00-16:00.
1:1 sessions will run from 1st September – 12th September 2025. Each session will be a maximum of 1 hour 30 mins in duration.
The deadline for booking onto both the presentation and a 1:1 session will be Friday 25th August 2025 at 16:00.
How to apply
If you can attend the presentation - please complete the survey here registering your interest. Any issues completing this survey, please email publicengagement@justice.gov.uk with your name and organisation to get registered.
If you cannot attend the presentation - please email publicengagement@justice.gov.uk with your name, organisation and a suitable email address and we can send the recorded presentation once it is available.
The link to book your follow up 1:1 session can be found here. Please ensure you have either attended the presentation or listened to the recording before attending as that will give you vital information on the service and will help inform the 1:1 discussion. Once we confirm your appointment we will send you a questionnaire – please complete and send back at least 2 working days before your scheduled 1:1 meeting.
Supporting information
Please note that if you have any questions these can be discussed at your 1:1 session with the Digital Support project team, however if you require any clarification on the process beforehand please contact us on publicengagement@justice.gov.uk. A questionnaire will be sent out if they are registering for the 1:1.