Project № 17
Single Justice Procedure
Ministry of Justice Common Platform Programme — designing the Single Justice Procedure for magistrates and legal advisers.
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Ministry of Justice Common Platform Programme — designing the Single Justice Procedure for magistrates and legal advisers.
The Common Platform Programme (CPP) was the Ministry of Justice's flagship digital transformation of England and Wales's criminal justice system. Its goal: replace paper-heavy court processes with accessible, GDS-compliant digital services that magistrates, legal advisers, defence solicitors and the public could actually use.
I joined the programme via Triad Consulting to co-lead UX and UI design with Ziv Lazar, and later with Ifraz Mughal — delivering across multiple sub-projects within CPP, with the CTSC Single Justice Procedure as the anchor.
The Single Justice Procedure was introduced in 2015 to let magistrates deal with high-volume, low-severity criminal cases (unpaid TV licences, fare evasion, minor traffic offences) on the papers, without a formal courtroom hearing. It removed thousands of in-person hearings from the court calendar — but it also put all that weight into a single digital tool.
The design question was sharp: build something that meets the GOV.UK Design System bar for accessibility and plain English, while also surviving contact with a legal adviser reading 40 cases in an afternoon at Hammersmith Magistrates' Court.
My approach was to put the user — specifically Angela the Magistrate, one of the personas I built for this work — in every conversation about every screen. When tension arose between GDS guidance and courtroom practicality, Angela's workload was the tie-breaker.
Developed personas including Angela the Magistrate, Erica, Helen, Daphne and Steve the Keen Magistrate — real-shape proxies for the people who would live inside the tool every working day.
Co-facilitated workshops with Legal Advisers inside a London Magistrates' Court — gathering the pain points, the workarounds, the hard requirements, and the moments where paper was still faster.
Designed user interfaces strictly against the GOV.UK Design System: accessibility, plain English, structured forms, automated fine calculations, and streamlined case processing.
Ran prototype testing sessions with the SJP target users before any pattern was finalised. The workshop photos below are from exactly these sessions at Hammersmith.
The tie-breaker between GDS compliance and courtroom practicality was always Angela's workload. — SJP design principle
Photos from the workshop with Legal Advisers inside a London Magistrates' Court.
The Common Platform Programme is a multi-year public-sector engagement. Metrics are reported by HMCTS, not here.
Nothing teaches you accessibility and plain-English discipline faster than the GDS bar. Nothing teaches you user-centred design faster than facilitating a workshop in the back room of a working magistrates' court with legal advisers who have a real case list waiting. The CPP work is the foundation I still lean on in every regulated-industry engagement since. Read 5 referrals from this role on LinkedIn →