This website contains four checklists as a guide for measuring a court's compliance with the principles, standards and benchmarks They can be printed out and used separately, but they should always be understood in the context of the relevant standards.

The four different reviews can be carried out by different personnel, at various intervals:

Daily checklist can be carried out daily in 15 minutes.

Local review can be used quarterly or annually and takes one person about half a day.

Peer review is applied by a team of three from the court reviewed or from neighbouring    courts, and takes a day, including feedback to staff of the court reviewed.

Central review considers issues for which the Chief Magistrate or other central agencies    are responsible, and is carried out centrally.

This site contains those principles, standards and benchmarks which the various reviews measure. It is the core of the system of assessing court performance. It has been revised since the first edition to better reflect court performance, to be more easily measurable and to take account of changed processes (eg the introduction of the State Debt Recovery Office). Courts are encouraged to continue to develop relevant benchmarks by adapting them to local conditions and changed circumstances.

Importance of Client Services to Courts

The ability to account to government for use of public resources is an accepted part of court management. It has two purposes; to ensure productivity and efficiency and to provide a means by which courts may justify their call on the public purse.

In the past accountability in the public sector was directed almost solely at financial accountability, requiring publicly supported agencies to explain their budgets in terms of process and efficiency. Now public programs are more likely to be evaluated against outcomes and effectiveness.

As an organisation the Local Court exists primarily to serve the public and is judged by the public every day by reference to service received. Client services is an area of crucial importance for the court.

Principles, Standards and Benchmarks

The services delivered by Local Courts are not just any client service. Like all courts, the Local Court forms an integral part of government, and exists to deliver justice and impartial decision making to the community. As the court which deals day to day with more members of the community than any other, it is important that its client services give open expression to these functions and that the way in which it deals with its clients guarantees equal access to justice.

Principles

To achieve its full role the court must reflect on its functions and the values it brings to them. The principles or values used in this booklet are the five developed by the Trial Court Performance Standards. The five principles (called 'performance measures' in the NCSC Standards) are:

1. access to justice
2. expedition and timeliness
3. equality, fairness and integrity
4. independence and accountability
5. public trust and confidence

Standards and Benchmarks

A set of standards is set out below each of the five principles.

The standards are grouped in categories reflecting important aspects of the principles. For example, the first two standards under the principle 'Access to Justice' are

1.1 'The public and all court users have access to the court and its services when they need it'; and
1.2 'The court room has facilities ensuring participation and observation'.

These two standards reflect the requirement that members of the community are entitled to have access to the court's facilities.

To gauge whether they do have ready access the benchmarks referring to these two standards ask the court to check whether the doors to public areas are open at convenient times (1.1.1) and whether seating arrangements in the court room are adequate and appropriate. (1.2.1)

The benchmarks provide a basis for measuring performance of a court against the standards in client services it has set itself.

Developing Standards and Benchmarks

The principles are fundamental and permit little or no local development or departure. They should be read first and used as the background against which standards and benchmarks are developed and applied in the Local Courts.

The standards are also believed to be applicable to all courts. They should be changed or departed from only for good reason. However, it is expected that as they become more experienced in the review process, courts will develop further standards against which to evaluate their performance in service delivery to clients.

Benchmarking is a process which must go on at the local level. The benchmarks identified here are regarded as obvious and essential in the major client service areas. The list is incomplete. It is designed to provide examples of the activities courts must look at to assess their service levels, and the targets they should set to improve performance. The benchmarks are designed to be developed by the courts, and to be added to and be changed to meet local needs and circumstances.

The processes used here to set standards and to develop benchmarks do not always strictly follow procedures used in other benchmarking or total quality management exercises. They are a hybrid of those practices developed during the project for use in Local Courts. They are offered to the court as a management tool. It is hoped they will be used by teams in the courts, the Chief Magistrate's Office and the central administration as a focus for reviews and planning in the delivery of client services.