Evidence submitted by Hon Mr Justice Sullivan,
Chairman Tribunals Committee, Judicial Studies Board (JSB)
TRAINING FOR
CORONERS AND
THE JUDICIAL
STUDIES BOARD
I am writing in my capacity as the Chairman
of the Tribunals Committee at the Judicial Studies Board in response
to your invitation for the JSB's views on judicial training for
coroners in order to inform your Inquiry into Coroners reform.
ABOUT THE
JSB
The Judicial Studies Board is an independent
judicial body. Since April 2006 overall responsibility for judicial
training rests with the Lord Chief Justice. For administrative
purposes the JSB is part of the Directorate of Judicial Offices
for England and Wales. The Judicial Office and JSB are sponsored,
funded and staffed by the DCA.
The JSB has the responsibility for organising
and delivering training for full and part-time judges exercising
Criminal, Civil and Family jurisdiction in the county courts and
in the Supreme Court. It also has a responsibility for setting
and monitoring standards of training for lay magistrates and has
an advisory role in respect of training for chairmen and members
in tribunals. I should add that at present, the JSB has no formal
responsibility for coroner training nor is it funded to support
their training.
THE JSB AND
CORONIAL TRAINING
In March 2001 the Board agreed to explore the
possibility of taking on a responsibility for providing coroners
with training to support their judicial function once the outcomes
of the Luce Review and the Shipman Inquiry were known. It also
agreed, in the interim, that the JSB should become involved in
the training of coroners by offering advice, guidance and support
to the Home Office (now DCA) Coroners' Study Committee (CSC) on
the development and provision of training for coroners. For governance
purposes the responsibility for liaising with the CSC fell to
the Tribunals' Committee of the JSB which I chair. In effect,
the JSB agreed to extend to coroners the same degree of support
that it provides to judicial officers sitting in administrative
tribunals. To that end, coroners were invited to attend training
events organised by the Tribunals Committee of the JSB, including
its range of judicial skills courses and training skills courses
for the tribunals' judiciary. The JSB is represented by a member
of the JSB Secretariat at meetings of the Coroners' Study Committee.
This provides the link between the Tribunals' Committee and coroner
training.
Most Coroners' Study Committee members have
now attended most of the Tribunals Committee's range of courses
and the JSB has provided some speakers and contributors for coroner
courses. The JSB can also provide advice and guidance on training
but it has no budget for coroner training and can only assist
where and when resources allow.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
IN CORONER
TRAINING
In recent times cross-fertilisation between
the CSC and the JSB has increased. One CSC member has attended
the JSB Recorder (criminal law) induction course, The JSB's full-time
Director of Studies and the Tribunals' Committee's Training Director
have contributed to a programme of successful summing-up courses
for coroners and the Tribunals Training Director has contributed
to planning and delivery of new style induction training for coroners.
Partly as a consequence of this closer working
relationship, the Director of Studies felt able to invite two
of the most experienced members of the CSC to the JSB Course Directors'
Conference in September 2005. This was the first time that judicial
officers from outside the JSB's constituent groups had attended.
The CSC has been keen to use JSB practices and models where appropriate.
The appointment of an experienced judicial figure to act as course
director for an individual course or programme of courses is a
JSB practice which the CSC has adopted to good effect. Two CSC
members have been acting as directors for the continuation and
induction training programmes for some years and two other members
recently took the lead on the summing-up and state deaths course
programmes. Having a CSC member who is responsible (to the CSC)
for the planning, organisation and delivery of a particular course,
as well as acting as course chairman, tutor team leader and the
focus for participant's questions, has worked well in JSB training
and is now proving a success in coroner training.
The CSC is also looking at a range of other
JSB practices and guidance including competence framework development,
appraisal schemes and mentoring. However it is recognised that
coroners are unique and that JSB practice cannot always be applied
to the coroner jurisdiction without alteration. Until there is
reform of the coroner service, it is doubtful that any of these
initiatives could yet have national acceptance.
It is safe to say that coroner training has
improved considerably since the JSB first became involved in 2001.
Courses are now much more participative with more focus on judicial
skills (rather than law and practice). There is now a small group
of experienced and very capable coroners who have undertaken JSB
training skills training and who organise and deliver training.
They rely for support on one Executive Officer within the DCA
Coroners Division.
One of the CSC's member's, Chris Dorries, is
I understand advising the Select Committee during the Inquiry.
He has been very closely involved in the work that CSC is doing
with the JSB and would I am sure he would be willing to expand
on the details of our collaboration.
BARRIERS TO
EFFECTIVE TRAINING
Improvements in training content and delivery
and an increase in the range of training provided by the CSC has
resulted in greater acceptance by coroners generally but there
are a number of barriers.
I am told there are still a number of Coroners
who do not attend training regularly (or at all) or indeed encourage
their Deputies and Assistants to do so. Although they are now
very few and far between the CSC has been unable to persuade a
small hard core to attend.
DCA funding for training is (or has been) sufficient
to provide an adequate range of training courses in any given
year for coroners (nothing is provided for coroner's officers
or until very recently for their administrative staff). However,
it is not sufficient to meet the fees and expenses of those attending.
Local authorities can usually be persuaded to meet travel expenses
but unlike part-time members of the judiciary (who can claim half
the daily sitting rate for each day of training they attend),
deputy and assistant coroners are not usually offered a fee to
attend training and this may explain, in part, a reluctance to
attend. There are also difficulties in coroners arranging cover
whilst they are on courses, since they have to arrange for and
pay for deputy cover themselves.
The CSC has no formal locus. Its work is getting
better known and the sense is that it is increasingly seen as
being coroner led rather than departmentally led, but unlike the
JSB it doesn't have a formal place in a "judicial" hierarchy
(as there is currently no hierarchy with coroners).
The CSC has been tackling these issues as best
it can, but they are, in the main, issues which the CSC can do
little of significance about pending reform of the system. Given
this context, what has been achieved in the last five or so years
by a handful of dedicated coroners with the minimum of resources
and support is perhaps all the more remarkable.
THE FUTURE
On the question of Coroner training and JSB
links in the long term, much will of course depend to a large
extent on the role of coroners under the reforms. The JSB will
welcome the opportunity to comment on the plans but I would not
want to prejudge anything before the government's intentions emerge
formally (or indeed before the Board has had a chance to consider
its response).
Suffice to say that that at this stage the JSB
has not ruled out taking on a more direct responsibility for coroner
training (as it does for the district and circuit benches), nor
the possibility of acting in an advisory capacity, perhaps supplying
some generic training and monitoring and evaluating training provision,
(the approach which the JSB adopts for the Magistracy and Tribunals).
One final observation. All of the JSB's existing
customers (and the JSB itself) now come under the overall leadership
of the Lord Chief Justice (to a greater or lesser extent). If
the new coronial system is to fall outside that structure (and
I should stress that the future structure of the Coronial system
is in no way a matter on which the JSB could or should comment)
then that may ultimately have an impact on the Board's view in
relation to the JSB's future role.
Once the Government's intentions for reform
of the Coroner Service are published I will be in a position to
ask the Board to consider the extent of its remit for Coroners.
Of course, any role that the Board decides that it should undertake
for a newly reorganised coronial system will need to be fully
resourced.
The Honourable Mr Justice Sullivan
Chairman Tribunals Committee
Judicial Studies Board
June 2006
| 
