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<p>HM Courts & Tribunals Service is committed to ensuring access to courts and
tribunals is maintained for staff and service users. We have a reasonable adjustments
policy in place to accommodate those with particular access requirements. Disabled
access was typically not factored in when many of our court and tribunal buildings
were built. However, we have a number of accessible courts that our criminal justice
partners are aware of, and these are used to list cases where a defendant might have
accessibility needs.</p><p>The majority of our buildings were accessible to the user
groups listed during the period in question. Of the 51 total courts and tribunals
in the North East, only four were inaccessible to witnesses and 3 to members of the
public during the week commencing 6 May 2019, none were inaccessible to staff, whilst
34 were inaccessible to one very specific user group with disabilities (defendants
using custodial facilities).</p><p>No buildings were temporarily inaccessible due
to broken lifts. We aim to list cases at suitable venues when there are access needs.
Where access issues do arise various mitigations are explored, including video-conferencing
from a remote site, the use of judicial or staff lifts, or later start times for those
who require longer to travel to court.</p><p>Since 2015/16, we have invested more
than £114m to improve court buildings and, in last year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced
an additional £15m to be spent on improving maintenance and security across the estate.</p>
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