Scotland’s Digital Courts Still Cannot Open Most Cases

Scotland’s Civil Online portal now tracks about 90% of sheriff court civil case types, but it still cannot start an ordinary action as a national service.

That is the picture in the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service annual report for 2025-26, and it is the awkward core of digital justice in Scotland. Users can watch a file. They still often open it on paper.

Civil Online Now Tracks 90% of Sheriff Court Cases

On 5 November 2025 the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service switched on the latest Civil Online release across the sheriff courts and the Court of Session. Riley Power, executive sponsor for the Civil Lab and executive director of the Judicial Office for Scotland, said the change brought, for the first time in the Court of Session, digital submission of non-initiating documents across around 90% of case types.

Non-initiating papers are the ones lodged after a case already exists. The same release lifted the upload cap from 50MB to 125MB and allowed up to 10 documents in one go. Sheriff court users also gained a wider case tracker and could see items that used to sit off-screen, including oppositions to motions and certificates of intimation.

The annual report, laid in August 2026, put the sheriff court figure in plainer terms. Civil Online now offers tracking for around 90% of sheriff court cases by type, and solicitors can lodge more follow-on papers online. Lord Pentland, the Lord President and chair of the SCTS board, called those changes practical improvements that make civil business easier to manage.

They are. They are also a middle-of-the-file win. Motions in the Court of Session stayed out of the portal pending a rule change. Email still takes those. The service that starts a Court of Session case is not live. Design work on initiating documents continues into 2026-27.

Civil Online Enhancements and Case Tracker launch today, marks a significant milestone in the delivery of a modern, end-to-end digital civil justice service. This is part of the ongoing work within the SCTS to drive user-focused innovation.
Read more: https://t.co/U8XJIZeaBh

— Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) (@SCTScourtstribs) November 5, 2025

WHAT CIVIL ONLINE CAN DO BY COURT

The Integrated Case Management System became the single internal system for live Court of Session cases in November 2024. Judges and clerks gained one file. The public portal caught up later, and only for tracking, then for papers that arrive after the action has already been raised.

The 2014 Promise of Justice at Best Cost

August 2014 is the date the programme still measures itself against. The Digital Strategy for Justice in Scotland said the vision was modern, user-focused systems using digital technology to deliver simple, fast and effective justice at best cost.

That sentence is 12 years old. Civil Online did not exist when it was written. The first public slice arrived in March 2018, when firms and parties could track Simple Procedure cases. On 25 April 2019 SCTS called the next step a historic day: a Simple Procedure claim could run end to end online, from lodging through the digital file in the courtroom.

Andrew Tolmie, a partner at Clyde & Co, wrote on 28 October 2024 that the 2014 target had not been fully met, even after the pandemic pushed courts into electronic papers. He argued that the next useful work was to digitise court process and pre-litigation together, so lower-value disputes could finish faster and cheaper. The 2025-26 build-out of tracking and follow-on lodging is the slice SCTS then shipped. The pre-litigation half of his point is still mostly letters.

HOW THE CIVIL PORTAL WAS ASSEMBLED

1. August 2014: The Scottish Government publishes the Digital Strategy for Justice in Scotland.
2. March 2018: Civil Online opens with case tracking for Simple Procedure.
3. 25 April 2019: SCTS launches a fully digital Simple Procedure path on the portal.
4. 31 March 2022: Court rules make Civil Online the default route for Simple Procedure claims.
5. November 2024: ICMS becomes the single live case system in the Court of Session.
6. February 2025: The Court of Session case tracker goes live for about 90% of case types, without lodging.
7. 5 November 2025: Follow-on digital lodging opens in the Court of Session for about 90% of case types.

Each date is a real release. Read as a sequence they also show the pattern: tracking first, lodging second, starting the case last, and only in the cheapest procedure.

Simple Procedure Took the Digital Door

Simple Procedure is the sheriff court path for claims of £5,000 or less. It was designed for party litigants as much as for firms, and it was the first civil process built with an online file in mind. From 31 March 2022 the Act of Sederunt (Simple Procedure Amendment) (Civil Online) 2022 made mandatory Civil Online for simple procedure claims, with a paper route only if a sheriff accepts that the claimant could not use the portal or the court’s bulk interface.

A Scottish Civil Justice Council paper in August 2025 said court staff had not seen a paper request refused. The exception is real, and it is used. The same paper said SCTS wanted the mandatory rule kept, because the portal works outside office hours and matches what users now expect. An Assisted Digital plan is being shaped with Citizens Advice and Registers of Scotland so people who cannot use the site are not simply turned away.

That is the one place where digital justice in Scotland actually starts the case. It is also the lowest-value band. Everything above £5,000, including the volume personal injury work that fills diaries in Edinburgh, still treats the first writ as a special project.

THE PAPER EXCEPTIONS THAT STILL SIT IN THE RULES

• Simple Procedure on paper: A claimant may send a paper form with a note explaining why the portal cannot be used, and a sheriff decides whether to register it.
• Court of Session motions: The November 2025 release left motions out pending a rule change, so those still travel by email.
• Ordinary initiating writs: National online raising is not live; a soft launch sits in the specialist personal injury court, with wider work listed for 2026-27.
• Commissary business: The 2025 electronic signature rules do not apply to that work at all.

SCTS also built an API so high-volume firms can push Simple Procedure claims from their own systems. A separate ordinary-action API has finished testing. The annual report said solicitor firms would begin onboarding to that system from summer 2026. That is a firm tool, not a public front door.

Why Personal Injury Still Starts on Paper

Most injury claims in Scotland never reach a proof. They run first through the compulsory personal injury pre-action protocol, in force since 28 November 2016 for claims whose full-liability value does not exceed £25,000, with disease and clinical negligence carved out. The protocol is a sequence of claim forms, medical reports and timed offers. It is not a national digital portal.

Scotland has no equivalent of the Official Injury Claim service used for some road cases in England and Wales. If talks fail, the action is raised in the local sheriff court, in the All-Scotland Sheriff Personal Injury Court in Edinburgh, or in the Court of Session. The first formal step is still an initial writ served on the defender.

SCTS chose ASPIC, as that specialist court is known, for a soft launch of initiating ordinary-action submission. The annual report said the pilot creates a platform for wider rollout during 2026-27. Until that rollout exists as an ordinary national function, the claims that generate the most insurer correspondence still enter court the long way, then become trackable once they are on the system.

That is why a better tracker does not, by itself, cut the cost of a modest injury file. The expensive weeks are often the ones before anyone has a case number.

Paper Systems and a £62 Million Ask

The civil portal and the criminal file are not the same build, but they share a building and a budget. In 2025-26 High Court indictments rose 26% on the previous year, the Lord President wrote in the annual report. Board minutes recorded a record 1,500 indictments registered in 2025. Malcolm Graham, the SCTS chief executive, said around 70% of High Court trials are now serious sexual offences.

Official modelling puts the median journey from a crime becoming known to the police to a High Court verdict at 123 weeks in 2024-25, around two years and four months, with 45 weeks of that sitting in the court stage. The same work projects the wait after the pleading diet, 50 weeks in the current figures, rising to 135 weeks by 2028-29 if the path does not change.

Graham has asked for about £62 million over five years to reform criminal case management, redesign court processes and put in modern digital case management. Extra rooms are already in the plan: a further preliminary hearings court from October 2026 and four extra High Court trial courts from January 2027, taking daily trial capacity from 16 at the start of the decade toward 26. He has told MSPs that adding rooms will not, on its own, bring waits back toward pre-pandemic levels.

THE CRIMINAL WAIT, IN THE SCTS FIGURES

• Indictment load: High Court indictments were up 26% in 2025-26, with 1,500 registered in 2025.
• Full journey: 123 weeks from police knowledge to High Court verdict in 2024-25.
• Court stage now: 50 weeks after the pleading diet, with 45 weeks of the 123-week path inside court.
• Projected court wait: 135 weeks by 2028-29 without a different operating model.

More than 1,000 vulnerable witnesses gave pre-recorded evidence by commissioner during the year, which is a separate, working piece of criminal modernisation. The hole Graham keeps naming is the join between organisations.

We haven’t got joined up data systems. We haven’t got digital systems that are shared across the organisations from the police to the Crown to the courts to criminal justice social workers.

Malcolm Graham, Chief Executive, Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service

He has also said victims could wait up to four years in the High Court if the system is not run differently from the moment a crime is reported to the moment the case ends. The civil tracker cannot fix that, and the £62 million package is still a bid.

December 2025 Put an Electronic Signature in the Rules

Software has repeatedly arrived ahead of the rules, then waited. Court of Session motions are the live example. The other example is signature and service.

Temporary pandemic rules let civil business move electronically. Those provisions in the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 were due to expire on 30 November 2025. The Act of Sederunt (Electronic Signature and Electronic Transmission of Documents) 2025, made on 29 October 2025 and in force on 1 December 2025, kept the machinery going. An electronic signature and transmission of documents now satisfies a requirement to sign or send in civil proceedings covered by the instrument.

The policy note from the Scottish Civil Justice Council is careful. The Act of Sederunt does not make electronic the only method. Paper lodging remains acceptable where existing rules or another statute still require it. Commissary business is out. In other words, the rules now bless a digital file without closing the paper hatch.

That is consistent with Simple Procedure, where online is the default and paper survives with a sheriff’s say-so. It is less consistent with the language of a fully digital, end-to-end service, which SCTS still uses in launch notices. The Civil Lab can ship a button. A motion, a signature rule, or an initiating writ still needs the Court of Session to change what the button is allowed to mean.

Insurers and Small Claims Still Work Off Letters

The people who feel the remaining analogue steps are not, first, the judges on the SCTS board. They are the firms running pre-action protocols, the insurers paying for delay on claims under £25,000, and the party litigants who can start a £4,000 debt case online but cannot start a £6,000 injury case the same way.

A working tracker cuts phone calls to the clerk. A 125MB upload stops some discs in the post. Neither changes the compulsory protocol’s paper-era rhythm, and neither starts an ordinary action in Aberdeen or Glasgow from a laptop as a standard national act. Tolmie’s 2024 point about pre-litigation therefore still sits on the desk. The 2025-26 programme spent its political capital on visibility of the file, which is the part SCTS controls without a new statute.

The public argument that moves money is the High Court wait, not the civil tracker. That is rational given 123-week journeys and a 26% rise in indictments. It also explains why Civil Online can post a 90% figure and still leave the cost of ordinary disputes where it was. The next software on the civil side is the ordinary-action API, with firms due to come on from summer 2026, and initiating-document work listed through 2026-27. The £62 million criminal package remains a bid, not a budget line.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of court administration and published rules. It is not legal advice and it does not tell any reader how to raise, defend or settle a claim. Anyone with a live dispute, a limitation date or a protocol deadline should take advice from a qualified Scottish solicitor or, where relevant, a claims professional instructed on the file, before acting on any procedure described here. Figures, product names and go-live statuses are taken from Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service publications, court rules and named officials as those sources stood when they were issued, and later releases can change what the portal accepts.