The Ministry of Justice and HM Courts & Tribunals Service announced on 21 August 2026 that Megan Lee-Devlin will become chief executive of HMCTS, the agency that administers criminal, civil and family courts in England and Wales, along with the reserved unified tribunals across the United Kingdom. She succeeds Nick Goodwin, who is moving to the post of Director General for Policy at the Ministry of Justice. (gov.uk) For court and tribunal users, the importance of the move is operational rather than symbolic. HMCTS sits at the point where ministerial priorities, judicial working and day-to-day service delivery meet, so a change in leadership can affect how quickly reform is translated into working systems for the public and professionals. The government announcement presents Lee-Devlin's arrival as the start of the organisation's next phase of modernisation. (gov.uk)
Lee-Devlin joins HMCTS from her role as Director General for Justice Services and Transformation at the Ministry of Justice. According to the official announcement and her GOV.UK biography, that brief covered digital change across prisons, probation and services for victims, as well as operational responsibility for legal aid, lasting powers of attorney and victim compensation. (gov.uk) Before moving into the justice department, she led the Central Digital and Data Office in the Cabinet Office. Her earlier private-sector career included roles at IBM, PwC and McKinsey & Company. In policy terms, that gives HMCTS a chief executive with a background in technology, large-service administration and organisational change, rather than one drawn solely from a single court jurisdiction. (gov.uk)
That background matters because the HMCTS chief executive is not simply a sponsor of reform projects. The GOV.UK role description states that the post carries responsibility for the organisation's overall leadership, the delivery of its services, and its strategy and vision, with the chief executive also serving as HMCTS's accounting officer. In plain English, the post is responsible both for setting direction and for making sure the service works in practice. (gov.uk) Lee-Devlin also takes over at scale. In her appointment statement, she referred to working with the independent judiciary, ministers, system partners and 19,000 civil servants. That underlines the fact that HMCTS is not only a reform office; it is a large operational agency whose decisions affect hearings, case progression, contact channels and administrative reliability across the justice system. (gov.uk)
The appointment lands after a substantial period of court reform. HMCTS says that between 2016 and March 2025 it launched 14 digital services across jurisdictions and processed more than 4.1 million digitally submitted cases since April 2019. The agency also says video technology has been installed in 70 per cent of courtrooms, including 90 per cent of Crown courtrooms, while Common Platform had handled more than 2.3 million criminal cases by December 2024. (gov.uk) The public-facing changes are also material. HMCTS says its five modern service centres, working alongside national business centres, answered more than 2.8 million calls during 2024. The same guidance reports user satisfaction rates of 80 per cent for online divorce, 92 per cent for online civil money claims and 85 per cent for social security and child support appeals. Those figures help explain why the department is presenting this appointment as a service-delivery decision as much as a personnel change. (gov.uk)
For users, the next phase is likely to be less about announcing new digital products and more about whether reformed services are dependable, accessible and easy to use. HMCTS says the formal reform programme has concluded, but that work continues to improve services through data, new technology and new ways of working, while staying aligned with the judiciary and other justice partners. It also says future improvement must ensure that both technology and the physical environment work for vulnerable users. (gov.uk) That focus reflects the government's own evidence. HMCTS's access-to-justice assessments say reform is intended to improve access to justice for all users, including vulnerable groups, but the published summaries also identify remaining barriers in some services, including paper-route timeliness issues, contact and guidance problems, and differences affecting some user groups. The next chief executive therefore inherits a programme that has moved beyond digitisation alone and into the harder task of consistent performance. (gov.uk)
The immediate test for Lee-Devlin will be whether HMCTS can turn modernisation gains into steadier everyday administration. For practitioners and the public, that usually means whether services are simple to start, clear to follow and responsive when something goes wrong. HMCTS says it already offers a free digital support service across England, Wales and Scotland for people who are unable, or struggle, to use online services, delivered through community and advice centres as well as remote sessions. (gov.uk) Taken together, the appointment signals a clear administrative direction. Ministers and senior officials have chosen a chief executive whose recent record sits squarely in digital transformation and operational delivery, suggesting that the policy question for HMCTS is now how to make a modernised court service work more consistently for everyone who depends on it. (gov.uk)