Megan Lee-Devlin has been appointed chief executive of HM Courts and Tribunals Service, with the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS publishing the decision on 21 August 2026. HMCTS administers the criminal, civil and family courts in England and Wales, as well as the reserved unified tribunals across the United Kingdom, so the post carries direct responsibility for day-to-day court and tribunal operations. (gov.uk)
Lee-Devlin moves from the Ministry of Justice, where she served as Director General for Justice Services and Transformation. According to the appointment notice, that brief covered digital change across prisons, probation and services for victims, alongside operational responsibility for legal aid, lasting powers of attorney and victim compensation. (gov.uk) Before joining the Ministry of Justice, she led the Central Digital and Data Office in the Cabinet Office and previously worked at IBM, PwC and McKinsey & Company on digital, analytics and organisational change. (gov.uk)
She succeeds Nick Goodwin, who is moving to the Ministry of Justice as Director General for Policy. In the official announcement, Courts Minister Sarah Sackman KC MP and Permanent Secretary Jo Farrar both presented the appointment as part of HMCTS's next stage of modernisation, with an emphasis on service quality, support for staff and judiciary, and access to justice. (gov.uk)
The timing matters. HMCTS formally brought its reform programme to a close in March 2025 after almost a decade of digitisation. HMCTS guidance says the programme created 14 digital services, processed more than 4.1 million digitally submitted cases since April 2019, installed video technology in 70 per cent of courtrooms, including 90 per cent of Crown Court courtrooms, and established five service centres that, alongside national business centres, answered more than 2.8 million calls in 2024. (gov.uk)
What follows is not a fresh reform launch but a harder delivery phase. HMCTS's annual report for 2025 to 2026, published on 9 July 2026, described the year as the first full year under its 2025 to 2030 strategic plan. The service said it received more than 4.6 million cases, disposed of more than 2.7 million, sat over 547,000 days across courts and tribunals, facilitated more than 3.2 million hearings, and operated with around 19,000 staff across 350 venues. (gov.uk) That same report recorded progress and strain at the same time. Crown Court sitting days reached 110,647, the highest level in a decade, and Service Centres answered 46 per cent more calls than the year before while cutting average answer times by 40 per cent. But the Crown Court open caseload also exceeded 80,000 for the first time, and timeliness in the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal worsened to 37 weeks from 32 weeks. Taken together, the official data points to continuity rather than a reset: more digital capacity and more output, but persistent pressure on timeliness and backlog reduction. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
For court users, the practical test is whether further modernisation becomes visible in day-to-day service. HMCTS said in its 2024 to 2025 annual report that online civil money claims were completed more than three times faster than paper claims, at 8 weeks compared with 29 weeks, while its digital services guidance reported user satisfaction of 92 per cent for online civil money claims and 85 per cent for Social Security and Child Support appeals. HMCTS also said it provides a free digital support service across England, Wales and Scotland for users who cannot access, or are less confident using, online services. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
The policy brief around the new chief executive is already set out in HMCTS's own planning documents. For 2026 to 2027, the service says it wants to improve timeliness, customer service, support for judges and magistrates, financial penalty collection, organisational resilience and modernisation delivered with the judiciary to improve productivity and user experience. The annual report adds that the Courts and Tribunals Bill, introduced to Parliament on 25 February 2026, provides a central legislative framework for that work. That makes Lee-Devlin's appointment less about setting a new direction than about converting an established reform agenda into steadier operational results. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)