We quickly moved to hold all types of hearings online in March 2020 when the country entered the first lockdown. We’d never held an online hearing before.
During 2020, we held 273 online, seven hybrid and three in person hearings. A hybrid hearing means that some of the hearing is held in person and some online or one of the parties, such as a registrant or witness, is present in person for all or part of the hearing and other participants are online.
Increased participation
Online hearings have helped increase the number of registrants taking part in hearings about their fitness to practise. The year before the pandemic only 26% of registrants took part in their hearing. In 2022/23 this increased to 56%. This is very important for registrants as they can explain their position on the allegations to the panel.
If a registrant doesn’t take part in their hearing the panel must make a decision without hearing their position on what happened. We know that registrants who take part in their hearing often have a better outcome.
We’re very pleased to see the increase in registrants taking part in fitness to practise hearings, so we’ll continue to hold most hearings online. We held 90% of hearings online during 2022/23.
Type of hearing
We hold all temporary order hearings online unless a registrant or SSSC solicitor asks for it to be in person or hybrid. For fitness to practise impairment hearings a registrant and the SSSC solicitor can ask the hearing’s legally qualified chair for the type of hearing they would like before the final hearing. It can be online, in person or a hybrid.
Guidance
If you’re involved in a fitness to practise hearing, or just want to find out more, you can read about the factors taken into account when deciding if they’ll be held in person, online or hybrid in our Remote Hearings Guidance.