The immediate effect of the coronavirus pandemic required Yuill + Kyle to move swiftly to working from home. This was successfully achieved thanks to the sterling efforts of MacRoberts’ IT contingent along with the Y+K debt team.
We were especially proud of our ability to produce claim forms from printers installed in kitchens and lounges – no English-type summons production centre for us. The Scottish approximate equivalent, Civilonline, was inefficient, not least because it neither facilitated the creation of multiple claims nor was it compatible with our software.
Then, the fateful day came like a bolt out of the blue – and a most unwelcome one at that. Approximately eight weeks ago, one of the courts returned our paper claim form with an epistle that none of Scotland’s 32 courts would accept paper forms. They would only receive claims for actions less than £5,000 via their Civilonline portal. How were we going to respond? Apart from “having the rug pulled”, the reality was that we had to adapt to the new reality of our having to use what we viewed as an inefficient online process.
But there was a glimmer of hope. The court service told our Director of IT that they were developing an application which would allow Civilonline to accept multiple claims. We immediately recognised that if this worked, then electronic multiple submissions would be an enormous improvement on our paper-based document production. So, over the last few weeks, our programming team has been working with the Scottish courts to ensure that their application is compatible with our software. This is a rare opportunity and recognises that Y+K are at the forefront of Scottish legal debt recovery. At the end of the day, this will culminate in us having a much improved system for raising court actions.
To be truthful, we would rather that the transformation had been evolutionary than revolutionary – but the end result will be similar, and Y+K will be at the vanguard of pioneering the new software. The result in time and cost savings will greatly benefit our debt recovery clients who will witness a slicker, faster and more efficient service. In short, we will be able to recover their cash quicker.