The UK’s leading High Court enforcement agency, Essex-based Shergroup, has won a major credit industry award for developing an innovative system for managing court judgments.

The company, based in Braintree, developed its unique online case management system to allow its clients to track the progress of writ enforcement in real time. The SHERPA system scooped the ‘Innovative Solution of the Year’ award at the Institute of Credit Management awards, held on February 17th.

Shergroup’s Chief Executive Claire Sandbrook said: “This is a fantastic accolade as it reflects our continuing commitment to develop imaginative services that best meet our clients’ needs. At a time when people are looking for the best solutions to their debt recovery problems, we are confident we can offer a service that goes way beyond that of our competitors.”

Shergroup uses the SHERPA system to enforce High Court Writs of Fi Fa through its Sherforce brand, as well as managing the collection of judgment debts which are outside the scope of the High Court, through its Sherforce Plus brand.

Shergroup’s team of experienced and professional officers report details about their visits to debtors’ premises on Blackberry devices and this information and accompanying photographs are then made available online by Shergroup’s team in India.

Three of the senior management team – Claire Sandbrook, Chief of Operations Alan Smith and Chief of IT David Asker, collected the award. Claire said: “It has been a real team effort to build SHERPA into the system it is today and we have been helped in its development by our officers, internal teams and all of our clients. We plan exciting months ahead for further development of the system using its back-end database, which is probably the most comprehensive database of judgment debt results in England and Wales.”

Shergroup’s Chief of IT, David Asker, who has worked in developing the global network for SHERPA said: “By providing up-to-date information, our clients can see at a glance what stage we are at in the debt recovery process. They also have a wealth of management information at their fingertips which is especially useful if we are handling hundreds of cases on their behalf.”

Shergroup was nominated for the award by client Rachel Taylor, from the Oriel Group, who said: “Historically we used County Court bailiffs but found them to be ineffective. Rarely did they provide us with any information about why their recovery rate was so poor. By switching to High Court enforcement and using the SHERPA system, we can see so much more information, even photographs of what it looks like walking up the debtor’s path to their front door.”

It is the second year in a row that Shergroup has won this award as last year it received the same award for establishing Shercar, the online DVLA look-up system, which helps enforcement officers check the ownership of vehicles which are seized to pay court fines, judgments, and local authority debts.

Photo shows David Asker, Claire Sandbrook and Alan Smith and with the Institute of Credit Management award for ‘Innovative Solution of the Year’.