How the Courts Service of Ireland transformed learning with Totara over 10 years

A decade-long journey from classroom-based training to a modern, scalable learning ecosystem

The Courts Service is responsible for the administration and management of the courts in Ireland. Its workforce spans court venues, registry functions, frontline operational roles, professional and management positions, and head office teams across the country.

Learning must support legal and regulatory compliance, role-specific competency, frontline practice and continuous professional development.

The Challenge

Before the introduction of Totara, training relied heavily on classroom delivery and manual coordination. Recording compliance, evidencing completion and providing consistent access to learning across multiple locations was difficult. The Courts Service required a learning platform that could scale, support diverse learning needs and provide reliable management visibility.

The organisation also needed to address several key challenges:

• Complex organisational hierarchy: The Courts Service operates with a multifaceted hierarchy, necessitating an LMS capable of mirroring this structure to ensure accurate reporting and management.
• Consistent digital presence: To maintain brand integrity, it was imperative that the LMS seamlessly align with the Courts Service’s existing digital platforms.
• Advanced seminar management: Given the extensive face-to-face training sessions, the LMS required sophisticated seminar management features, including functionalities like waitlisting.

The Solution

The partnership between the Courts Service and Enovation has continued for 11 years, built on shared commitment, platform expertise and a practical understanding of public-service learning. What began as an LMS implementation has developed into a long-term collaboration focused on adoption, compliance, operational efficiency and continuous improvement.

Enovation’s Totara expertise and learning-technology guidance have helped the Courts Service mature its platform over time, moving beyond course delivery and training administration into a broader learning ecosystem that supports compliance, role-specific development, blended learning and future innovation.

A more accessible, practical and people-centred model

A common misconception is that eLearning is less human than classroom-based training. The Courts Service journey suggests the opposite. By moving foundational knowledge online, staff can access learning when they need it, revisit materials, and prepare for more meaningful live or classroom-based sessions.

This is particularly relevant in areas such as trauma-informed practice, disability awareness, de-escalation, customer service and frontline court operations, where learning is not just about completion. It is about supporting better interactions, better judgement and better service.

The Results

Since 2015, the Courts Service and Enovation have worked together to build and grow a Totara learning environment that now supports the full staff complement, with 1,350 active staff on the LMS in 2026.

Over more than a decade, the Courts Service has moved from a classroom-heavy training model to a modern learning ecosystem, with measurable growth in adoption, completions, eLearning delivery, compliance visibility, administrative efficiency and blended learning.

The result is a measurable public-service learning transformation: more staff reached, more completions recorded, compliance tracked at scale, classroom time used more purposefully, and the organisation positioned for its next phase of social, collaborative and AI-assisted learning.

Key outcomes include:

• Active LMS participation increased from 435 staff in 2017 to 1,350 active users in 2026 — a 210% increase.
• Cumulative course completions grew from 835 to 24,856 — almost 30× growth.
• Classroom-based delivery reduced from approximately 50% of the training mix in 2017 to approximately 18% in 2026, while eLearning doubled from approximately 40% to almost 80%.
• In 2026, the LMS enabled compliance training to be tracked at scale, including:
  • 1,250 GDPR completions
  • 1,130 cybersecurity completions
  • 1,153 JAM Card training completions
• This represents completion rates of approximately:
  • 93% for GDPR
  • 84% for cybersecurity
  • 85%+ for JAM Card training
• Since the introduction of the LMS, approximately 115,000 training hours have been completed across the organisation — equivalent to more than 14,000 standard eight-hour training days.
• Based on a Courts Service calculation of 7,000 training days at the highest travel and subsistence rate and 7,000 training days at the lowest rate, the estimated travel and subsistence saving is €560,000 since the introduction of the LMS.