One step closer to joined-up justice

The National Probation Service (NPS) is to overhaul all of its software applications in a multi-million pound project to help join up criminal justice IT systems.

The NPS will begin discussions with suppliers in the New Year about the seven to 10-year Steps Two (S2) contract, to be signed in mid-2004 and take effect at the start of 2005.

S2 covers the development, implementation and management of a suite of bespoke operational software and off-the-shelf corporate systems to replace the variety of technologies currently in use.

The contract will cost considerably more than the £50m Steps One support and infrastructure project it builds on, taking the total cost of the service's IT programme to well over £100m.

NPS head of information and technology Robin Pape told Computing that deployment will be incremental rather than a 'big bang'.

And he says lessons have been learned from the delayed and over-budget Case Records and Management System (Crams) project, which was halted in 2001 and will be phased out by S2.

'Key lessons learned from Crams were the need for close user involvement, for IT to be integrated as part of the business, and for the right level of investment,' he said.

'Investment in IT in probation in the past was simply not sufficient to deliver working, reliable and up to date systems.'

The programme is at the heart of NPS involvement in Home Office plans for joined-up criminal justice.

'As offenders pass through the system they deal with different agencies and our new IT will have to account for those transitions,' said Pape.

'We have to make sure applications will link in the right way, at all stages where we do business with other organisations.'

The first new application, the Offender Assessment System (Oasys), is already being developed ahead of S2 because it is urgently required. An interim version will go live in the new year, and the Prison Service will also use it by early 2004.