Joined-up justice needs more cash

The government's 'joined-up justice' programme could require a further £800m on top of its £1.2bn budget to make it a success, according to its programme leader.

The programme is intended to connect the IT systems of various criminal justice agencies.

But John Suffolk, director general of the Criminal Justice IT (CJIT) programme says difficulties in managing the 150 separate IT contracts and getting criminal justice professionals to use the system, now means additional funding may be required.

'We have a budget of £1.2bn but it will probably take a further £0.8bn to make a joined up system a reality,' he said.

Speaking at the Government UK IT Summit, Suffolk said he planned to extend the remit of the current plan to link up IT systems across the criminal justice system, to include data from the Department for Work and Pension and the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

But he conceded that the success of the system is reliant on getting end-user acceptance of the system.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) finished rolling out its case management system at the start of the year. To date it has more than one million case records live on the system.

But getting professionals to change their working practices, and start inputting information onto the system remained a significant challenge, said Richard Foster, chief executive of the CPS.

'I've got 3,000 lawyers all telling me: I'm a lawyer not a typist,' he said.

Getting seasoned, highly qualified professionals to change their habits would only be achieved by showing them that they benefited from the new systems, said Ian Magee, second permanent secretary, Department of Constitutional Affairs.

'We're looking to make life better for victims - IT has got a valuable part to play in helping us do that,' he said.

Suffolk added that by 2006, victims would be able to follow the progress of their cases online.