Courts IT sets model for reforms
Criminal Justice IT programme serves as template for Home Office's plans for shared services
The Home Office will look to the Criminal Justice IT programme (CJIT) as an example of how to link multiple departments and agencies as part of the wide-ranging reform package introduced by Home Secretary John Reid last week.
A department-wide IT strategy is to be published in December, and plans for a shared services programme to centralise administration systems will start next April.
Joined-up technology will enable better collation of information held by different areas of the department, improving performance and helping to avoid problems such as the recent foreign national prisoners scandal, according to Home Office minister Baroness Scotland.
The CJIT programme will act as an exemplar, she says.
‘The lessons from CJIT make us look with greater acuity at the processes we need to put in place to deliver similar added value across the Home Office. We hope the new strategy for integrated IT will be able to give greater advantage to all who have to rely on it,’ she said.
‘We want to break down the silo IT systems in the department and have them interconnected in such a way that each part of the department is able to use that collated information as a proper management tool, in a way not possible in the past.’
Better sharing of information could have averted issues such as the recent controversy over foreign national prisoners being released but not deported.
‘With data easily transferred from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate into the criminal justice system, some of the issues would have been identified more easily,’ said Scotland.
Cultural issues within the department will be the most significant challenge, according to Mike Davies, senior research analyst at Butler Group.
But strong political backing from the Home Secretary could have a considerable impact.
‘If the core supporting infrastructure for the reforms is going to be the IT systems, and John Reid has nailed his colours to that mast, we can expect him to push it through,’ said Davies.
‘So long as he is in the job there will be a strong and powerful person to direct the project,’ he said.
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