Presenting Online Plea

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1 Issue 4 January 2015 Contents: Common Platform Progress (p2) Efficiency Update (p3) Digital Business Review (p3) Digital Case File (p4) Digital Mark Up (p4) Wifi (p5) ROTA (p5) ClickShare (p6) IdAM (p6) A Digital Day (p7) Legislation and Rules (p8) Back Issues, Questions & Suggestions See previous issues of Digital Reform News through the CPP pages on the MoJ Intranet: MoJ Click Here Through the CPS Intranet: CPS Click Here Or the CJS Common Platform Programme Communications Team: CJSCPComms@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk If you have any questions or suggestions about any of the articles please contact us via the above address. The Manchester and Salford Exemplar online plea portal has been attracting some very high level interest recently. The Senior Presiding Judge, Lord Justice Gross, and the Ministry of Justice Permanent Secretary, Ursula Brennan, visited Manchester for a briefing on the new portal. After viewing the system, Lord Justice Gross said The judiciary is supportive of this exemplar and believe it will realise real benefits for court users, court staff and the judiciary itself. I look forward to the exemplar being extended to other courts. Nick Gallon, Project Manager from Digital Services, gave the demonstration. Nick showed how members of the public are currently able to use the portal, allowing quick and easy access. He also presented statistics about the current levels of take-up. Nick was followed by the Manchester and Salford Senior Management Team and staff colleagues. They explained how the portal fits within their current Presenting Online Plea Lord Justice Gross The Manchester and Salford Exemplar (MaSE) Make a Plea portal allows members of the public to plead guilty or not guilty online to summary road traffic offences. It also allows defendants submit their financial details, This pilot is for certain summary motoring offences only but it will be scaled nationally in mid-2015 and will eventually replace the current, paper-based processes for submitting pleas in all appropriate summary cases in England and Wales. operations and the benefits that they derive from it. Ursula Brennan summarised her thoughts on the portal. I was impressed to see the Make a Plea portal which is a really good example of a solution that is simpler for the public and more effective and efficient for us. Ursula Brennan The project s expert on court processes and legislation, Jim Hehir, was also present. Jim is a Justices Clerk seconded to the CJS Common Platform Programme. His job is to ensure that the portal can be scaled (Continued on page 2) Page 1

2 Online Plea (from Page1) to effect a radical change in the way defendants engage with the criminal justice system. The exemplar is first step in that transformation. The portal has now dealt with 1032 defendants for hearings since 29 th August There have been more than 1027 Guilty pleas and 141 Not Guilty pleas. (There are more offences than defendants as some people are accused of committing more than one offence). Further demonstrations have been given to a variety of stakeholders including TV licensing and Transport for London. These other prosecuting agencies may be able to use a similar portal for their own prosecutions in the future. Common Platform Programme Progress Nick Gallon, demonstrating Make a Plea Loveday Ryder, Programme Director of the Common Platform Programme, explains that the Programme is in good shape and mobilising for a significant ramp-up in the New Year. You will read about a number of the more advanced CJS Common Platform products in other articles in Digital Reform News, but I d like to give a more general update, and in particular, highlight the progress in areas that are in development, and not yet visible to everyone. We have recently prepared our Outline Business Case, which has been signed off by the Programme Board in December. This is the culmination of an enormous amount of work by the team to set out the strategic case for the Programme, an economic and financial evaluation of what it means for the CPS and HMCTS, the commercial strategy and the project management controls and organisation we will need to put in place to deliver it. It builds on an excellent piece of work by our business representatives setting out the various streams of work we will be undertaking in the New Year, in priority order, enabling us to deliver the Common Platform as a series of incremental deliveries of new products and services over the next few years. This will enable us gradually to build up the functionality that will enable us to turn off the legacy systems testing and working with users as we go, and gradually scaling up from pilot sites to full national rollout. The next areas of work for us include: Loveday Ryder Online Case Progression which is making good progress with workshops to identify the key activities and bottlenecks within both CPS and HMCTS, and will be looking initially at the process for making an application and an on-line directions management service. The Digital Repository will test out a new business process for managing digital evidence with a pilot police force. Engagement with key stakeholders is vital to the success of this work. A key area of focus will be to define and agree a clear set of joint standards for working with digital evidence. The Portals workstream is commencing with the Defence Portal. Workshops have been held with external stakeholders in the Defence Community, and development of a prototype for sharing the Initial Details of the Prosecution Case (IDPC) with defence solicitors will begin in January. The Implementation team are continuing to carry out Change Impact Assessments to assess how different roles will be altered by the introduction of the new business methods. They are working with our HR partners to develop job descriptions and the necessary Learning and Development plans focusing on the Magistrates Rota and Digital mark-up products. The Crown Court Scheduling team have created a wireframe demonstration version of a tool that will support scheduling and decisions across crown courts, which has been demonstrated successfully to our Judicial Lead. The next step is to progress with development of the product. There are also projects that will provide interim support for the Common Platform projects as the Platform itself is developed. The Hosting and Service Support project has agreed technical partners and hosting environments while Data Exchange is investigating the requirements to allow the interfaces with the existing legacy systems. It is going to be a busy year ahead! Page 2

3 Efficiency Programme Update As we start a New Year it s useful to take stock of the achievements made to date and to prepare for the work that lies ahead. In this article Jo Rowland, CJS Efficiency Programme Director, provides an update on progress across the Programme. At my last update the Efficiency Programme was just beginning to enter the delivery and implementation phase and I am really pleased with the progress made since. Installation of the Magistrates in Court Presentation is now 25% complete; this is on Jo Rowland track and to budget. The contract for Wi-Fi provision for professional court users has been signed and the first ten courthouses are now Wi-Fi enabled. You can read more on these projects in this newsletter, as well as advances made on the digital case file. Further progress has also been made by the Crown Court project team who have identified the hardware and software requirements for working digitally in the Crown Court. The CPS Digital Business Programme Review Simon Clements, Director CPS Digital Business Programme and Crown Advocate reflects on what has been achieved over the last 12 months, and outlines what CPS will be focusing on over the coming months. The Digital Business Programme continues to work with its CJS partners to ensure that the CJS has an infrastructure fit for the 21st century. This means making the best of what we have in terms of technology to join up service delivery and moving away from slow, paper-based systems. We have been working with practitioners to look at best practice for making applications for witnesses to appear via video by default. Two pilots (one in Nottingham and one in Cheshire) have been testing the use of video suites for victims of domestic violence which will inform what increased usage of video testimony could be adopted nationally. CPS prosecutors are regularly using tablet devices to prosecute cases in open court. We are currently rolling out 2500 new mobile devices to prosecutors all new devices and the re-conditioned tablets devices which will be given to other staff will have Windows 8.1 as its operating system to support digital working and ensure that staff have the right tools for the job. CPS staff also have electronic access to legal reference material on their devices, for example Archbold e-book and CrimeLine Complete, which is a valuable tool in case preparation and advocacy. Magistrates In-court Presentation (MCIP) has been tested and project has also started on the route to procurement with a request for purchase issued to potential suppliers last month. The HMCTS Store has also seen great progress, despite many hurdles along the way. In the last edition we announced that the HMCTS Store would be used in a pilot in Birmingham Magistrates Court from mid-december. Much to our frustration, this had to be delayed as testing of the link to the Libra interface couldn t progress as planned because of a technical fault. However at the time of writing this the fault has been resolved and testing has commenced. The project team are now looking to start the pilot in January. Encouragingly, feedback from users who have tested the Store in a training environment has been very positive; they found it to be an easy-to-use and intuitive system with little need to refer to the guidance that has been prepared. This all bodes well for when the pilot does start and I know both the project team and users in Birmingham are keen for this to get underway. The successful transition from planning into implementation for all our projects is very encouraging and as we get further into delivery we will soon begin to see the end-to-end benefits of digital working. is compatible with CPS mobile devices. The CPS has been working closely with colleagues in Criminal Justice System Efficiency Programme (CJSEP) to develop guidance and deliver training for all users. As for the year ahead the CPS will continue to seek new and better ways to deliver the best possible service for the public. We are currently developing a way by which prosecutors can access their daily list of cases through an App. This will enable them to present all their cases on one screen and allow them to access each case just as you would access an App on your personal device. We will also continue working with HMCTS to deliver a unified way of working for HMCTS and CPS staff and the wider participants in the criminal case management process. This will bring essential information about crime together so that people in the CJS will be able to access relevant criminal case management information where and when they need to. In the spring the whole of the CJS will be engaged in introducing the Transforming Summary Justice (TSJ) initiative across all magistrates courts. Components 5 and 10 of TSJ will need a strong digital infrastructure to support their delivery. All professional court users will, during the course of the next year, start to have access to wi-fi and be able to send documents to each other electronically in real time, including during the court day, so that all defence practitioners will be able to access the IDPC electronically. Page 3

4 Digital Case File Identifies Common Standards The ambition of the digital case file is broad: to eliminate bureaucracy, improve quality and speed up the criminal justice system. Early trials of simplifying processes have demonstrated the benefits that can be gained. The DCF will, through a series of guides and prompts, help police officers capture the right evidence and case material at the very start of the charging process. It will avoid file over build and information omission, by directing officers to the required elements. Early tests of this approach for creating a streamlined file resulted in pilot police forces reporting a 20 to 30 minute reduction in case preparation time. Quite a significant saving of valuable police time, which can only be improved on as the DCF approach is further developed. Key to developing a DCF that will work across all police forces is identifying common standards for content and Digital Mark Up Wireframe format. Following feedback received from an early release, the project team is working with individual police forces to refine and develop the standards further, as well as taking another look at the scope of the project to ensure efforts are appropriately focussed and delivery targets, truly achievable. Simon Wilson Having a digital case file is not simply about digitising a current process; it is in fact evolving it into a smart process, with police officers guided through the file build resulting in a better quality file, recently appointed project manager Simon Wilson told Digital Reform News. Police, CPS and other court users such as HMCTS and probation will all see benefits from the introduction of a DCF, through a reduced need for clerical intervention and a more structured and therefore easier to navigate case file. The CJS Common Platform Digital Mark Up project has created a wireframe version to show to stakeholders. This is being demonstrated to end-users and others to gain feedback about how the system might look to operators. Link to Online Plea What s a Wireframe? You will see references to a thing called a wireframe in various articles. A wireframe is a mock-up or representation of what a finished product might look like. In engineering it might show a model of an idea of a car body without any motor or electrics. In computing it will show a page that carries the information that a system might provide or ask for, but it will not be able to process that information. Wireframes are helpful consultation tools. They let end-users see what might be available and allows them to comment on the ease of use, whether the information is essential, where and how it is displayed on the screen and any other feature that they think would be important in the final product. Digital Mark Up Wireframe screenshot Page 4

5 Wi-Fi s Magnificent Seven Professional court-users will have greater connectivity as courthouses in seven early adopter areas have Wi-Fi installed. The CJS Efficiency Programme installed Wi-Fi at the end of November in seven courthouses across the country: Portsmouth, Bromley, Sefton, Cardiff and North Tyneside Magistrates Courts, as well as Birmingham and Chelmsford Crown Court are all now Wi-Fi enabled. Wi-Fi technology will greatly enhance the professional court-users experience of a day in court. Being able to securely access home case management systems, and internet from the courtroom will mean that both their time and that of the court is used efficiently and will reduce the requirement for adjournments because of missing information it can now be shared in real-time. These early adopter courthouses will use Wi-Fi in a live situation but are very much part of the testing process as the service is still in development. Work continues to define the final solution and to extend the user community, as currently not all professional court users can access it. Releasing a prototype solution allows the project team to tailor the final solution, based on user feedback, to better fit business requirements. Ahead of the seven installations there was a lot of planning work with court users and suppliers to identify areas for Wi-Fi coverage to ensure that all users needs were considered with coverage including the courtroom, advocates rooms, chambers and cell vicinity. Project Manager, Rob Day told Digital Reform News that: These first installations mark a transition for the project as it moves from planning into implementation, which is an exciting time for the whole project team, as well as our suppliers. We have learnt a lot in the last few weeks and the lessons drawn will help with the continuous development of the installation process as we move into national roll-out from this month onwards. For information about which tranche your courthouse is in please contact your HMCTS Regional Implementation Lead. If you don t know who this is please contact cjsefficiency@cps.gsi.gov.uk Further Rota Developments The Magistrates Rota project has completed the pilot in West Hampshire. The trial went very well with good feedback from the Bench Chair and the Rota Administrator. West Hampshire continue to use the pilot system, giving the local Rota team longer to explore the benefits that the new system can give to the business. and July There will be a staggered roll out which will provide Rota in a series of 4 waves. The project team will be working with regions/regional Implementation Leads to establish which Local Justice Area is in each wave and to ensure that any combined panels are accommodated. This approach enables Rota teams to support each other within regions and allows the implementation teams to follow the programme roll out lifecycle strategy. In the meantime, the project team are working hard to develop the system further. The version that was trialled in West Hampshire provided the portal for magistrates to access the system from wherever they wanted. The system that they then accessed was a simplified version of the final system. The further development work will create the optimising tool that is the key to efficient roster compilation. The project are also developing the links to the IdAM (Identity and Access Management) system and to the internal platform on which the system will sit. It is only when these features come together that the full system can be released. The Rota project is scheduled to be rolled out between March Rota screenshot

6 Sharing ClickShare The CJS Efficiency Programme saw its first project take steps on the road to delivery with national roll out of the Magistrates in Court Presentation (MICP) well under way. The MICP project, which when completed will have installed the large screens and ClickShare hardware in 750 courtrooms in the magistrates courts; will allow the presentation of digital evidence and other material to the court. This is one of a number of innovations designed to create a digital courtroom. Through the introduction of this plug-andplay technology solution, both the prosecution and defence will be able to share information directly from their compatible IT devices with the court. the technology easy to use, there have been a number of awareness sessions, led by site single point of contacts (SPOCs) and regional implementation leads, working in conjunction with members of the installation team/deployment managers and CPS Digital Leads. These are intended to help users and court staff familiarise themselves with the technology before they need to use it in the courtroom. To find out when your magistrates court is due to have Click Share installed please contact your Regional Implementation Lead. Phased roll-out of the technology has begun in earnest. Following successful installation at the early adopter sites, all tranche 1 courtrooms have been installed to plan and are now in use. Senior Crown Prosecutor, Keith Laidlaw, CPS North East said of MICP, when using it in a sentencing exercise: I was able to play the CCTV footage we had of the incident, (a common assault), on the two large flat screen TVs mounted on the walls in court. I simply put in the supplied (ClickShare) dongle, did the necessary set up and hey presto what I had on my screen i.e. the CCTV, appeared on the two court screens thus enabling everyone to view it. To support the introduction of the MICP solution so that all users find The Magistrates in Court Presentation equipment in use IdAM Mapping The CJS Common Platform IdAM project has recently completed a series of workshops with users, developers and other interested groups. This process has allowed the project team to map out the current position for users. Chris Grice It was a busy few days for the CJS Common Platform IdAM project manager, Chris Grice, as he assembled a collection of computer security experts, users, developers and stakeholders to carry out a series of intensive workshops over six days in December. The final result was a detailed Identity and Access Management IdAM uses software, technology and business processes to allow users to access services. Users have different requirements from a system, and will need to be able to see different information or perform different tasks. IdAM combines the information about a user to choose what areas of a system the user should be allowed to access. understanding of current processes for a number of different systems. The workshops were also useful to provide guidance about future requirements. Now that this discovery period has been completed the project team are working to produce a prototype of the system by the end of January Page 6

7 A Digital Day in Slough The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is rolling out new mobile devices to CPS prosecutors. We follow Simon Clements, Director of the CPS Digital Business Programme, and Crown Advocate, as he goes through a digital day at court. Simon Clements, Director of the CPS Digital Business Programme, and Crown Advocate, regularly prosecutes, which helps him understand the challenges and opportunities faced by front-line staff every day. He tells us of his experience of prosecuting with his new device: I took delivery of my new Lenovo tablet device. I had to complete essential preparation work to synchronise my current device which involved saving of internet favourites, custom dictionaries and address books. I had been asked to set aside 30 minutes, but it took slightly longer because work needed to be done in respect of some historical.pst files that were resisting attempts to migrate them. Within a few minutes I took it to first meeting a Technology Strategy Board meeting chaired by the CPS Chief Executive. I was able to connect via wi-fi and remain on-line during the whole of the meeting, allowing me to directly access and manage meeting papers electronically. Subsequently, I also connected to CPS systems using wi-fi on a recent visit to the Dutch Prosecution Service. The CPS and Digital Working The CPS has been has been at the forefront of driving digital working across the criminal justice system (CJS) for some time now, working in partnership with other digitisation programmes the Common Platform Programme which aims to deliver a unified way of working for HMCTS and CPS staff and others in the criminal case management process, and the Criminal Justice Efficiency Programme which plans to get the criminal courts working digitally breaking the reliance on inefficient paper-dependent working. Good progress has been made to date with CPS prosecutors regularly using tablet devices to prosecute cases in open court; most police forces provide non-custody cases by electronic case file; all magistrates courts can receive digital case files from the CPS. Information is being transferred electronically from CPS to National Offender Management Service for pre-sentence reports and witness care units and work digitally, negating printing, storage and disposal of case files. My first appearance at court all worked very well. For the first time since prosecuting with a tablet I didn t have to worry about finding a power source to plug in to as the battery was showing a very healthy nine hours when I started. I connected to wi-fi via the connection in the CPS room, and then via my dongle in court, with a signal strong enough for me to connect regularly to the CPS Case Management System (CMS) and download some case bundles. For the remainder of the day I worked as usual on s and navigated my way around the new set of screens associated with the windows 8.1 configuration. That evening I tested the remote access facility by downloading my case files for Slough magistrates court the following day using my home broadband. Both the connection and download process were very easy. The Magistrates In-court Presentation (MCIP) instructions are in place on the advocate s desk and on screen in court. Once the MCIP dongle is plugged in it is quick to download the Clickshare software, which is easy to use and enables the sharing of photo s received with the court. When this plug-and-play technology becomes available in 750 courtrooms in the magistrates courts across the country, prosecutors and defence advocates will be able to share digital information directly with the court. Simon summed up his experiences: All in all it was a very satisfactory day prosecuting with my new device. So far, I have not felt the need for any training on the new device, but it will take me a little while to get used to Windows 8.1, even though the guidance and tutorials on Windows 8.1 on our intranet have been really helpful. The CPS is providing new mobile devices to prosecutors that are lighter, with a longer battery life, and 2500 will have been deployed by end of this month. The old devices will be re-conditioned and deployed to other staff by Spring All devices will have Windows 8.1 operating system. Simon Clement Page 7

8 Legislation and Rule Changes Christine Murray explains how the Common Platform is negotiating with partners to ensure that the legislation and rule changes required will be in place to facilitate the unified business process (see info box below). The CJS Common Platform programme is a HMCTS and CPS business change programme enabled by Information Technology (IT). This is a subtle but important distinction: it is the new unified business process that drives the IT, not the other way around. (See the November issue of Digital Reform News for an explanation of creating a digital organisation). Many of the changes will be cultural or organisational, but there are changes that will require legislative or rule changes. There are certain things such as how people interact with the criminal justice system, how digital information is accessed and served, and what can be dealt with outside of a formal courtroom, which could be made easier with appropriate changes to the criminal procedure rules. Further benefits could be achieved with some legislative changes, such as pleas being entered or indicated on line by members of the public. The defence community will obviously have a large role to play in the digital Criminal Justice System. They will be able to interact on behalf of their clients, making pleas online in some cases, accessing and submitting information electronically, viewing disclosure documentation via the portal or viewing listings and results. The CJS Common Platform has therefore set up a legislation and regulation project looking at whether any of the existing rules or legislation impede or inhibit digital working. The project explores with key stakeholders and regulatory bodies whether changes can better support and encourage digital working to improve the overall efficiency of the CJS. The CJS Common Platform legislation and rule change steering group is made up of a wide range of stakeholders including a representative from the Senior Presiding Judge's office, the crime directorate, Ministry of Justice policy, defence community and the secretariats of the Civil Procedure Rules Committee and the President of the Queen s Bench Division's review into efficiency. The job of the steering group is to make sure that ideas for change are compatible with everything else that is going on and to flag up any concerns. It is important that the project lead for this strand of work is in Christine Murray regular communication with all these groups and bodies to make sure that the CJS Common Platform properly meets the needs of the CJS and is future-proof! Any ideas for legislative changes which require ministerial approval are dealt with by the business as usual groups, such as MoJ policy. The final effectiveness of the reforms that we are all working toward, whether they are digital or business, will be severely compromised if the legal and procedural framework does not allow the new and innovative ways of working. This is why it is so important that we involve our partners and stakeholders in the process of delivering the appropriate changes. The Unified Business Process Simply, it s CPS and HMCTS working together in a similar way toward a common goal. Using the same file structure Using IT systems that link together easily Sharing information Removing duplication of work Managed workflow, not just in time Digital by default Page 8