A new networking deal between Energis and Logica will help the
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) meet the deadline for its new
Compass case management system, the Government said this
week.
Bryan Lee, Compass programme manager at the CPS, said, "We look
forward to Energis providing a valuable contribution to the IS
infrastructure being managed by Logica as part of the Compass PFI
[private finance initiative] contract.
"This infrastructure will be a key element when we roll out the
initial case management system in 2003."
Telecoms provider Energis announced earlier this week that it had
won a five-year contract with systems integrator Logica to underpin
the new case management system for the CPS.
The Compass case management system being developed by Logica is at
the heart of the Government's plans to overhaul the technology
within the UK's criminal justice network. It will enable CPS staff
to access and share important legal documents electronically.
Energis will provide a networking solution to link the CPS' main
sites via a single secure network. The Internet Protocol-based
virtual private network will use multi-protocol label switching,
which allows network traffic to be prioritised so that
business-critical applications can be given priority over less
urgent data traffic.
Criminal justice IT is currently a top priority for the Government.
In the recent spending review it announced plans to invest nearly
£1bn over the next three years to create an integrated case
management system that can be used by the police, courts, the
Prison Service, the Probation Service and the CPS.
Critics have often pointed to a lack of integrated IT across the
UK's criminal justice agencies as a cause of inefficiencies in the
criminal justice system.
A report by the Audit Commission earlier this year said inadequate
IT is contributing to delays and inefficiencies across the system.
Even Tony Blair, speaking at a conference in June, admitted that
many of the UK's criminal justice IT systems are "still in the dark
ages".