JUSTICE
The Scottish Executive Justice Department ( SEJD) is responsible for the police and fire services in Scotland, and for criminal justice including criminal justice social work. SEJD is also responsible for aspects of criminal and civil law reform, for courts administration, for legal aid and liaison with the legal profession in Scotland.
The aim of the portfolio is to secure safer and stronger communities, safer justice and modern civil laws for a modern Scotland. A key emphasis of work is on the modernisation of services and this is manifested in some of the key targets and priorities, including:
Develop future options for modernisation and reform of police services
Developing court room technology through the introduction of digital recording and improved facilities for the presentation of evidence
Police
The newly established Scottish Police Services Authority ( SPSA) has been charged with the delivery of a clear and modern framework for bringing the common support services to Scottish police forces on a national basis, the objective being to enable support services to develop, modernise, improve efficiency and provide the best possible support.
With the budget in the region of £70 million the new authority will take up its full power in April 2007 and consequently will replace the existing 'ad hoc' and fragmented arrangements and bodies. As part of its remit and by April 2008 the SPSA will assume responsibility for Information and Communications ( ICT) services currently provided by 8 separate police ICT Departments. The creation of a single integrated ICT Directorate which supports an agreed national business model of policing will be a significant contribution not only to modernisation of police services in Scotland but the joined up approach will also drive quality, improve efficiency and productivity and accountability.
This work is building on already significant deliverables and projects under development by the Scottish Police Information Strategy ( SPIS), a Common Police Service, funded by the Scottish Executive and aimed at delivering unified approach to future generations of police support systems. SPIS will is to become part of SPSA on 1 April 2007 and thus by 1 April 2008 complete the process of bringing all police ICT resources to gather into single national organisation.
SPIS Deliverables:
Scottish Intelligence Database ( SID)
The Scottish Intelligence Database is a nationally networked application which allows sharing and dissemination of criminal intelligence between forces throughout Scotland. SID is a first of its kind in the UK and allows front-line police officers to operate with increased access to current intelligence, improved quality and reliability of intelligence and with the most up to date and accurate information at both local and national levels. All forces in Scotland and the SDEA are now live with Version 8 of SID.
SID continues to attract considerable attention from the UK law enforcement community and internationally. Scotland can be justifiably proud of its achievement in successfully rolling out a national intelligence database, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.
Automatic Number Plate Recognition ( ANPR)
This project was commissioned in December 2001 to procure an ANPR System for use by Scottish police forces and Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency. The central back office facility has now been developed and deployed by SPIS, not only ensuring the most cost effective delivery of ANPR services to the Scottish Police but facilitating the development of more integrated systems. ANPR enables uploading and downloading of information to and from in-car units and gives access to easily searchable national data.
High Level Information Management Strategy ( HLIMS)
The ACPOS High Level Information Management Strategy, published in 2004, set out a vision and roadmap for the sharing of data nationally between the Scottish Police Forces. The initial approach to this was envisaged as the creation of a mechanism for consolidating data from difference Force data sets and allowing query of the consolidated information from a single point of enquiry. In order to test this approach the HLIMS Proof of Concept study was designed to evaluate the technical feasibility of creating a shared dataset of information to enable practitioners to search and view information form all Forces through a single point of enquiry. SPIS delivered the application to the forces in September 2005 and technical and user testing was completed in March 2006. This proof of concept project is now concluded and the findings from it will be considered by the business and IT Directorates for potential use in future information sharing opportunities.
Criminal History Replacement Project
This project will move the applications that are hosted on the SCRO mainframes, which are licensed by a third party provider, to a modern, supportable infrastructure. They key mainframe application is the Criminal History System ( CHS) which provides a record of Scottish criminal records and is used by the police forces and agencies (e.g. MOD, Passport Office). It provides interfaces to a number of third party systems including the Police National Computer ( PNC) system, the Courts and Fiscal services, Disclosure Scotland and the DVLA. The principal business benefit of the replacement is a reduction in hardware support and maintenance costs.
Human Resources
SPIS is working to develop a national e- HR system to enable standardisation of HR practices throughout Scottish Police forces. The project will facilitate one time updating of records, providing a base to populate several common databases and systems such as Training and Duty Rostering, and will interface with other operational police systems.
Performance Management Platform
Further reform and modernisation of the Scottish Police force, is being driven forward through the Common Performance Management Platform for the Police Service in Scotland. Funded in the region of £5.4 million by the Scottish Executive's Efficient Government and Reform Fund the project is being taken forward and sponsored by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland.
The aim of the project is to, by early 2008, deliver a common performance management platform for the use of all police forces in Scotland that can be used to extract information from legacy systems, collect it into a data warehouse or similar and provide a flexible, customable and comprehensive user interface and reporting system.
In addition the scalable design of the system means that more information and partners are addable whenever required and as such the final element of the project will see engagement with criminal justice and community planning partners to look at performance across joint areas of responsibility. Similarly the project will also offer an opportunity to host a virtual national performance and information network and eventually provide the public access to information via the Internet.
The project is an excellent example of how joined up approach can not only improve efficiency and productivity but also drive up quality of services by focusing on the end user and ensuring strong accountability both internal and the public.
Criminal Justice
Efficient support systems are also key to delivering an effective legal system. Through the Scottish Criminal Justice Information Systems ( ISCJIS) ( http://www.scro.police.uk/iscjis.htm) programme we have joined all criminal justice agencies IT systems together, and we will use this to enhance the efficiency of the system, as well as piloting new facilities for the electronic presentation of evidence, and rolling-out video links from courts to prisons. We are working with interests to set up local partnerships to take forward the justice programme at grass roots level.
ISCJIS
The Integration of Scottish Criminal Justice Information Systems ( ISCJIS) programme is a joint initiative by the major criminal justice agencies. ISCJIS is not a new criminal computer system, but rather a series of IT links between the various systems of the Scottish criminal justice organisations.
The objective of the ISCJIS programme is to allow communication between the IT systems of the various Scottish Criminal Justice Organisations ( SCJOs), so that agreed information can be passed electronically from one organisation to another without sacrificing confidentiality.
There are four key quality of service benefits from ISCJIS:
Data can be transferred electronically and instantly between the various organisations. As an example, a link between the court and the prison would allow the prison to know who and how many convicted persons have been sentenced to prison, before they arrive from court. This would allow earlier checks for risk assessment and safety factors.
The present paper transfers of data are vulnerable to errors. Automatic transfer of data between computers will only be wrong if the original data are wrong. In addition, the availability of more up to date information will assist the decision-making processes throughout the criminal justice system.
- Improved efficiency in the use of staff
No longer will data required to be "keyed in" several times: it will follow cases automatically from original report to final disposal and recording. A reduction in the time spent on paper handling (particularly where documents have traditionally been delivered by hand) will release staff for more productive tasks.
- Improved access to information
The development of inter-agency links has involved the ISCJIS partners in developing common reference numbers, which will allow the progress of individual cases to be followed through the various stages (and agencies) of the criminal justice system. The use of these numbers will be vital when keeping the victims of crime informed of the progress and outcome of 'their' cases.
They will also help in the gathering of information from various sources, which is necessary, for example, in the preparation of social enquiry reports, and for statistical purposes.
Supporting Themes | Actions |
|---|
SPSA | SID | ANPR | HLIMS | SHRP | HR | ISCJIS |
|---|
Key Principles of Reform | User focus personalised | v | v | v | v | v | v | v |
Drive up quality and innovation | v | | | | | | |
Improve efficiency and productivity | v | v | v | v | v | v | v |
Be joined up | v | v | | v | v | v | v |
Ensure strong accountability | v | | | v | v | | v |
Partnership Agreement | Supporting stronger, safer communities | v | v | v | | v | | v |
Growing the economy | | | | | | | |
Delivering excellent public services | v | v | v | v | v | | v |
Developing a confident democratic Scotland | | | | | | | v |
Closing the Opportunity Gap | | | | | | | |
Sustainable Development | | | | | | | |
Useful Links:
Scottish Executive Justice Department
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice
Scottish Police Information Strategy
http://www.spis.police.uk/
Scottish Intelligence Database ( SID)
http://www.spis.police.uk/sid.html
Scottish Criminal Justice Information Systems
http://www.scro.police.uk/iscjis.htm
Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland
http://www.scottish.police.uk/main/acpos/acpos.htm