CPS to go paperless

The Director of Public Prosecutions has committed to making the Crown Prosecution Service entirely digital by April 2012.

Keir Starmer QC has said that the criminal justice system needs to move away from paper-based systems and transform the way criminal cases are handled. By April 2012, information will be passed digitally from the police to the CPS and sent over secure email to the defence.

The CPS is already moving forward using technology to prosecute. For example; the early guilty plea pilot in Liverpool, in which files are presented digitally; Winchester Crown court, where evidence is presented on laptops in court; and Dyfed Powys, where advanced information is served electronically.

Alex Marshall, Chief Constable of Hampshire Police also highlighted that courts becoming paperless would save police time, as Police Officers could take evidence electronically using iPads or Blackberrys and those files could be sent straight to the court.

An Inquest, at Winchester Crown Court is currently relying on a photocopy with some pages missing. The inquest heard the document was given to the Independent Police Complaints Commission on the day of the crime, but the police watchdog has been unable to find it.

This substantial change in methods is going to involve considerable process change in the submission of evidence; from hand written statements, forms, emails, word processed documents, photographic evidence and police incident notes. However the benefits easily out-weigh the cost of change.

Where documents were previously photocopied many times for the distribution and sharing of evidence and case notes, this will be replaced by converting paper files – e.g. written and signed statements- to image. Similarly the addition of native files such as MS Word documents, XML based electronic forms and photographs and videos (in many formats) all need to be captured and stored.

But conversion is not enough, since each item has to be suitably and accurately classified and identified and easily retrievable in court. Not only does the Judge, Defence and Prosecution need to be able to find, view and identify key documents and phrases, but the jurors may also need to simultaneously be able to access the same information. So this requires new ways to present evidence and reports for analysis and assessment.

Furthermore, it may be necessary to ‘flag’ key documents for the jury to assess in their deliberations. But, on the contrary, there is no physical limit to the amount of information that can be accessed by both parties.

So, there is much to consider in this desire to migrate to digital working. All the above is deliverable with suitable process analysis and change management. This is already happening in the USA using our premier product OnBase. Here digitally collected evidence is directly up loaded to the case files.

This is the core business of ProcessFlows, where we continually take paper out of processes, making them far more efficient at the same time.

For more information please contact us on +44 (0) 1962 835053 or email enquiries@processflows.co.uk.