Digital

An Update on the Information Sharing Transformation Programme

July 29, 2016 by admin No Comments | Category Digital Scotland

We held a Show and Tell on Friday 22 July to give an update on the Information Sharing national transformation programme led by the Digital Ecosystem Unit (DEU).  We are focusing on the justice sector and working with the Criminal Justice Delivery Unit as our first delivery partner.  Our work supports the aim to have modern, user-focused Justice systems by driving better information sharing and enabling collaboration amongst individuals and organisations.  We recognise that finding a way to automate information sharing will improve productivity, increase efficiency and raise the standard of service for citizens.

Our Discovery Team is led by the DEU and consists of business analysts and a user researcher with support from an experienced digital consultant.  Currently, the team is working to understand user needs so that we can identify the common business capabilities that will provide the technical building blocks needed to allow one organisation to share their information with partners in a single and easy way.  This work is being strengthened with financial data to identify the costs of delay and workarounds that are common across the different organisations.

We recently held a user needs workshop with representatives from Police Scotland, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscals Office, Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service, Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration and a Defence Agent to understand how key individuals get specific information to do their jobs.  We know from earlier work that criminal justice processes are complex and can be subject to delay when seeking essential information for business decisions.  Our plan is to propose an alpha service that will test if automated requests for access to information can work.  However, it is essential that this model works for the whole of the Scottish public sector and the common business capabilities we’ll build for justice partners will be reused by other organisations in different parts of the public sector.  

The link to the Evidence and Procedure Review led by Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service is clear.  The Discovery Team is already sharing our process mapping and user needs insights with the review team.  Modernisation of the courts procedures starting in the Evidence and Procedure Review will be central to how information sharing between criminal justice partner organisations works in future.  Our prototype service will support the outcomes from the review.

Continuing involvement from people working in different parts of the criminal justice system, including more Defence Agents, is essential as we make progress.  Please contact us at deu@.gov.scot if you are keen to be involved and help ensure information sharing will work for you.

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