The £1 billion IT project that has caused chaos in the criminal courts

Between 2010 and 2015 the Ministry of Justice endured amongst the deepest cuts of any government department. Yet even as over £2 billion was saved by closing courts, cutting legal aid and allowing prisons to become dangerous, rat-infested, spice-ridden hell-holes, the Ministry of Justice was powering ahead with a £1 billion plan to ‘digitise’ the court system.

Unlike the cockroaches crawling along the prison landings it sounded slick and modern, and to some extent it was successful. Most criminal case ‘papers’ are now accessible electronically, a considerable convenience to all concerned, though advocates usually prefer – at their own expense – to print out hard copies for use in court. Defendants in custody routinely appear by video-link (similar to a Skype call), at least at pre-trial hearings, and often for sentence too. Communications between the CPS, defence lawyers and the courts and police are sent by what is optimistically described as ‘secure’ email.