Reflections on Justice Transformation: Lessons from Nearly a Decade

Henry Rex, Opencast Government Relations Director, reflects on nearly a decade of attending the Modernising Criminal Justice Conference, exploring what’s changed, what hasn't and what it means for organisations working to transform justice services.

A chance to share lessons learned

Last month, I attended the annual Modernising Criminal Justice Conference at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, alongside colleagues from across Opencast.

I first attended the conference in 2017 and, in 2018, I was immensely privileged to chair it.

Attending for the first time with Opencast prompted me to reflect on how the conversations, themes and challenges have evolved over the past decade.

Person standing in a red-framed meeting booth with arms crossed.

Plus ça change…

In my opening remarks in 2018, I cited the maxim ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ The Secret Barrister’s first book had recently been published: a fascinating, well-articulated, and alarming account of the challenges in the criminal justice system. It described how across the system, and particularly in the courts, victims, defendants, offenders and practitioners were being let down by delays and inefficiencies.

Speeches and conversations over the course of the day centred on the role of technology in helping to drive down those delays, reducing the administrative burden on frontline staff, tackling alarmingly high reoffending rates, and how better handling of digital evidence could increase early guilty pleas.

We spoke about putting the user at the heart of the system and discussed how individuals, on the whole, don’t care if they’re talking to HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or any other part of the justice system. Instead, they just see ‘the state’, and it was incumbent on everyone in the room to help ensure they had a seamless journey across the system.

A great deal of the conversation also focused on interoperability and data: how by reducing silos in the system, we could overcome organisational boundaries, generate insights and intelligence to intervene to prevent crime, reduce reoffending, and ensure empathetic, supportive experiences for victims.

Many of the themes discussed in 2018 continue to shape conversations today. There has been a drop in guilty pleas. Caseloads across the courts remain under significant pressure, with backlogs continuing to present a major challenge. The administrative burden on staff is far too high (one speaker spoke powerfully about the effect that logging into 20 systems and rekeying information has on their staff, who end up spending around 50% of their time on admin rather than the critical work they should be doing). Victims are still being impacted by delays. Join-up across the system is not what it should be, nor is the user experience. Sir Brian Leveson's recent report was referenced heavily by several speakers.

Reasons to be cheerful

The above is fairly sobering and gives attendees like us (suppliers helping to drive transformation across the justice system) cause for reflection. But it also serves to illustrate how deeply entrenched some of these challenges are and so makes the positives and progress that has been made all the more impressive and worthy of celebration. And there certainly were plenty of positives.

Even some of the similarities with 2018 were positive. Back then, I was struck at the quality of the leadership across the justice system trying to drive this transformation. I remember being hugely impressed by speeches from Jerome Glass (Ministry of Justice), Tom Read (Ministry of Justice) and Mark Gray (Crown Prosecution Service) to name but three.

This year was no different – Mark Thompson, Dame Vera Baird, Kamal Bal, Mark Stanley, and Sarah Blake were just some of the impressive speakers who proved that this sector is able to attract top talent. The expertise from civil servants, practitioners and suppliers in the room was heartening. It’s clear that a lot of great people are devoting incredible energy to these challenges, which gives me optimism that we’ll crack them.

Another positive similarity with 2018 was the undiminished enthusiasm for the mission. It was clear that all those in the room felt pride to be working in this sector, felt privileged to be working on issues that can have such a positive impact on our society. We’re all there to try to make things better. The conference has a real strength in bringing together digital leaders with frontline practitioners, ensuring that all conversations remain grounded in reality, real-world challenges and pragmatic solutions. And it also serves to ensure that everyone is reminded of why we all love working in this space.

The positives are by no means limited to what has remained great since 2018. The real cause for optimism is the progress that has been made in various areas. Clear strides are being made in joining up and harnessing data. The Core Person Record is ensuring that the justice system has a single view of a person, one single source of truth.

The conversation about AI has of course matured dramatically – AI is already helping to drive improvement in various areas across the justice system. We need to keep working to ensure the data is there to help supercharge that progress and the mechanisms are there to help share innovations across the system while ensuring AI use remains human-centred and ethical.

Digital has long been seen as absolutely critical to the success of transformation efforts across justice. But perhaps one of the more interesting areas of progress is the evident acknowledgement that that alone it isn’t enough. The age-old adage that people and processes are central to these transformation efforts still rings true, and lots of the conversations at the conference were around how to lead people through these changes to drive adoption, foster innovation, and evolve the business processes that must adapt to enable these goals.

So, lots has been done, and there remains much to do.

Ultimately, we came away enthused by the progress that has been made, determined to help tackle the thorny areas where significant challenges remain, and reinvigorated about the importance of this mission. The pressures on the system are intense, but the skills and appetite to address them are more than a match. Justice delayed is justice denied – and all of us at the conference, civil servants and suppliers alike, know the part we have to play in ensuring our citizens are not denied justice.

Justice transformation is a long-term endeavour, and progress depends on collaboration across government, delivery partners and the wider justice community. If you'd like to continue the conversation, I'd be pleased to hear from you. Please get in touch: henry.rex@opencastsoftware.com