2.5 Libra7 is intended to put in place a national standard IT system across the Magistrates' Courts Committees. The aim is to meet all the current requirements of the magistrates' courts service and to allow future development and enhancement within the wider criminal justice system. The objectives of the project are set out in Figure 7.
2.6 The Statement of Business Requirement was a high-level specification for infrastructure and bespoke software. The Department wanted Libra to have at least the functionality of the extant legacy systems and considerably more was included. Users drew up the functional requirements within the Statement of Business Requirement. In August 1996 the Department established a user board representing the many organisations involved in magistrates' courts functions. The Department supplemented the Statement of Business Requirement with supporting material.
2.7 The Department appointed legal, financial and contract advisers. During the procurement the Department spent £75,700 on legal advice from Bird & Bird against a budget of £75,000 and £51,400 on financial advice from Hambros against a budget of £50,000. These advisers were appointed after competition. The Department did not employ any information systems or IT advisers but employed external specialists from Kermon as part of the team. These specialists cost £450,000 against a budget of £205,000, reflecting the extended procurement timescales. The technical assessment of the bids was done in-house. During the renegotiations of the contract, the Department spent £132,900 on legal advice from Bird & Bird, and £193,700 on financial advice from Ernst and Young.
2.8 The procurement took over two years and not the 14 months originally envisaged. The Department initiated the procurement in October 1996 but the contract was not signed until December 1998 (Figure 8). The three main reasons for the procurement timetable being longer than expected were: the time needed to get full involvement and agreement of users to the Statement of Business Requirement from the then 96 Magistrates' Courts Committees; the time taken to get complete and satisfactory descriptions of each bidders' solution and plans; and the winning bidder (ICL) delaying contract signature through revising its bid.
7 |
| The objectives of the Libra project |
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| 1. To achieve common standards of practice in relation to: the general management of magistrates' courts and their administration; case data; case management; accounting and enforcement procedures; management information and financial controls; and to ensure the effective and efficient operation of magistrates' courts. 2. To enable courts to process cases as rapidly and efficiently as possible with due regard to the overriding considerations of quality of justice, the statutory obligations of courts and good practice. 3. To enable Magistrates' Courts Committees to reduce, as far as practicable, delays to members of the public and to representatives of other organisations. 4. To enable courts to meet their statutory obligations for accurate record keeping in as efficient a manner as possible. 5. To enable courts to manage their statutory accounting functions more efficiently and effectively. 6. To standardise the facilities and increase the scope for electronic interchange of data between the magistrates' courts and other organisations, to avoid unnecessary repetition of data input procedures and reduce delays. 7. To provide functionality which exceeds that of present systems and includes the additional requirements stated in the statement of business requirement, without a reduction in efficiency. 8. To provide a basis for more flexible contingency planning. 9. To provide greater resilience in systems with an improved capability to deal with disaster recovery. 10. To provide economies of scale in training requirements and to increase the potential for mobility and interchange of staff by reducing the need for retraining at new sites. 11. To promote the smooth introduction of new functions and procedures resulting from changes in legislation, case law or policy. 12. To provide a migration path by automatic transfer of data from existing computer systems. 13. To provide for automated management and official statistical information. 14. To provide a standard terminology/glossary of terms in order to help support common practice. Source: Lord Chancellor's Department. Statement of Business Requirements, 1997 |
8 |
| Comparison of planned and actual procurement timetable | |||
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| Stage | Planned (as at February 1997) | Planned (as at October 1997) | Actual timetable achieved |
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| Business prospectus | November 1996 to January 1997 | November 1996 to January 1997 | November 1996 to January 1997 |
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| Due diligence | February 1997 to June 1997 | February 1997 to October 1997 | February 1997 to October 1997 |
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| Contract specification and negotiation | July 1997 to November 1997 | November 1997 to February 1998 | November 1997 to April 1998 |
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| Tender | November 1997 to December 1997 | March 1998 to June 1998 | May 1998 to October 1998 |
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| Further negotiations | - | - | October 1998 to December 1998 |
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| Contract signature | December 1997 | June 1998 | December 1998 |
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| Source: Lord Chancellor's Department | |||
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7 Libra means the project to deliver national standard information systems services to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the administration and management of magistrates' courts.