Capgemini seals £12m justiciary contract

ONE of the biggest IT contracts ever awarded by Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) has been secured by the consultancy firm, Capgemini.

The five-year deal to manage and develop the service's core IT systems is expected to be worth up to 12 million over the length of the contract.

It includes the case management system used by COPFS to pursue some 300,000 criminal prosecutions and suspicious deaths every year.

The contract involves improving the availability, reliability and cost-effectiveness of the existing system ahead of delivering a new, faster service which is now under development.

The COPFS case management system is central to every criminal prosecution mounted in Scotland, used by 500 COPFS lawyers and 1,000 administrative staff across 47 sites.

It exchanges data with external systems to support the Scottish police forces, courts, victim support groups, defence lawyers, and UK and international security and law enforcement agencies.

John McHale, business development manager for the criminal justice sector at Capgemini Scotland, said: "We are privileged to be entrusted with the system that is central to the effective delivery of justice to the citizens of Scotland."

Capgemini employs about 900 staff at its offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Nairn.