‘Loss of momentum’ at criminal-justice hub
A report from the State’s spending watchdog has found that a project aimed at collecting data from the criminal-justice sector centrally in the Department of Justice is currently on hold – mainly due to data-protection concerns.
The (C&AG) examines the operation of the Criminal Justice Operational Hub, which was set up in 2015 to co-ordinate activities and processes across the criminal-justice system.
‘Strand 1’ of its planned activities involved the plan to centrally collect data from An Garda Síochána, the Courts Service, the Irish Prison Service, and the Probation Service.
‘Strand 2’ covered the development of data exchanges to enable the automated transfer of data across participating agencies operating in the criminal-justice sector.
GDPR challenges
The watchdog’s report has found that GDPR issues are presenting “significant challenges” for the department in relation to the first strand.
“The department stated that it has not been in a position to address the issues to date, resulting in significant delays and a reduced scope for strand 1,” the C&AG report states.
A ‘person-search’ project – aimed at allowing an authorised user to search for an individual and review their records – was removed from the programme in 2021.
‘Strand 2’ projects
The watchdog also examines two projects in strand 2 – including a collaboration between the gardaí and the Courts Service to facilitate the electronic transfer of charge sheets and station-bail information from the gardaí PULSE system to the courts body’s Criminal Case Tracking System (CCTS).
The C&AG found that this resulted in “a significant reduction in Courts Service staff time required to create cases on the CCTS system”.
A second project to automate the transfer of court lists from the Courts Service to the Irish Prison Service (IPS) also led to a reduction in time spent by IPS staff in manually checking court lists.
The report, however, describes the level of progress made on strand 2 projects as “mixed”, with many of the initial projects accepted for consideration in 2017 not yet started.
“As a result, it is unlikely that the hub will achieve its ultimate objective of an effective criminal-justice system that enables end-to-end management of cases in the short to medium term,” the C&AG states.
Weaknesses
The report also finds that no centralised record of the costs incurred on projects by all project partners has been maintained.
“Therefore, the total cost of the hub and its projects is not known,” it states.
The report also finds that there are still weaknesses in project planning and management.
The C&AG says that an annual project ‘charter’ is key to keeping the project’s board updated, but adds that updates “appear to be minimal since 2020”.
“This, combined with the fact that only four projects have been completed since 2017, may indicate a loss of momentum in the programme and the loss of potential net economic benefits from deployment and use of improved technology,” the report states.