The Implementation of the National Probation Service Information Systems Strategy

Home Office The Implemetatio of the Natioal Probatio Service Iformatio Systems Strategy REPORT BY THE COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL HC 401 Sessio 2000-2001: 26 April 2001 LONDON: The Statioery Office 0.00 Ordered by the House of Commos to be prited o 23 April 2001

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL PROBATION SERVICE INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGY executive summary 1 I 1993 the Natioal Probatio Service Iformatio Systems Strategy (NPSISS) was established to achieve a commo high quality iformatio techology ifrastructure across all of the probatio services i Eglad ad Wales. The iitial atioal programme was for the provisio of a atioal computer ifrastructure (comprisig persoal computers, operatig software ad a commuicatios etwork supported by commo servers) ad a case recordig ad maagemet system (CRAMS). The implemetatio programme was maaged by the Home Office s Probatio Uit. Bull Iformatio Systems Limited, the mai cotractor, operates uder a eablig agreemet, siged i December 1994, to istall the ifrastructure ad CRAMS, ad provide a maaged service. The agreemet with Bull is due to ed i December 2001. The cost of implemetig the strategy over 10 years was projected to be 97 millio. Roll out of the NPSISS ifrastructure bega i 1995 ad was scheduled to be completed by March 1999. 2 Her Majesty s Ispectorate of Probatio carried out a thematic ispectio of probatio services use of iformatio, icludig the progress made i the implemetatio of the NPSISS strategy. The Ispectorate s report "Usig Iformatio ad Techology to Improve Probatio Service Performace" was published i October 2000. The Ispectorate idetified weakesses i the iformatio available to probatio staff ad i the IT systems ad cocluded that the Home Office eeded to make very sigificat improvemets to give probatio services the IT systems ad support they eeded. 3 The Natioal Audit Office collaborated with the Probatio Ispectorate i its work. This report presets the results of the Natioal Audit Office s further examiatio of what lessos could be leared from the Home Office s maagemet of the NPSISS ad CRAMS programme. executive summary 1

Key fidigs By the ed of March 2001 the NPSISS computer etwork covered 49 out of the 54 local probatio services. From 1 April 2001 there is a ew Natioal Probatio Service with 42 local areas of which 38 have access to the NPSISS etwork. Give that the etwork was itroduced ito autoomous ad locally maaged services, this was a otable achievemet. The ifrastructure has led to improved commuicatio withi ad betwee probatio services. Liks with the Home Office ad the systems of other crimial justice agecies have yet to be made. The CRAMS case maagemet system was itroduced i 39 out of the 54 probatio services, ad is used substatially by 16 of these, represetig oly 20 per cet of the probatio service budget. CRAMS has proved difficult to use, ad its developmet, oversee by the Home Office, did ot keep pace i all respects with chagig busiess requiremets. As a result of the limitatios with CRAMS the Home Office has suspeded its further developmet except for essetial maiteace of the software. The full ecoomic cost of the NPSISS ifrastructure, support ad CRAMS is expected to be at least 118 millio by the ed of 2001, which would be 70 per cet at costat prices above the expediture forecast i the Home Office s origial busiess case for the same time period. The eablig agreemet with Bull is largely ope eded, with additioal expediture commitmets beig made as ad whe required. Poor specificatio of expected outputs, weakesses i service moitorig ad iadequate cotrol by the Home Office over the issue of purchase orders cotributed to the higher tha expected cost of the programme. Sice early 2000, the Home Office has held back its pursuit of IT developmet work because of cocers as to whether ew purchase orders uder its eablig agreemet with Bull would meet Europea public procuremet requiremets. The itroductio of a atioal ifrastructure ad case maagemet system was always likely to preset a sigificat maagemet challege. However, the Home Office s programme maagemet team suffered from a lack of cotiuity i its leadership ad was ot fully resourced to deal with the scale of the issues facig it. I its first seve years, for example, the programme team had seve programme directors. I terms of day to day project maagemet, we foud that resposibilities were ot always clear, ad that commuicatio betwee the Home Office ad the services was ot always effective. The Home Office has already recogised some of these issues ad the Iformatio ad Techology Group for the ew Natioal Probatio Service is plaed to have a complemet of aroud 50 staff compared to the previous effective complemet of 12.5. The detailed fidigs ad lessos leared from the study are set out below. O istallig NPSISS 2execuitve summary 4 By the ed of 2000 the NPSISS etwork exteded across 47 out of 54 probatio services, coverig 87 per cet of the premises withi the etworked areas; ad it was rolled out to a further two services by the ed of March 2001. The coverage of the etwork will become icreasigly importat with the creatio of a uified Natioal Probatio Service for Eglad ad Wales i April 2001. The Home Office told us that it remaied committed to extedig NPSISS across all probatio services but, as at February 2001, had yet to make the ecessary arragemets.

5 Forty two of the 47 probatio services o NPSISS by the ed of 2000 reported to us that NPSISS had brought improvemets i commuicatios withi their areas. NPSISS has ot yet delivered the plaed ew liks with other crimial justice iformatio systems. This was partly because CRAMS had ot bee adopted by all services ad partly because of delays i the developmet of iformatio systems by other crimial justice orgaisatios. NPSISS has ot provided iteret access ad exteral e-mail services. The progress of these ad other developmets has bee affected by the Home Office s decisio ot to let ew purchase orders uder the eablig agreemet with Bull because of cocers as to whether this would be i compliace with Europea public procuremet requiremets. 6 The Home Office promoted but did ot actively moitor other beefits from the NPSISS programme, icludig busiess chage i the probatio services. As a result, it is ot possible to quatify the busiess beefits derived from the itroductio of these systems. Costs ad achievemets have ot bee moitored agaist projectios i the origial busiess case. For the future 7 At the ed of 1999 the Home Office started reviewig the IT strategy for the probatio service ad i July 2000 it drew up a recovery programme to address challeges throw up by the NPSISS programme. The ew Iformatio Systems Programme Board, which is resposible for defiig the IT requiremets of the ew Natioal Probatio Service ad overseeig their implemetatio, is takig this work forward. The ew IT strategy work makes a commitmet to develop further the atioal systems ad to achieve liks with other crimial justice agecies. We recommed: the Home Office esures that the atioal etwork is completed ad exteded to the atioal directorate to provide a backboe for the operatio ad accoutability of the ew Natioal Probatio Service; the Natioal Probatio Service esures that its ew iformatio strategy is firmly liked with the Service s busiess strategy ad that performace o IT is reviewed at least aually, i full cosultatio with the services; ad the Natioal Probatio Service takes every opportuity, o future IT developmet, to re-egieer existig admiistrative systems to eable the full busiess beefits of IT to be achieved. O the problems with CRAMS 8 Users have foud CRAMS difficult to operate. Cosultats commissioed by the board overseeig the programme reported that the user iterface cotaied defects that compromised the ability of users to perform their work. The Home Office did ot esure that the developmet of CRAMS kept pace i all respects with chagig busiess eeds, for istace it does ot provide local probatio services with direct access to operatioal data held by other areas i order to help i the trasfer of case iformatio, or does it provide a atioal database to support ew local procedures to improve the maagemet of high-risk offeders. Geerally services were havig to rely o paper files, card idexes ad registers to retai ad access iformatio o offeders presetig a risk of harm to the public. The Chief Ispector of Probatio has commeted that this lack of IT had ot compromised public safety or put staff at risk. executive summary 3

9 The developmet of CRAMS was based o software operatig i some probatio areas. The Home Office uderestimated the techical risks associated with trasferrig a existig system oto the NPSISS etwork. The poor user iterface of CRAMS was evidet from a early stage, alog with the other techical problems ad faults which had ot bee resolved by iitial testig. I July 1996, a review commissioed by the Home Office from a IT cosultat from the Cetral Computer ad Telecommuicatios Agecy oted several risks. I the cosultat s view, acceptace ad pilot testig of CRAMS suffered from a lack of clear directio, criteria to measure success, ad coordiatio. Eve if formally accepted, the cosultat thought that the system s acceptability ad usability were ukow. The Home Office team sought to address these problems but did ot prevet the roll out of poor quality software. 10 The requiremet for CRAMS to produce reports for maagemet purposes was ot adequately specified at the start of the project, or was a subsequet requiremet from the Home Office for Bull to develop stadard reports usig specialist software, kow as GQL, which extracts data from databases. The Probatio Ispectorate foud that services had to ivest their ow resources to make the GQL software work satisfactorily. GQL had bee istalled i 46 services by early 2000. 11 The Home Office iitially expected that CRAMS would cost some 4 millio but it ow estimates it will have cost almost 11 millio at costat prices by December 2001, icludig the costs of work to esure year 2000 compliace ad the costs of the additioal reportig tool. Durig the course of the NPSISS programme probatio services o the NPSISS etwork spet early 1.2 millio o the purchase ad developmet of supplemetary software to record ad maage cases. The five services still ot o NPSISS have spet additioal resources developig their alterative case maagemet system. They estimate they have spet some 350,000 o developmet work ad a further 30,000 a year supportig it. I total some 27 probatio services are developig or usig alterative computerised systems for recordig or maagig case details. This positio has resulted i case records beig held i a umber of differet formats, creatig problems for the trasfer of cases 4execuitve summary

betwee services. A major challege for ay ew atioal case maagemet system will be the eed to maage the migratio of iformatio from existig systems. For the future 12 Curret plas propose a modular approach to addressig the eeds for case maagemet software, utilisig systems developed by local services ad itroducig a ew atioal case idex. We recommed the Natioal Probatio Service: develops proper user specificatios for case maagemet systems to succeed CRAMS, buildig o curret experiece ad reflectig clear statemets of the busiess objectives ad requiremets for the ew atioal service i particular, it should address their usability ad their ability to produce maagemet iformatio; esures that proposals for ay ew atioal case maagemet system, or ay other major techical developmets, are subject to a full evaluatio of the likely techical risks before goig ahead; esures that the orgaisatioal implicatios of ay future IT developmets are properly evaluated ad that there is full user ivolvemet, with effective maagemet arragemets to esure that issues arisig at local level ca be fed back quickly to appropriate cotacts withi both the Home Office ad the supplier; esures that there are effective arragemets for keepig the service iformed of progress agaist targets i the strategy; explores the best cotractual optios for developig software to succeed CRAMS ad, i adoptig a modular approach, to esure that a strog overall desig is developed so that the modules fit together well; ad esures that test plas, with clear objectives ad criteria for determiig success, are formally agreed with suppliers prior to startig the desig ad developmet of ew software. executive summary 5

O the cotract with Bull 13 The Home Office s cotract with Bull was draw up i the form of a eablig agreemet. It provides for the Home Office ad probatio services to take out purchase orders from a specified rage of products ad services at prices set out i schedules to the agreemet. The performace of Bull was ot maaged effectively. Moitorig of service levels agaist the eablig agreemet was sporadic; ad performace agaist the service level agreemet, ot agreed util 1998, was ot moitored systematically. 14 The Home Office raised a total of 69 purchase orders betwee December 1994 ad March 2000 ad cosultats commissioed by the Home Office cocluded i 1998 that there were uecessary orders, duplicatio ad overlap, ad a risk of overpaymet. To ratioalise the situatio the Home Office egotiated with Bull a cosolidated purchase order for support ad maiteace at a cost of 5.4 millio a year with effect from 1 April 2000. The Home Office Audit ad Assurace Uit cocluded that there had bee sigificat iadequacies i the egotiatio of the cosolidated purchase order. The purchase order specifies the resources Bull is to use to support NPSISS rather tha deliverables, leavig value for moey at risk. I recogitio of this the Home Office has itroduced tighter service delivery maagemet procedures. 15 Sice November 1999 the Home Office has had cocers about whether lettig ew purchase orders uder its eablig agreemet with Bull would comply with the competitio requiremets uder Europea Public Procuremet Directives. Legal advice received by the Home Office suggests that ay ew purchase orders raised uder the eablig agreemet are ulawful. The Home Office has ow cocluded that over the remaiig period of the Bull agreemet, up to December 2001, ay IT developmet work which is eeded, ad which caot be delivered by Bull withi the terms of the cosolidated support ad maiteace agreemet, would have to be procured through separate legal agreemets. 16 Failure by the Home Office to prioritise the ecessary preparatory work has cotributed to delay i establishig a ew strategic partership to follow the ed of the eablig agreemet with Bull i December 2001. As a result the Home Office is likely to have to bear additioal costs from a proposed separate iterim cotract after the expiry of the curret eablig agreemet. The work to maage this iterim cotract is kow as the first phase procuremet project. O the other had, the Home Office cosiders that this delay has brought the advatage of allowig the ew atioal probatio service busiess strategy ad chage programme to be specified more defiitively before key decisios are take o the strategic cotract. For the future 6execuitve summary 17 The pla beig take forward by the Iformatio Systems Programme Board stresses the importace of tighter supplier maagemet ad sets expectatios for the procuremet of the first phase ad subsequet strategic cotracts to follow o from the eablig agreemet with Bull. We recommed the Natioal Probatio Service: agrees with Bull specific deliverables for the remaider of the cotract to esure that it gets value from the support ad maiteace agreemet;

esures that its future IT cotracts are ot ope eded ad crucial elemets ot left to post-cotract egotiatios they should be based o a clear specificatio of the expected outputs ad quality of service ad should esure that appropriate cotract risks are bore by the cotractor; ad esures that it effectively maages its suppliers, ivolvig systematic ad strategic moitorig of cotract performace. O the skills ad resources of the maagemet team: 18 Over the course of the project, from 1993 to the ed of 2000 there have bee seve programme directors i charge of the NPSISS programme, of whom oly two had sigificat experiece of maagig major IT projects. The programme maagemet team also suffered frequet chages of staff. Techical experts ad specialists withi the team teded to be cosultats workig o short term assigmets. 19 From 1996 the project maagemet cotrols ad reportig arragemets were based o the PRINCE 2 project maagemet methodology. But the maagemet structure did ot iclude a project assurace fuctio. Furthermore, formal project maagemet methods were ot embedded firmly i workig practices ad they fell ito disuse. 20 I Jauary 2000 cosultats reported to the Home Office that its Iformatio Services capability was badly uder-resourced with misaliged skills, ad that this was exposig the Home Office ad probatio services to sigificat busiess risk. For the future 21 The Home Office has recruited a ew Head of IT for the Natioal Probatio Service. His maagemet team will comprise a Head of IT Strategy, Head of Service Maagemet ad a Head of Programme Maagemet ad he will have a complemet of some 50 staff. The Home Office has agreed that project assurace will be a priority, ad has appoited a experieced cosultat to provide quality assurace for the first phase procuremet project. We recommed that the Natioal Probatio Service: pays full regard to recet recommedatios made by the Committee of Public Accouts ad the Cabiet Office relatig to the maagemet of IT projects; udertakes a full risk assessmet of its ew Iformatio Systems Strategy ad itroduces proper risk maagemet procedures; provides for greater cotiuity of leadership for its IT programme ad adequate staffig; ad esures that the project maagemet team reflects a appropriate balace betwee the advatages gaied from usig secodees ad the eed for project experiece ad cotiuity. Timely ad appropriate traiig should be provided to project maagemet staff whe ecessary. executive summary 7

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