Image source: GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has awarded Accenture the contract to digitise the jury bundle of evidence used in court cases.
They have agreed on a deal valued at £48.7 million and set to run until the end of this year under the Digital Jurys Bundle project.
This is aimed at providing jury members with a digitised version of evidence, presented to them on the first day of a standard trial, that can be accessed on a tablet computer.
These have been used effectively in some more complex trials and the CPS has indicated it now wants this to become normal practice for all cases.
Remaining paper process
Last year Max Hill QC, director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, said this was one of the last elements of the criminal justice process that is paper based.
“Paper jury bundles are out of step with the modern, ‘digital first’ justice system that we want to build,” he said in a blogpost. “They are costly from an environmental, financial and resource perspective, and make flexibly rescheduling cases at short notice very difficult.
“We are therefore working with partners across HMCTS and the judiciary to trial a digital solution, whereby the jury will access their bundle on a tablet.”
He added that accessibility and security will be among the priorities in developing the bundles.
