Significant changes are underway at the Ministry of Justice, where the development of a common IT platform to integrate all of the department’s business and technology systems began in 2014.
The MoJ announced major plans to update and consolidate its range of legacy systems roughly 12 months ago, but it is a complex task. First, the sheer scale of the ministry’s administrative workload means there is a little room for error. The Crown Prosecution Service deals with more than 800,000 annual cases and there are two million proceedings overseen by HM Courts & Tribunals Service each year (a workload that existing systems were struggling to manage). Secondly, the work of the MoJ is intertwined with many partner organisations and there is a diverse range of stakeholders to consider.
To support the integration and upgrading project, the MoJ project management office procured Kahootz’s cloud collaboration software via the G-Cloud. In less than two weeks, it was used to create a project extranet that brought 250 PMO team members together with advisers, independent experts and the IT specialists of partner organisations.
Stakeholder engagement and knowledge sharing
Today, this extranet provides a secure online workspace in which the MoJ project team are able to carry out stakeholder engagement activities, share knowledge and manage project resources. It is used to support the procurement function within the MoJ, with shared workspaces meaning that lessons learnt are always retained and applied by team members to the next stage of the process. The result is greater efficiency and visible cost savings in almost every aspect of project activity.
Kahootz’s flexible and transparent cloud licensing also provides clear benefits for the MoJ. The modernisation of the ministry’s IT infrastructure is a long-term project and as workloads fluctuate, the team can easily scale user numbers up or down.
Although it is still phasing out paper-based processes in favour of digital channels, the MoJ has a reputation in government for innovative thinking. In 2012, it became the first department to sign up for the early deployment of the Public Services Network. With its use of Kahootz as a project extranet and cost-effective collaboration workspace, the ministry has further enhanced its innovation credentials.
