Application Development

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) is Scotland's national prosecution service.  It also investigates sudden and suspicious deaths, carries out independent inquiries into complaints of criminal misconduct by Police Officers, supervises charities, and administers property falling to the Crown.  As a department of the Scottish Government it shares the Government's aim to significantly decrease the requirement for paper-based systems to improve operational efficiency.

COPFS receives up to 300,000 cases for prosecution every year.  These are submitted from a wide range of sources referred to as Specialist Reporting Agencies (SRAs) of which there are currently over 50.

COPFS awarded Sopra Group the contract to build a secure web application to provide SRAs with the ability to submit relevant case details online.  The aim of the website was to remove the dependency on the paper-based system - and subsequently reduce the operational costs, timescales and risk associated with misplaced documentation.

Solution

The project called on a blend of development resources including both Microsoft and Oracle technologies as well as specialist testing and security consultants.  The scope of the project covered the analysis, design, build, system test and implementation of the secure website and ongoing support for 3 years. 

Working closely with COPFS's team, Sopra Group compiled a functional requirements document which ensured that the system was designed in accordance with the needs of the client and was easy to use.  Throughout the development phase the COPFS team were kept fully up-to-date with progress, to make sure that the emerging functionality and "look and feel" of the site were just as originally envisaged. 

Due to the sensitivity of the information being transmitted, securing the integrity of the data was critical.  In line with their development approach Sopra Group's security experts were fully involved in the design, build and test phases to ensure that all of the appropriate security measures were in place and designed into the application at the earliest stage. 

A full testing programme was specified at the beginning of the project, as rigorous testing was required to guarantee the functionality and quality of the system prior to launch.

The website was developed using both Microsoft and Oracle technologies and was designed to be accessible by all users and conform to the standards of W3C and the Disability Discrimination Act.  

Benefits

Sopra Group provided COPFS with a cost-effective and secure online system to enable the many SRAs to submit relevant case details online.  By receiving information electronically COPFS has been able to reduce operational costs and time by removing the dependency on the existing paper-based system.  

The new website is able to communicate with the existing online system for large SRAs and reuse the relevant static data which has helped to reduce data entry errors and ensure successful validation of transmitted data. 

The technology used to build the system is flexible enough that future functionality can be incorporated without major changes to the application framework. 

Future Developments

Recent changes to Criminal Justice legislation in Scotland increased the complexity of the reports used for submitting case details online, and in order to respond to these new requirements COPFS asked Sopra Group to upgrade its existing application.  The new system (SRA2) 'went live' at the end of May 2009 and Sopra Group will continue to provide additional support for the application for another two years.