Key criminal justice IT contracts awarded

Fujitsu Services has won a £17m contract to provide hosting services for a massive Criminal Justice System (CJS) project to link up offender and case data from various police and court IT systems.

As part of the same procurement process Steria has also won a four-year contract worth "tens of millions" of pounds to provide application software development and support services for the CJS Exchange project.

The CJS Exchange will be a browser-based interface that can be used by various government organisations, the police, solicitors, barristers, probation officers and victim and witness organisations to access and share up-to-date information on offenders and court cases.

It is still in the early stages of development and will be implemented in stages alongside other IT systems as part of the wider £3.75bn CJS IT programme that aims to provide anyone involved in the CJS with access to the information they need from any browser-enabled device by 31 March 2008.

Three pilots for CJS Exchange are already underway using different technologies from IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems at various locations around the UK.

CJS Exchange will also provide links to data from other public sector bodies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.