Credit: Lonpicman/CC BY-SA 3.0

The courts service is seeking to work with a specialist consultancy to help assess hundreds of software tools in use across the justice system  and then safely decommission legacy technology and migrate to new platforms.

In a recently published contract notice, HM Courts and Tribunal Service indicated that there are currently more than “250 bespoke software systems across HMCTS [and] over 50 of these systems are ‘critical’ to HMCTS in the delivery of Justice across England and Wales”.

It added: “Many of these systems are being replaced by the HMCTS Reform programme and HMCTS are taking this opportunity to complete an estate-wide technology refresh to deliver a sustainable technology platform using contemporary standards and practices.”

As part of this reform agenda – a seven-year, £1bn project involving the closure of scores of courts and the implementation of new digital services – HMCTS is to run a Decommissioning and Legacy Risk Mitigation Programme across its technology estate.

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To support this, the service is seeking to appoint a supplier to provide “business analysis” over the course of a £2m two-year contract.

The chosen provider will be asked to “analyse business processes and how critical systems are supporting their delivery [and] identify where there are clear and obvious gaps” between the functionality that current systems are providing and what the reform programme is proposing to implement instead. 

The firm in question will also help develop “data migration and data archiving processes” that ensure that information is “data is correctly migrated to a new system of record and that HMCTS retains only data which it should rightfully own”. 

Once such gaps in functionality gaps have been identified and addressed and data has been safely migrated, the ultimate goal is to “support the decommissioning of applications which have been replaced by the reform programme, including confirmation all legacy functionality has been replaced or superseded”. 

Suppliers in interested in bidding for the contract must hold one or more of three business analysis qualifications specified in the procurement notice: IIBA Level 3 – CBAP; BCS Advanced Diploma in Business Analysis; and BCS International Diploma in Business Analysis.

Bidding is open until midnight on 28 February, after which up to five suppliers will be evaluated. Work is then scheduled to commence on 1 April.