Put technology to work to cut caseload pressure (a blog by NTT DATA)
Ahead of the Justice and Emergency Services Reception 2025, our Reception Sponsor NTT DATA share insights.
With Sir Brian Leveson, Dame Anne Owers, and the Rt Hon. David Gauke all leading reviews into the justice sector, it’s a fraught time.[i] Prisons are overcrowded. Probation is under strain. Caseloads are at an all-time high, and everyone’s dealing with an administrative burden that gets in the way of outcomes.
Indeed, the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts warns that “even with the Crown Court sitting at a historically high level, this would not be enough to make meaningful progress on reducing the outstanding caseload and bring down waiting times.”[ii]
This won’t come as a shock. The issues with overcrowding and sentencing are well-documented and, if there were a silver bullet, it would have been fired a long time ago. That said, the situation is fixable – and with the right level of investment, we can lower crime and make justice swifter for victims, while ensuring punishment is served and rehabilitation is prioritised.
The strength of the UK’s criminal justice system lies with its people. Those who offer their time and effort to make this country a safer place: police and probation officers, prosecutors, barristers, and civil servants alike. If we can connect up the justice system to align the priorities and performance markers of each constituent part, we can give those individuals a chance to focus on what they’re good at.
Connected justice isn’t about merging people and systems together into an amorphous mass. It means respecting what each person brings to the table and sanding down the layers of friction that distract them from fully exercising their professional judgement.
Meeting Strategic Government Targets
As Leveson, Owers, and Gauke’s reviews rumble on, one point has been made clear. The status quo is unworkable. Broad, systemic factors have impeded the justice system’s ability to understand and respond to risk in real time, bring cases to court in a timely manner, sentence fairly and proportionately, and cut down on recidivism rates. To create a solution, we’ll have to change the paradigm.
Justice sector workers are not inherently less productive than they were ten or fifteen years ago. In many cases, they’re working faster and harder.[iii] It’s the rise in cases, exacerbated by a gruelling pandemic, a subsequent inflation in workloads, and a continued reliance on paper-based processes that has upset the system to this extent. The result is real morale and retention issues in areas like probation.
A police officer does a hard enough job already. Without a manageable way for them to redact documents and navigate complex disclosure requirements, it won’t get any easier to move cases forwards. But if an officer is freed up to spend more time in the local community and work alongside partner agencies, that’s one step towards the government’s Safer Streets mission.[iv]
Deploying Technology in the Justice Sector
Technology, in this context, is a way to bridge the gap between a specialist justice system worker and their counterparts. It can play the intermediary between a probation officer, a prison officer, and a police safeguarding lead – all bringing together different parts of the same risk profile to understand the citizen in question more completely.
Meanwhile, there are numerous other opportunities for tools like generative AI to save time on repetitive, data-intensive tasks. This could mean intelligent case summarisation for prosecutors, as we’ve helped the Crown Prosecution Service implement. It may include optimising cell space in prisons, or even supporting judicial decision-making for parolees by offering risk scores based on analysis of historical data. None of these involve a computer making management decisions. The domain expert stays in control. The technology just offers them enough information to boost productivity in their usual decision-making process.
An Incremental Approach to Innovation
You’ll have heard plenty about the benefits of generative AI and, before that, low code and cloud. But implementation is a different game altogether. When you’re stuck in the day-to-day and trying to keep things running, it can feel like an ambitious goal to launch a whole-new initiative from scratch. That’s why we recommend starting small.
A system that, down the line, might save thousands of person-hours in context switching between legal cases doesn’t need to spring into existence complete with policy papers and technical documentation. Instead, we recommend an incremental approach to innovation.
You can move forwards in a structured way by running proofs-of-concept at the smallest viable level, see what works on the ground and then use that to scale up and meet demand from the centre. It’s the user feedback – from lawyers to probation officers – that will let you determine what solutions are deliverable now or could be viable in the long-term. This might draw on low-code or Software-as-a-Service technologies – these initiatives can be much lower cost and experimentation can be done rapidly and visibly with the users involved.
Ultimately, the goal of connected justice is immediate impact. The insights from each agency coming together on a foundation of interoperable standards to create a centralised view of the citizen. If we want a more efficient, predictive, and proportionate justice system, that’s where I would start.
Justice and Emergency Services Programme activities
The techUK Justice and Emergency Services Programme represents tech firms operating in the public safety, criminal justice, and blue light markets. We create strong relationships between members and public sector customers, encouraging industry engagement, and unlocking innovation. Visit the programme page here.
Event Round Up: Justice and Emergency Services Reception 2025
Building on the success of last year, we were pleased to elevate our annual reception to a conference, hosting an array of fantastic speakers representing the policing, justice, public safety, government and technology industry.
Interoperability in Justice and Public Safety Forum – Third Session
Our JES Interoperability Forum will serve as a collaborative space where tech companies and criminal justice and emergency services stakeholders can engage openly, discussing and supporting the communication transformation and data sharing across police forces, ambulances, fire services, courts, prisons and probation services.
Our members develop strong networks, build meaningful partnerships and grow their businesses as we all work together to create a thriving environment where industry, government and stakeholders come together to realise the positive outcomes tech can deliver.
Cinzia joined techUK in August 2023 as the Justice and Emergency Services (JES) Programme Manager.
The JES programme represents suppliers, championing their interests in the blue light and criminal justice markets, whether they are established entities or newcomers seeking to establish their presence.
Prior to joining techUK, Cinzia worked in the third and public sectors, managing projects related to international trade and social inclusion.
Junior Programme Manager - Justice and Emergency Services, techUK
Ella Gago-Brookes
Junior Programme Manager - Justice and Emergency Services, techUK
Ella joined techUK in November 2023 as a Markets Team Assistant, supporting the Justice and Emergency Services, Central Government and Financial Services Programmes, before progressing into Junior Programme Manager in January 2024.
Before joining the team, she was working at the Magistrates' Courts in legal administration and graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2022. Ella attained an undergraduate degree in History and Politics, and a master's degree in International Relations and Security Studies, with a particular interest in studying asylum rights and gendered violence.
In her spare time she enjoys going to the gym, watching true crime documentaries, travelling, and making her best attempts to become a better cook.
Programme Team Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK
Francesca Richiusa
Programme Team Assistant for Public Sector Markets, techUK
Fran serves as the Programme Team Assistant within techUK’s Public Sector Market Programmes, where she is responsible for delivering comprehensive team support, managing administrative functions, and fostering strong relationships with members.
Prior to joining techUK in May 2025, Fran built a meaningful career in the charitable and local government sectors. She worked extensively with both victims and perpetrators of crime, and notably led the coordination of Domestic Homicide Reviews across Surrey—an initiative aimed at identifying lessons and preventing future incidents of domestic abuse.
Outside of work, Fran is an avid traveller and a proud cat mum who enjoys unwinding with her feline companions.
Katherine is a Client Partner at NTT DATA and looks after the Justice sector, including MoJ, HM Prisons and Probation, HM Courts and the Crown Prosecution Service. Her role is to support the Department and it’s agencies with providing innovative solutions to the most challenging problems faced.
Building the Smarter State is techUK’s flagship public services conference and the go-to event for public sector digital leaders. The annual event welcomes over 200 senior leaders and decisions makers from across the public sector and the technology industry to showcase how technology is shaping today's and tomorrow’s public services.
