The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), a cornerstone of the criminal justice system in England and Wales, prosecutes criminal cases investigated by the police and other agencies, maintaining independence in its decision-making process. Embracing a forward-thinking approach, the CPS aims to enhance its digital delivery and innovation capabilities, reflecting its commitment to the strategic direction outlined by both the government and the CPS itself. This initiative aligns with broader governmental goals of increasing efficiency and modernising operations, embodying the "digital by default" principle.

Transforming paper forms into digital efficiency

Recognising the critical role that witnesses play in delivering justice, the CPS embarked on a programme to modernise its outdated and manual reimbursement process. Witnesses, who can also be victims, are crucial to ensuring that justice is served. Without proper financial recompense, there is a significant risk that they may not attend court, jeopardising the entire judicial process. The outdated system impacts a diverse group of stakeholders, including witnesses, CPS staff, and legal representatives. Witnesses, often ordinary citizens, are called upon to provide testimony in criminal cases, requiring them to take time off work and incur travel expenses.

The existing reimbursement process requires each CPS area to spend an average of six hours per week handwriting or labelling paper forms. Across 14 areas, this totals approximately 5,000 hours per year in staff time. These manual processes can delay reimbursements and frustrate claimants, with the lack of a proper paper trail often resulting in lost documents and difficulty tracking the status of claims. Additionally, submitting receipts and forms by mail further delays processing and reimbursement, causing financial inconvenience for claimants and contributing to environmental waste. Thousands of forms are ultimately destroyed, wasting time and resources.

Partnering for success

The Witness Expenses programme (WITEX) aimed to introduce a new digital solution, designed to make the process more efficient and accessible to both citizens and CPS users. One of the ways this was achieved was by reducing the cognitive load, making the system easier to navigate, to ensure that all witnesses, particularly vulnerable ones, could receive their entitled expenses without unnecessary hassle.

CPS partnered with esynergy to engage in a full GDS product lifecycle, collaborating from Discovery, into Private Beta, and scaled release into a fully functional public service. As this was CPS’s first ever customer facing scaled digital service, we worked together to build a robust delivery plan, driving through alpha into the launch of private beta.  Applying agile methodology, we enabled data driven decisions at pace around solution design and an MVP with clear value forming the business case aligned to CPS’s SR21 submission into Cabinet Office.

Enhancing user satisfaction

The implementation of WITEX was underpinned by comprehensive and inclusive user research, following Government Digital Service (GDS) standards across its discovery, alpha, and beta phases.

The team used various methods, including field studies, desk research, user interviews, stakeholder workshops, and observational studies, to understand user pain points and challenges. This research included members of the public sourced through a participants for research supplier, ensuring engagement with individuals possessing varying digital skills, cognitive and physical disabilities, and linguistic diversity.

Throughout the alpha phase, the team refined the service through iterative design reviews, persona building, empathy mapping, content comprehension analysis, surveys, and A/B split testing. In the beta phase, accessibility testing, usability testing, system usability score surveys, error analysis, and user feedback analysis further enhanced the service, prioritising inclusivity and continuous improvement.

One key innovative aspect was reimagining and streamlining the user journey rather than simply digitising existing manual processes. This included successfully influencing changes to policy, simplifying the process for witnesses to claim expenses, automating travel claim verification with Google Maps integration, and reducing administrative complexity.

For the admin app used by the finance team, similar user research methodologies ensured that the back-office system complimented the front-end user experience effectively. The team prioritised accessibility, transparency, and simplicity, resulting in a service that met the needs of diverse users.

To enhance awareness and accessibility, the team implemented a comprehensive communications strategy. This included updated letters, posters, and text messages to inform witnesses about the new digital service. Additionally, a video explaining the service was distributed to witness care teams, witness services, court staff, and police, ensuring that all witness support networks were well-informed and could assist witnesses in easily accessing and using the service. A 'need to know' guide was shared with all stakeholders, alongside updated internet and intranet information and guidance.

Technology innovations

Commitment to high standards and security

A crucial aspect of the project was the development and implementation of the Digital Data Exchange Interface (DDEI). This secure interface connects to the CPS's database of criminal cases, extracting necessary information to verify witness identities and court appearances. This process is essential for preventing fraudulent claims and maintaining system integrity.

Addressing security concerns, particularly the risk of malicious file uploads, was a significant challenge. We implemented a reverse proxy to route file uploads through a firewall for malware scanning before they entered our database. This change necessitated a fundamental shift in our coding approach, as the proxy disrupted parameter passing between screens and caused inconsistencies that were difficult to diagnose. Additionally, the proxy failed to correctly reference resources such as CSS and external code, resulting in unstyled HTML and broken functionalities. Overcoming these challenges required close collaboration with the architecture department and our cloud engineer to ensure configuration and functionality. We also implemented monitoring tags for service continuity and developed disaster recovery and failure auditing processes.

Given the sensitive nature of the data, such as witness receipts, pay slips, and wage slips, we embarked on a comprehensive journey to establish secure document storage using Azure BLOB storage. Documents uploaded by users are securely transferred to Azure BLOB storage, enhancing security through second-line scanning of files, in addition to the reverse proxy scan. We established firewalls and integrated BLOB storage subscriptions directly into the OutSystems application. We configured private VPNs, ensuring they were whitelisted and properly opened. This setup required significant effort as Azure BLOB storage was not previously an approved solution within the CPS. Additionally, we developed robust disaster recovery and auditing processes to manage potential failures or connectivity issues.

Delivering value

The project marked a significant milestone for CPS as the first citizen-facing service, focusing on delivering superior user experiences.

It has delivered significant value to claimants, evidenced by high satisfaction rates (92%), streamlined processes, and improved user engagement. Claimants experience a more intuitive and efficient digital service, with most submissions taking less than 10 minutes. In private beta, of 1,000 claims, 50% were submitted within a day of the claimant appearing in court, resulting in much faster payments. Claims are received instantly and sent for payment as soon as they are approved, which takes 24 hours. In contrast, the quickest a claimant could be paid using the paper format, assuming it was sent the same day as the court appearance, was 4-5 days.

To ensure inclusivity and accessibility, the system incorporates Assisted Digital support, ensuring that individuals without digital access can still use the system via telephone assistance. Additionally, claimants can now contact the claim processing team through multiple methods for help including direct email, providing more flexibility and support options.

Operational efficiency

The digital claims system from Finance Business Services (FBS) provides a much-improved oversight and wealth of detail on the volume, types and details of witness claims. This results in a greater ease in locating a specific claim(s), the ability to quickly report and trend data, and flag potential fraudulent claims, supported by a comprehensive audit trail.

The WITEX programme offers substantial sustainability benefits by eliminating the need to print thousands of blue claim forms. Up to 120,000 blue forms are distributed every year to witnesses, with significantly more printed as reserves around courts This digital shift reduces paper consumption, lowers printing and distribution costs, and minimises the environmental impact associated with paper waste. By embracing a paperless system, the CPS enhances operational efficiency and realises significant cost savings. These savings come from reduced expenditures on printing, couriering, postage, and physical storage, ultimately conserving public funds. The environmental benefits of a digitized solution support government goals of reducing carbon footprints and promoting eco-friendly practices.

Looking ahead

The focus remains on further enhancing functionality, particularly in addressing dependencies and validating claims, before rolling out additional services.

One of the upcoming innovations is the elimination of the need for a unique reference number (URN), a piece of information previously found in a call to court letter and also handwritten on the blue form and handed to witnesses in court. User research revealed the URN was adding claimant frustration when onboarding onto the digital service. Some users did not know where to find the number, either because they didn’t receive or keep their call to court letter, while others considered it complex enough to result in a high margin for error with typos, making the process cumbersome. By removing this requirement, the project aims to simplify the process, enabling users to claim using only information they already know, such as their date of birth, name, and the court they attended. This change is part of a broader effort to eliminate legacy processes and make the system more user-centered, even if it introduces challenges on the backend, aligning with the GDS principle ‘Do the hard work to make it simple.’

Currently, APIs are integrated with the CMS to analyse user details, determining if they are professional witnesses or general claimants, and directing them accordingly. Looking ahead, the project aims to provide assisted digital support, where users can receive specific URLs for correct claim processing. This initiative ensures that professional witnesses are guided appropriately, receiving distinct rates and processes. Although still in development, this approach promises to streamline user experiences and improve accuracy through automated and assisted digital means.

Overall, the WITEX programme exemplified a user-centric, innovative approach to digital service delivery, significantly improving the witness expense claim process. The project addressed technical and procedural challenges while ensuring the service was accessible, transparent, and simple for all users.