Government Legal Department signs contract and enters alpha phase of project to replace case management system that is 14 years old and is heading into the end of life process

The Government Legal Department has kicked off the process of replacing an IT system for managing its most sensitive cases that is “out of date and hindering” its work.

GLD, which employs 2,500 lawyers and operates as a non-ministerial government department, has signed an initial six-month deal with transformation consultancy Apprilis. The contract came into effect on 16 September and covers the delivery of the alpha phase of a project to implement a new case-management system.

Commercial specification documents state that “the current IT systems used by GLD are now out of date”. This includes a “legacy case management system – used mostly for GLD’s contentious legal work – [that] is now over 14 years old and has received end-of-life notice from the supplier”.

The specification adds that the platform “does not integrate well with other support systems, such as finance and HR, and is not designed to be used for GLD’s non-contentious legal work – where our lawyers are mainly based in other government departments”.

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The result is that “efforts required to keep it fit for purpose are increasing, with diminishing returns in functionality and improvements”.

To inform the process of creating a replacement system, a discovery process has already been undertaken “to identify the user needs and the opportunities to improve”.

Building on this research the GLD intends that, during the alpha phase, prototypes of a new platform will be built. This will include tests of the technologies that could be deployed, including “Salesforce, LexisNexis VisualFiles, [and] Peppermint, with the aim of identifying the most suitable technology to move forward with into beta”.

These explorations will also include the “migration of a sample of GLD case data from the existing CMS”, as well as testing how the new platform might integrate with Microsoft 365.

GLD expects to spend between £750,000 and £950,000 on the Apprilis contract.