Accenture wins final part of Libra project

Accenture has won a £38.5m deal to install case management software for magistrates' courts, pushing the total cost of the troubled Libra project over £300m.

Work to modernise the 42 magistrates' courts in England and Wales has struggled since the original £184m private finance initiative contract was awarded to ICL - now Fujitsu Services - in 1998.

The Public Accounts Committee concluded last year that the implementation had been a "shocking waste of money".

After renegotiations last summer, Fujitsu Services will now be paid £232m for the infrastructure part of the project.

The case management software will now be provided by STL Technologies, which signed a £35m deal earlier this year.

Accenture will be paid £38.5m in a five-year deal to install software for case management and tracking, payment of fines and court administration to the magistrates' courts.

These deals push the total cost of the Libra project to £306m over eight and a half years.

The first phase of the project, equipping the courts with email, internet access and word processing, was competed in June.

The case management software will begin to be rolled out in late 2004, and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2005.

Accenture is close to finalising the hardware specifications, but the software will be run on Linux boxes and sit on top of an Oracle database.

"This is a large-scale national implementation, so that is a challenge. But we believe that between us and the Department for Constitutional Affairs, we've got the skills we need," said Simon England, partner with responsibility for police and criminal justice, Accenture.