New guidance is available which will help providers work digitally with other criminal justice agencies in criminal proceedings.

Called 'Legal Guidance on Digital Working across the Criminal Justice System' (CJS), it tackles issues such as:

• the need for 'original documents' and
• service by email, other electronic means or on disk.

Current paper-based ways of working remain for the time being: the guidance is intended to support and clarify the work already undertaken by the CJS Efficiency Programme.

The guidance is very clear that this does not signal an immediate move to digital working.

Defence practitioner representative bodies, the judiciary and key criminal justice agencies have all been consulted during the development of the legal guidance.

Practical advice on digital working

General guidelines have also been created in a separate document to help providers get to grips with digital working.

Called 'Guidelines on Digital Working for Defence Practitioners,' this has been developed from frequently asked questions. It looks at issues such as Secure eMail, security and working on the move.   

Importance of engagement

Keeping defence practitioners up to date with new developments is a high priority for the CJS efficiency programme. This will continue so that we can build on the progress made so far.

Both documents are available for download from the Justice website on a page that includes specific help and advice for providers.

Further information

Visit the Justice website to download:

Legal Guidance on Digital Working across the Criminal Justice System

Guidelines on Digital Working for Defence Practitioners