Dutch Public Prosecutor struggling with "disastrous" IT issues: report
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is struggling with long-running and worsening IT issues. Prosecutors often can’t access their files, open emails, or communicate with defense lawyers. “It has been disastrous for some time, and it is only getting worse,” a senior prosecutor told NRC.
Prosecutors and their colleagues are increasingly unable to receive, send, or open emails. They also often can’t access their files, which are all digitized. The problems occur throughout the country, at all OM offices, and have been going on for years, NRC’s sources said.
“As prosecutors, we have to improvise at criminal hearings because we are often unable to consult our own documents during the handling of the criminal case,” a prosecutor told the newspaper. Another said: “Communicating with lawyers is very difficult because you can’t open what they send.” A leading prosecutor involved in investigating the IT issues called it “a many-headed monster.”
On Monday, the OM announced on its intranet that it had set up a task force - the digital rescue unit - to resolve the IT difficulties. The post states that “there have been problems with the performance of office automation at the OM for some time now.”
The OM said that the IT problems are now increasing the already large backlogs in the overloaded judicial system. “OM units have indicated concerns about the effect of these IT disruptions on colleagues' workload. In addition, the problems affect the feasibility of the ambitions when it comes to accelerating lead times and reducing inventories,” the OM wrote on its intranet.
The OM acknowledged that the organization cannot offer its employees “all the resources they need in the field of IT” and that the problems cause “a lot of frustration and loss of production.” Some prosecutors indicate that they now work on the weekends because the system seems to operate more smoothly during quieter times. “The long duration of the disruptions has a negative effect on job satisfaction,” the OM said.
A spokesperson for the OM told NRC that “we are working hard on the renewal and replacement of software and hardware. That is complex.”
