My address is entitled "Moving to IT Best Practice and Beyond", which encapsulates the progress that the Court has made during the last three years in relation to its IT Infrastructure and delivery of applications and services.

It has been a long hard road, but I would like to think that the end result justifies the effort and commitment that has been required. Hopefully some of the lessons learnt by us along this steep journey of discovery, experimentation and implementation may be relevant to the situations which some of you are currently confronting.

It will become apparent to you during the course of this presentation that the key to achieving such remarkable change so quickly was our engagement of Tony Martin. Tony was recruited from his position as Chief Information Officer of the Australian National Audit Office. Previously he occupied the position of Director Information Technology Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet where, in addition to the departmental support, he was responsible for supporting the Prime Minister and his office and managed the redevelopment of the support systems for Federal Cabinet.

He is qualified, including an MBA, and is currently studying for a doctorate focusing on best practice and the processes related to the contracting out of IT services.

The Family Court of Australia is a superior court of record that has been operating since 5 January 1976 following the enactment of the Family Law Act 1975. As background to the functions of the Court, I would like to outline the objectives which support the Court’s current strategic plan.

The Court's main purpose is to resolve and determine family disputes and in doing so it seeks to:

• put children and families first in the design and delivery of its services
• provide cost effective dispute resolution for families
• be at the forefront of development of innovative services for families in conflict
• promote functional family relationships after separation, and
• have an independent and impartial judicial process.

There has been a dramatic shift in the Court’s use of information technology in recent times. Approximately three years ago, the Court’s need and use of information technology had rapidly increased to the point where the existing computing infrastructure and service delivery were unable to meet these new requirements.

The major obstacles facing the Court’s requirement to develop a strategy for the effective use of IT were:

• lack of direction and vision from within the IT Section - there had been no significant developments for a considerable period;
• reliance on old technology and proprietary solutions which hindered the ability to communicate and share information;
• little or no customer focus from IT client liaison staff; and
• low morale and strong resistance to change displayed by IT staff.

The IT hardware/software infrastructure was seriously inefficient and failed to provide the scalability and versatility required to provide the Court with a computing platform for the delivery of the necessary IT applications required to meet the business drivers of the Court.

Some of the major deficiencies were:

• the existing IT infrastructure provided desktop computing facilities for only one-third of the Court’s total staffing of 1000, in other words, the majority of the staff did not have access to a computer;
• Only a limited number of Court Registries were LAN/WAN connected which limited the ability to communicate and share information between judicial and other court personnel;
• There were frequent periods of network instability which impacted on the Court’s service delivery to its clients; and
• overall poor service to Court staff who use the computing network.

The Chief Justice, GM Corporate Services, Andrew Phelan, and I were very concerned with the state of Information Technology in the Court. It did not provide the support required for the Court’s current business and it constrained the Court from achieving its preferred strategic direction. One of the collateral benefits of a conference of this nature was that it became very apparent to us during the course of the first conference held in March 1998 that our concerns were well justified.

At this point in time, the only options available to the Court were to either:

1. continue with the existing IT infrastructure in hopeful anticipation that the network could be tailored to better address the business needs of the Court; or
2. develop a new vision for IT, incorporating state-of-the-art technical solutions to provide a platform for rapid deployment of the Court’s business drivers.

Due to the lack of client service and strategic IT vision, the Court was obliged to adopt the second approach.

The decision was made to develop a new vision for IT based on the development of a Corporate Information Technology Plan and the engagement of the services of innovative IT personnel to ensure the effective and efficient implementation of strategic recommendations.

The Corporate Information Technology Plan was developed in a consultative process involving the Corporate Information Technology Plan Committee (CITPC), Senior Managers and the Information Technology Section.

The main recommendations of the Plan were to:

• align the strategic direction of the computing network with the strategic direction of the Court. In particular, the aim was to provide state-of-the-art computing facilities to Court staff, which addressed the business drivers identified during the consultative phase of the process; and
• simplify the management of the network with the specific aim to increase options and reduce costs by selecting, as much as possible, hardware and software products that would seamlessly integrate and allow for centralised administration of the Court’s WAN.

The Court considered that it was imperative to achieve these objectives with the engagement of appropriate IT Management personnel. In early 1998, the Chief Justice, Andrew Phelan, Tony Martin, the newly appointed Chief Information Officer, and I realised urgent corrective action was required. The first step was to replace the incumbent IT Managers with staff with proven track records who were capable of delivering the vision for IT within the Court. As a result the number of staff was significantly reduced and replaced by staff contracted on the basis of their relevant competency and capacity.

After a comprehensive evaluation process, the Information Technology Section commenced a major redesign of the computing infrastructure based on the recommendations of the CITP. The first stage of this redesign was the successful upgrade of the desktop PC operating system and office automation software. All Court staff were provided with a LAN connected desktop PC which utilised Windows 95, Microsoft Office 97 and Lotus Notes office automation software, which is used for e-mail, scheduling and document management.

Some of the major client based achievements within the Court’s IT platform over the last two years have been:

• the implementation of a standardised desktop workstation connected to the Court’s LAN/WAN for each staff member;
• notebook modernisation which involved the purchase of Compaq Armada M700 notebooks as part of a state-of-the-art computing platform, which also provides remote dial-in access for all judicial officers.
• availability of internal and Internet e-mail to all Court staff;
• implementation of an Intranet which provides access to a wealth of corporate data as well as limited web site browsing for all staff specifically to improve accessibility to research tools;
• implementation of enhanced library services enabling easy access to research data for all staff;
• the implementation of a National Help Desk with single number access for the resolution of all service requests; and finally
• the introduction of various software systems developed in Lotus Notes and Visual Basic to support the Court’s business needs.

There have been many changes made to the Court’s network infrastructure during this period of rebuilding with the most notable being:

• The implementation of a Novell NetWare 5 for the network providing file sharing and print services for the Court. The Court was recognised by the computing industry as being the first Federal Government Agency to migrate to Novell 5.0 in a WAN environment.
• The Court replaced its existing communication links with a Frame Relay network, which provided more cost efficient and scalable connectivity between Court sites. This move enabled the Court to realise a 30% increase in communication bandwidth for the same cost;
• The Court has also seen the introduction of a variety of Lotus Notes databases to assist in administration - for example a national phone directory, LAN Management Security system and corporate information systems.
• One of the most significant innovations has been the implementation of remote dial-up services which provides remote access to all Judges and Senior Executives. This service is now being upgraded to utilise one telephone number nationally - at the cost of a local phone call. The remote service also extends to Judges travelling overseas who require access to Court systems and data; and finally
• The introduction of Citrix Metaframe, which enables staff travelling interstate to Court locations, to access data from their ‘home’ server from any PC within the Court location they are visiting.

The Court places a high value on its security, particularly with the increased use of the Internet for communication and research purposes. To address the risk associated with Internet access, the Court has introduced CISCO firewall services to protect the Court from external threats and/or from hacking of the Court systems. These services are managed by on-line security monitoring of the Court’s firewall which enables real-time incident reporting. A recent Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu review of the Court’s firewall and network environment found that:

"Compared to other Novell systems deployed worldwide analysed by Deloitte, Novell security at the Court consistently rated above average, with many areas above industry standard and in some areas world best practice"

The upgrade of the computing network has been a total success with a quantum improvement in the level of computing facilities provided to Court staff. In comparison to its previous network, the Court clearly benefited from gaining access to a broader range of more powerful but less expensive technologies.

Coinciding with the upgrade of the computer network, has been an equally dramatic change in the perspective and work ethics of the computer support areas. The primary focus is now on providing a high level of customer service and support. This change was initiated in the Help Desk area and is now apparent in all sections of the computer support areas.

One of the immediate benefits for the Court in 1998 was the implementation of the Defended Hearing Statistics (DHS) system, which was an application that I personally had been waiting to see for several years. The implementation of DHS was closely followed by several other systems that provided significant advantages to judicial and other officers in the Court. These are inter alia:

• Interim Miscellaneous Procedural Summary Statistics (IMPSS) and Appeals Information System (AIS) are management systems used by each Registry and the Court to record and analyse the work completed and to assist in the management of the future workload. These integrated statistics cover all aspects of judicial work.
• The Judicial Bench Book in Lotus Notes.
• The Security Incident Report System and CRIS 2000, a system that records the Court’s counselling information.

At the previous AIJA Technology conference in 1998 a ‘bench book’ was demonstrated and the Family Court was very interested. This is our attempt at such a system.

The Benchbook contains databases of reference information useful to Court judicial staff such as Caselaw, First Instance Judgments, Full Court Judgments, Practice Directions and Legislation.

Displayed here is one form of access to the Benchbook, with the various databases displayed on the left and the contents of the selected database on the right.

The information in a database can be collapsed into a contents page which can be expanded by selecting a particular item.

By continuing to select the relevant item the information can be displayed.

One of the particular features is the extensive judgments both at first instance as well as Full Court.

These can be accessed using the directed method but can also be searched by typing any particular word into the field at the top of the screen.

In this case the search returned 3 Full Court judgments.

Another effective tool implemented in the Court is our Intranet which provides Court staff with access to all the data - apart from private - which is available on the network. In addition, users do not need to know the location of the data but can find it by conducting searches.

For example if a user wanted to find information on judgments they would enter the relevant word "judgments" into the search field.

The Intranet is searched and returns an index of the results.

The result is a mix of judgments and other reports. The result of this Intranet search is identical to individually searching every data source on the network. For example previously this search word was used in the full court database and returned 3 records and this result has also identified 3 full court judgments.

The most significant IT project currently underway within the Court is the redevelopment of its new Case Management system - Casetrack. Casetrack is being developed in a Web environment using an Oracle database. This platform will enable the Court to leverage this technology well into the future.

The redevelopment of Casetrack will address the key elements of the existing case management business problems by:

• integrating all case tracking information and case management processes into one system
• reducing the effort required by staff to service cases by automating and streamlining case support tasks, eg. automated orders processing, streamlined list production.

Richard Foster, the CEO of the Family Court will be presenting later today in more detail on this subject.

The Court is currently piloting E-Filing in Melbourne in conjunction with the following legal organisations; Kenna Croxford & Co, Marshalls & Dent, Maurice Blackburn Cashman, Taussig Cherrie and Associates, Wisewoulds, and Victorian Legal Aid. A formal announcement of this initiative is expected later this month.

It should be noted the Court’s e-filing solution is a total electronic solution - from the client to the Court’s database the information will be handled electronically. The Court decided to implement the fully functional solution rather than adopt a hybrid interim approach, which requires a mix of paper and electronic data.

Novell’s Single Sign-on is being implemented as a tool to improve staff productivity, reduce network administration tasks and improve overall network security. Court staff will log into the network with only one password and gain access to all systems instead of the current need for a password for each system. We are hopeful that this solution will decrease password related down time, including password related help desk calls.

Sametime provides a secure and managed real-time or instant collaboration
environment. This facility is similar to chat lines on the Internet - users can share information between sites in real time using instant text messages or a chat session involving one or several people. This facility enables users to share documents, presentations or any electronic information within the same building or across the country. You can also electronically schedule meetings so that a group of geographically dispersed people can participate from their own PC.

The Court is continually refining its Internet site and the information contained therein. The Court’s focus it to ensure that its home page is intuitive and the content is relevant so as to better inform its clients regarding access to Court services, details of changed and expanded programs and locations of services.

The last 3 years have been a long hard haul. Unfortunately we had a lot to learn. In my view, acquiring the necessary knowledge is relatively easy and conferences of this nature are critical in this regard. However, it is essential to convert your knowledge into applications and systems which are contemporary and meet the needs of your court, its staff and its clients. To do so requires constant vigilance and very strong judicial leadership. The existence of these factors has ensured that the Court, with the assistance of technology, is now well placed to provide first class levels of service to the community.