The Courts Service (Ireland)

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The Courts Service, Ireland

Customer’s Challenge

Established in November 1999 following the enactment of the Courts Service Act of 1998, the Courts Service’s remit includes providing support services to the judges and information to the public, managing and maintaining court buildings, and providing facilities for users of the courts. There are approximately 1,100 court users and approximately 120 judges that use the Courts Service support systems. The Courts Service wanted to modernise its information and communications infrastructure and decided that the skills and expertise to do this did not exist within the service.

Fujitsu’s Solution

The Courts Service decided to partner with Fujitsu, which manages and administers its entire IT infrastructure.

As part of the contract, Fujitsu provides a complete managed service covering 1,250 desktops and 140 servers in 70 offices throughout Ireland. Fujitsu also manages other service providers as part of the contract and supplies a range of call-out services as required.

The Courts Service began with an almost clean slate in terms of existing IT infrastructure, a factor that John Coyle, head of information technology, said worked to their advantage: “We weren’t replacing any equipment or doing a huge amount of integration with existing systems so we were able to get off the ground quickly”.

Benefits to our Customer

The contract with Fujitsu provides the Courts Service with access to a wide range of technical skills and expertise that are essential for the maintenance and support of a modern information and communications infrastructure.

“The ready availability of such skills enables the Courts Service to react rapidly to changing business requirements and to provide better and more consistent service levels internally across the organisation and to our external customers,” commented John Coyle.

The complete managed service that Fujitsu supplies across the infrastructure provides the Courts Service with a single point of contact for the management of all technical issues associated with that infrastructure. The management overhead from a Courts Service perspective was therefore substantially reduced. The programme has reduced bureaucracy and made life easier for staff.

Our Approach

Firstly, Fujitsu took over operational responsibility for the helpdesk function. This was handled by Fujitsu’s team of engineers in Leopardstown. The handover was seamless, which was a high priority for the client. As well as the team of engineers working on the technical helpdesk an onsite engineering team also provided support. To complete the service there is an Oracle/Unix administrator and Lotus Notes administrator as well as a service manager to oversee the whole operation.

Our Expertise

THE COURTS SERVICE WISHED TO AWARD THE MANAGED SERVICES CONTRACT TO AN ORGANISATION WITH A PROVEN TRACK RECORD IN SERVICE DELIVERY.

They wanted a company whose core business was service provision. With a strong track record in providing infrastructure management, Fujitsu was able to demonstrate its experience in managing court-specific IT, with testimonials from clients in the UK, Northern Ireland and Australia.

Fujitsu’s core strength is designing, building and operating IT systems and services for clients in the public and private sectors. Its award winning ‘sense and respond’ method for service delivery ensures an innovative and dynamic service based on a deep understanding of the customer’s business. By understanding what the customer is trying to achieve and the effect of IT failures the service evolves to meet real business needs.

John Coyle, Director of Technology, The Courts Service said: “We wanted a single strategic partner to provide information technology support services, with proven capacity, capability and experience, to whom we could hand over the day-to-day running and management of our IT infrastructure, freeing us to focus on our core business of efficiently and effectively supporting the operation of the courts.”