Offender Assessment System
27 Aug 2007
EDS Helps Her Majesty's Prison Service With the Offender Assessment System (OASys)
To enable information sharing across the national prison system of England and Wales, EDS armed Her Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS) with a centralized, streamlined IT infrastructure.
Her Majesty's Prison Service Video Case Study
See how EDS worked to improve processes for prison staff ordering supplies for prison cafeteria – as well as Procurement, HR and Finance systems improvements. A catering clerk in one prison describes how EDS’ solution has made her processes more efficient – allowing her to better serve prisoners.
Play the Video
high | low RAM, 1K, 4min:39sec
You will need RealPlayer set up on your computer.
Read the Transcript
Read the transcript PDF, 44K
The prison service maintains an estate of 138 prisons and has more than 45,000 staff. EDS delivers IT services that help manage the inmate population, including offender assessments and significant statistical reporting, and also provides e-mail, Internet and intranet facilities.
The Offender Assessment System (OASys) was commissioned by HMPS to meet requirements for the reduction of re-offending set out by the UK government. EDS and partner Valtech jointly developed OASys, which identifies and classifies offending-related needs, such as drug dependency and poor literacy. OASys also provides a structured risk assessment and can suggest areas for further assessment. The results of these assessments are used within OASys in the construction of sentence plans.
“This has been an excellent achievement by the EDS-Valtech project team,” said Adrian Scott, HMPS OASys implementation manager. “We are delighted with both their efforts and the OASys project, which we believe will be an essential tool in the ongoing battle to reduce re-offending.”
How the Offender Assessment System Works
OASys evaluates the likelihood of an offender being reconvicted and the risk of harm the offender presents personally and to others by examining factors such as offending history and current offence; financial management and income; relationships; lifestyle; and drug and alcohol misuse. If an offender's assessment identifies any risk which attracts particular attention, OASys will trigger the use of further specialist assessments.
OASys risk assessments enable the services to develop personalized sentence and supervision plans that include targeted interventions and tracked objectives. OASys also supplies the information needed for efficient and adequate supervision when moving offenders within and between courts, prisons and the community. As well as reducing paperwork, OASys has proven to be effective in ensuring consistency of offender assessment and in developing better sentence plans.
The development of the system is the first where HMPS and the National Probation Service (NPS) can electronically share data, requirements and responsibilities critical to managing the rehabilitation of offenders in their care. Nearly 2,000 assessments are completed daily with 40,000 data sets transferred between HMPS and NPS in a two-month period. The new system saved the UK £7.3 million in 2005, with savings projected to have exceeded £10 million in 2006.
Using an innovative agile development process, EDS rolled the solution out in three phases after testing each release. The third release converged HMPS' OASys tool with the NPS' eOASys system, enabling the two organizations to share information and work together over the entire life cycle of an offender's sentence, both when in custody and in the community.
Learn more in the Her Majesty's Prison Service (Offender Assessment System) case study.