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Reform was delighted to hold a landmark speech by the Rt Hon David Lidington MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice on 'Delivering safer and more secure prisons: the roots to rehabilitation'. The event was held in London on the 18th December 2017.

On Thursday 30 March, Reform held its 2017 criminal justice conference, ‘Where next for criminal justice reform?’. The conference explored how criminal justice services can work better together, how prisoner rehabilitation can be improved, and the role of digital in enabling both.

Panel one: Connected justice: a single system?

* Katy Bourne, Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner and Chair, Sussex Criminal Justice Board
* Paul Whittaker CBE, Common Platform Transformation Director, Crown Prosecution Service
* Bryan Clark, Director of Digital and Change, National Offender Management Service
* Jason Hall, Vice President Central Government and Police, BT

The first panel, held in partnership with BT, addressed opportunities for better integrating police, CPS, courts and prison systems, and the delivery challenges in doing so. Katy Bourne shared experiences from Sussex police force, who have been looking at ways of scaling up digital tools, such as the use of video links to provide evidence. Sussex is also a part of four police four areas where all CJ services, for the first time, will be working together. Paul Whittaker highlighted that since implementing online systems, a much greater proportion of the public has accessed information, but also raised the importance of continuing to work on transparency. Responding to a question from the floor, Bryan Clark told the audience that digital literacy challenges can be overcome by using well-designed interfaces, good graphics and encouraging both staff and prisoners to help each other. Jason Hall emphasised the difficulty for tech companies in extracting the right data from legacy IT systems, but also the importance of succeeding in doing so to improve practices. He argued that if we succeed, the UK could become the benchmark and envy of the world.

Jim Boyd, Eleonora Harwich, Maisie Borrows and Alex Hitchcock discuss Reform's latest report 'Vive la devolution: devolved public-services commissioning', published 1 November 2017. The report argues that devolution of over £100 billion of public-services spending, including 95 per cent of the NHS’s budget.

An interview with researcher Alexander Hitchcock on the release of Reform's publication on the future of General Practice.