Traffic offenders prosecuted faster since centralization of all data in MaCH
By centralizing millions of national tasks in one single file management application, case management is significantly shortened. As a result, traffic offenders will have the opportunity to pay their fines more quickly.
In order to speed up file processing, the Federal Public Service (FPS) Justice wants to make millions of national data continuously available to all local public prosecutor’s office and court sites with one central file management application so that they can also be automatically processed more quickly.
To this end, the FPS is collaborating with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for the technological infrastructure and Realdolmen for the (IT) integration. For example, since this transformation in 2018 in combination with more smart cameras along our roads, traffic offenders receive an official report with an invitation to pay a traffic fine as early as 6 days after the infringement.
MaCH, short for ‘Mammouth at Central Hosting’, is the software with which all the sites of the public prosecutor’s office and the courts of first instance should eventually work. Today, the system is already installed in all Belgian peace courts, public prosecutors’ offices, police courts and correctional courts, among others. The central case management application currently contains around 108 million files that can be consulted by 53% of the 10.144 employees.
The FPS is proactively investing in a more orderly and cost-efficient service that is future proof thanks to a robust, new IT infrastructure.
Ivan Verborgh, Director of ICT at the FPS Justice.
In 2007, each police prosecutor’s office and the associated police court still had one local server where all data was stored. At that time, the public prosecutor’s office and registry staff had to call around to retrieve certain information. Now, information is stored on a secure central server that employees can access online via the MaCH application. What’s more, this information hub is now available 24/7: no superfluous luxury because even at update moments, such as on Saturdays, courts are running at full speed.
Traffic file handled quickly
Ivan Verborgh, Director of ICT at the FPS Justice:
– The data from and for the local peace courts and police courts had already been available for some time, and in 2018 we also integrated the correctional chain of first instance. Now the challenge awaits us to add the labour courts and business courts to MaCH. In the future, we also want to link our platform to a range of applications from the many bodies we work closely with.
– By centralising all information and making it available to all legal parties involved, the FPS is proactively investing in a more orderly and cost-efficient service that is future proof thanks to a robust, new IT infrastructure.
Among other things, this centralization accelerates the collection of traffic fines; crucial if you know that 93% of traffic fines are paid after one or two reminders. For 2018, it took several weeks before the offender received the fine in his mailbox. Since the IT transformation in March 2018, the offender receives it as early as 6 days after the offence. Moreover, now that all the history has been brought together in one place, a more strict prosecution policy with summons to appear before the police court can be implemented more quickly, based on the offender’s profile.
Future-oriented back office on point thanks to HPE and Realdolmen
HPE and Realdolmen both contributed to solving the problems in the back office – literally the back of programs that are not visible to their users – of the FPS. In concrete terms, HPE provided the technological infrastructure: in particular the robust server with extra storage space for future applications to be added, the fast network connectivity and the software. Realdolmen, a Platinum partner of HPE, took care of the IT integration in the form of design and implementation of multiple services.
Stéphane Lahaye, Managing Director of HPE Belux:
– We are proud that the FPS has chosen HPE as supplier of the infrastructure platform. We look forward to making MaCH even more scalable and adding additional applications to the central file management application.
One of the applications that is already being accessed from MaCH is the Vehicle Registration Service (DIV), which allows employees of the judicial authorities to look up information based on a name, national registration number or license plate.
– Just like the FPS, we attach great importance to forward-looking centralization and user-friendliness, explains Johnny Smets, General Manager of Realdolmen Belgium.
– Together with the FPS and HPE, we mapped out all legal applications and those of partners. Based on this overall picture, we developed a long-term solution that is easy to manage and update, concludes Smets.