The Challenge
A Public Inquiry was tasked with the review of a government decision to close a juvenile mental health facility. The Inquiry needed to collect, review and analyse evidence submitted by numerous interested parties. Evidence would then be presented to witnesses during several rounds of public hearings.
The Inquiry required a single ‘collaboration forum’ capable of supporting the needs of the Inquiry team and the interested parties. Timeframes were tight and there was a high level of public interest in the Inquiry. The allocated hearing room was not ‘wired’ for a traditional eTrial. There were no monitors on the bar tables and hearings would stop and start several times over an extended period. The Inquiry also wanted to minimise costs by allowing parties to provide their own devices in the hearing room.
An innovative solution was required.
Delium was selected as the ideal solution after analysis of a range of alternative products.
Delium Strategy
The Inquiry implemented Delium’s patented Common Evidence Framework. As a single web-based environment spanning evidence review, analysis and presentation, Delium offered all specified functionality from a single interface.
The Common Evidence Framework stored the objective information for all documents in a single Common database and stored the Inquiries and interested parties unique subjective analysis in separate Satellite databases. This approach allows for all evidence to be collected, objectively processed and stored once, significantly reducing costs and administrative effort.
The needs of the Inquiry team and each interested party were quite different. Each Satellite case was independently configured to meet those needs without impact on the Common database or any other parties Satellite database.
Delium’s pre-trial and eTrial capability are fully integrated. Analysis undertaken by the Inquiry and parties in anticipation of the hearings continued to be available during the hearings. This delivered a significant benefit for the Inquiry and other parties. When evidence was presented at the hearings all the work they undertook in the lead up to the hearings analysing and annotating private versions of evidence, was available from a single. They were able to securely and privately continue to add annotations, commentary and other analysis during or after hearings.
This capability to access personalised evidence also extended to the Commissioner who was able to make notes regarding the comments of witnesses and other observations about the evidence in a Private Satellite case.
As the Inquiry progressed different parties became the subject of attention. At the appropriate time each party was able to assume the role of ‘operator’. They controlled the publication of their own evidence to the Commissioner, the Inquiry or to members of their own team.
Screens to project public evidence for the benefit of public attendees and the media were provided. Parties, however, were able to bring their own devices to access Delium at hearings. As Delium is fully cloud-based no special cabling or other infrastructure was required to connect. This significantly reduced costs and bump-in, bump-out time as the hearings started and stopped several times and the room needed to be cleared for other hearings.
Everyone could connect from the hearing room, their offices or home.
The Benefit
Delium ticked every box specified by the Inquiry and more.
As a single software interface that caters for evidence analysis and presentation, data did not have to be moved between pre-hearing and hearing environments to support the different purposes. The Inquiry team and the dozens of involved parties saved days of effort and cost. It also meant that a single training session was sufficient to have users up and running. The Common Evidence Framework saved over $20,000 in hosting charges and meant that any changes to the Common library were automatically shared, minimising effort and the risk of error.
BYOD access offered ultimate user flexibility, and complete cloud capability delivered access to users anywhere as if they were at hearings.
Accessing public versions of evidence side-by-side with private analysis delivered full and personalised insight into the evidence, at the time when it most mattered and provided the unfettered ability to mark-up documents during the hearings.
