Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of using automatic speech recognition technology for courtroom transcriptions.

Transcription services for MoJ are currently being re-procured and as part of the re-procurement strategy, MoJ did consider whether full automation would be an option.

The MoJ recognises that there are potential merits to using automated technology for courtroom transcriptions, including a potential reduction in the time it takes to produce a transcription and comparative value for money.

However, the first consideration is that transcriptions must achieve very high levels of accuracy (99.5%) to ensure the justice system can operate fairly and effectively.

The assessment by MoJ has concluded that even software with learning capability, cannot yet reliably meet the accuracy requirements for the service without human intervention.