You are in:
Police IT reform announced
The Home Secretary says a company will be set up to manage police information and communications technology (ICT).
Speaking at the summer conference of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Theresa May announced that a police-owned company will save money and streamline services.
She explained that around £1.2 billion is currently spent on ICT, with around 5,000 staff working on more than 2,000 separate systems across 100 data centres.
The new company – which should be formed by spring 2012 – will mean better systems and better value for money.
Read the Home Secretary's speech here.
Incompatible systems
The Home Secretary explained: 'Officers have told me about IT systems that require multiple keying of the very same information, are incompatible with systems doing the same basic job in neighbouring forces, or are even incompatible with other systems in their own force. 'So the police need to be at the heart of defining what systems and services they need.'
A board will be formed to oversee the creation of the new company which will be chaired by Lord Gordon Wasserman, the government's adviser on policing and criminal justice.
Excerpts from the speech
‘On collective decisions – like what IT systems to buy - we aren’t buying white elephant super computers. Instead, we are taking advantage of the economies of scale that 43 forces can enjoy if they work together.’
‘And it means stopping government telling you how to do your jobs by scrapping the Policing Pledge and confidence target, the PSA targets, the key performance indicators and the Local Area Agreements. Instead I’ve given you just one objective – to cut crime.’
‘We’ve scrapped the national requirement for the stop and account form, and cut the reporting requirements on the stop and search form, saving up to an estimated 800,000 police hours per year.’
‘On crime recording, we have already made significant changes to the Annual Data Requirement and staff in forces who are filling in data returns for the Home Office have told us our changes are having an impact.
The new data hub means that a substantial number of old fashioned data collection forms are now being replaced by automatic data collection from your forces.
Further work to tackle crime recording bureaucracy at force level is also now underway and will be complete by the end of July. This will be used to share best practice on crime recording across the service.’
‘In June, Brian also attended an inter-ministerial group, which I chaired, to present the Reducing Bureaucracy Programme Board’s proposals on reducing unnecessary bureaucracy in domestic violence cases.
From July, pilots will be set up and independently evaluated, with a view to testing the new model in a group of forces from the autumn.’
‘So we are establishing a National Crime Agency, a powerful new body of operational crime fighters to tackle organised crime, secure our borders, fight financial and economic crime, and protect vulnerable children and young people.
Accountable to the Home Secretary, and with a senior Chief Constable at its head, the NCA will be an integral part of our law enforcement community, with strong links to local police forces, Police and Crime Commissioners, the UK Border Agency and other agencies.
That work will be underpinned by the new Strategic Policing Requirement, which will make clear to Chief Constables and PCCs what we expect of them in their response to national threats.
And this new operational capability will be backed up by the country’s first ever cross-government organised crime strategy, which we will publish shortly.’
‘To access these crucial tools, the police currently spend some £1.2billion per year on ICT.
That is a very large sum. I wouldn’t be concerned about the size of that sum if I were convinced that it represented good value for money. But it does not.
The way we do things now is confused, fragmented and expensive. We know, for example, that one supplier now has over 1,500 contracts across all the forces. This would simply never happen in the commercial world.
Across the police service there are around 5,000 staff, working on over 2,000 ICT systems, across 100 data centres. This is clearly not sensible.
And the current approach of each force procuring their services individually pushes up costs for all.
It means that ICT suppliers have to bid for individual contracts across 43 forces, pushing their bidding costs up. Those bid costs are, of course, simply tacked on to the price of the next contract with the police that the company wins.
When you consider that the cost of bidding for a major contract from a police force can cost a company upwards of £1 million, and that there are usually at least two or three companies bidding for each contract, the ultimate cost to the public purse of all this bidding activity is significant.
Looking at it from the point of view of police customers, the situation is even worse. The capabilities and skills required to negotiate and manage large, complex ICT contracts are scarce. The professional skills required to maintain the procured systems are scarcer still. Spreading them around the 43 forces makes no sense.’
The solution
‘Officers have told me about IT systems that require multiple keying of the very same information, are incompatible with systems doing the same basic job in neighbouring forces, or are even incompatible with other systems in their own force.
So the police need to be at the heart of defining what systems and services they need. They must have a fundamental and a controlling interest in the new police ICT company.
Second – and equally – the company needs to be staffed by ICT professionals. The police are experts at fighting crime and in using ICT to fight crime, but they are not ICT professionals.
Police officers are the best in the business at catching criminals. They are not the best in the business at negotiating contracts for major ICT systems, or managing these contracts or even managing these systems once they’re up and running.
So the new police ICT company should be staffed by world class professionals. It will be negotiating and managing contracts worth many billions of pounds – this is not a job that can be given to amateurs who have a flair for computing.
It must be done by hard-headed professionals who can take on some of the world’s biggest companies on their own terms.
Third, and linked to this, the new company must have a culture that allows it to attract and retain individuals with the skills and capabilities we need, and that encourages those individuals to innovate and to deliver success.
It must have the incentives in place to drive a more commercial and more efficient approach that will save public money. This must not, however, come at the expense of public safety, public security and public protection. These will remain paramount.
Fourth, the new company must exploit the purchasing power of the police service as a whole. It can do this by aggregating the requirements of as many forces as possible, preferably all 43 forces.
That’s the way to achieve the largest economies of scale and the best value for money.
Taken together, these principles will inevitably reduce the amount spent on ICT across the police, while at the same time delivering a superior service.’
