Scots police watchdog highlights computer delays

30 Jul 14
Delays in bringing in a £60m computer system are causing operational headaches for Scotland’s merged national police force, according to a report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.

By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 30 July 2014

Delays in bringing in a £60m computer system are causing operational headaches for Scotland’s merged national police force, according to a report by the Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland.

It says: ‘The absence of national ICT integration is constraining the ability of officers to function fully at a regional or national level, thereby limiting the effectiveness and efficiency of police reform.

Though the report looks at the specific context of road policing – where it generally finds integration of Scotland’s previous eight regional forces into the national Police Scotland to be working well – the concerns about the computer delay extend more generally into other operational functions.

The new national computer system, known as i6, is reportedly running nine months behind schedule, and is now expected to come into force in September 2016 – more than three years after the creation of the national force.

Inspectors identified a range of operational frustrations arising from the lack of computer integration. 

The report says: ‘For example, when arresting or charging someone beyond their legacy force area, officers have no access to the local (legacy) custody or case applications. This means that a third (local) officer then has to become involved to gain access to the local systems and has to act as the “ghost” reporting officer in all subsequent case management transactions.’

It lists similar problem in systems for recording road accidents and fixed-penalty tickets, and says that the elaborate procedures that result ‘cannot be regarded as an effective or efficient use of police officer time’.  The report also found inefficiencies in human resource applications.

‘This was a source of frustration to officers whom we interviewed and many told us that they felt that the agile pace of frontline reform was being curtailed by delays in the delivery of co-ordinated back-office support functions to meet the needs of the new and evolving structures,’ it says.

 

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