Costly MOJ overhaul of criminal tags under attack

♦ The number of criminals wearing electronic tags has fallen because courts do not trust the system following a series of damaging blunders, a report has said.

The public accounts committee warned that confidence in tags has been undermined by a project to overhaul the system, which has cost £60 million and is five years late.

MPS said the scheme, to develop world-leading tags that combine radio and GPS technology to provide the location of offenders, has been plagued with problems.

In its report published today, the PAC said the number of criminals subject to tags has fallen dramatically, suggesting confidence in the system has been shaken.

It called for the Ministry of Justice to review why the number has fallen to around 12,000 individuals wearing tags at any one time.

The highly critical review found that the MOJ has so far spent more than £60million, including £7.7million (plus VAT) of losses that cannot be recovered.

Sir Geoffrey Cliftonbrown, the Conservative MP and the PAC’S deputy chairman, said: “The new tags are expected to be rolled out more than five years later than planned and, even then, the system will rely on the same form of technology that was available when the programme launched.”