Taxpayers to miss out over police IT system shambles

TAXPAYERS will not receive compensation for wasted man hours ploughed into a doomed police supercomputer project.

This is despite assurances by Justice Secretary Michael Matheson to MSPs that there would be ‘no financial detriment’ to the public purse.

Public spending watchdog Audit Scotland is investigating the failure of ‘i6’, which was aimed at bringing together separate systems run by the eight forces before Police Scotland’s launch in 2013.

Last month, Mr Matheson told Holyrood’s justice sub-committee on policing that there would be ‘no loss’ to public coffers from the demise of the project, which was terminated last summer.

But Audit Scotland has found that compensation from Accenture, the firm at the centre of the i6 fiasco, does not reflect wasted man hours incurred by the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) and Police Scotland.

Scottish Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell, convener of the justice committee, said: ‘This is likely to equate to a considerable amount of money... clearly, in the interests of transparency and accountability, he [Mr Matheson] should now come clean on exactly how many man hours were spent on the failed project and what this equates to in cost terms.’

It is understood that no calculation exists for the number of man hours ploughed into i6, which was launched in 2013.

At the time, the then deputy chief constable Neil Richardson said he was ‘delighted’ Accenture had been chosen to develop the new system. But in July last year it emerged that Police Scotland had pulled the plug after repeated delays and glitches.

Accenture has agreed to pay £23.4million by March this year for ‘non-delivery of the contract along with compensation in recognition of effi- ciency savings that will not now be realised’.

But there will be no payment for wasted man hours.

In December, Mr Matheson was asked by Mrs Mitchell if ‘every man hour’ had been ‘accounted for’.

He insisted the public would not be out of pocket.

Accenture was previously involved in the ill-fated development of a £12.7billion IT system for the NHS in England and Wales. It pulled out in 2006 and the project was abandoned in 2011.

Audit Scotland said its i6 probe was ongoing.

An SPA spokesman said: ‘The terms of the agreement are commercially confidential, however we can confirm that the settlement results in no financial detriment to the police budget.’

It is understood the compensation from Accenture did contain an estimate of wasted ‘staff time’. But there is no exact calculation of man hours wasted, meaning it is likely to be impossible to ensure full compensation is paid.

Asked if Mr Matheson had misled MSPs, a Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘As ministers made clear, the settlement included a compensation payment in addition to the repayment for nondelivery of the contract to ensure that there was no loss to the public purse.’

‘He should now come clean’