Police IT system is not fit for purpose, says ex-manager
Former senior officer hits out at lack of plan to replace network
A FORMER police IT project manager has condemned the current force computer system for handling crimes in Scotland as not fit for purpose.
Former chief superintendent Niven Rennie, who oversaw the beginnings of what would evolve into the botched introduction of a £46 million national computer network, has raised concerns there is no plan to replace the patchwork of obsolete and poorly integrated computer systems. An Audit Scotland report into the failure of the project has urged Police Scotland to urgently reassess its IT needs after the collapse of the project
The report said the i6 scheme to improve how Police Scotland records, manages and analyses information collapsed because of disagreements between the contractors, Accenture, and the Government and the police.
The contract with Accenture was terminated in July last year, with the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) said to have recouped the £11.09m it had paid Accenture, with a further £13.56m for staff and hardware costs associated with i6.
Mr Rennie, a former chairman of the Association of Police Superintendents who is now retired from the force, says it has left the service with a system that was “condemned” in a report by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland 13 years ago.
“I don’t think it is fit for purpose. In 2007 they needed urgently to replace it and we are 10 years on from that,” said Mr Rennie, who added police are still having to record crimes in ledgers.
“The i6 would mean that manual labour was no longer required. The whole thing needs modernised and simplified and it has been needing it since the early 2000s.
“They are still using it and at this time they don’t have a plan as to how they are going to replace this crime management system and it is going to cost a lot of money.
“The search capability, the memory and all the other bits and pieces that go with it is 1980s technology.
“What’s left is a police service in Scotland with a terrible legacy system of computer systems which is inefficient and unworkable to a certain extent.”
It had been expected that i6 would have resulted in £200m in efficiency savings over 10 years.
It would have replaced the existing separate IT systems of the eight regional forces, which existed prior to the creation of Police Scotland in April 2013 and are still in use.
Mr Niven said the moves towards an integrated computer system for Police Scotland began in 2004 – nine years before the single force was founded. Initial consultants were paid £1,000 a day.
He said one of the driving forces for the single force was the new integrated IT system, that would help deliver some £1.1 billion in savings by 2026, cuts that Police Scotland are still being held to.
Earlier this week, John Foley, chief executive of oversight body, the Scottish Police Authority, said while there were no plans again for such a complex and bespoke IT programme as i6, there had been a “number of improvements” over the past four years that provided “greater assurance”.