MPs have blasted a ‘staggering’ increase in the cost of a new police IT system to more than £1billion and a delay of at least five years.
The Commons public accounts committee, which oversees government spending, said it was ‘not clear’ whether the system will be up and running by 2025 – when it will already be five years late.
National Law Enforcement Data Service, (NLEDS), will take over the 47-year-old Police National Computer.
Costs have already ‘increased by a staggering 68 per cent to £1.1billion’ from £671million, the report said. The Home Office has ‘wasted both vital time and scarce funding without making any meaningful progress’, it added.
National Law Enforcement Data Service (File photo) will replace the 47-year-old Police National Computer.
Committee chairman Dame Meg Hillier slammed the Home Office’s ‘perpetual failure’ on large IT projects, after the department mishandled a series of other programmes including a walkie-talkie system called the Emergency Services Network and an IT system for UK border guards.
The NLEDS project ‘does not give the committee any comfort that the department is learning from past mistakes’, the report said.
Dame Meg added: ‘The Home Office must be clear about the route ahead or confidence of the UK’s police forces in the Home Office will sink even lower.’
MPs blasted a ‘staggering’ increase in the cost of a new police IT system to more than £1billion and a delay of at least five years (File image)
Since 1974, the PNC is our main national computer that provides details about criminals and offences.
The replacement of the PNC was expected to be available last year. The report stated that it is not clear how the PNC will function after 2024 when the manufacturers will cease technical support. A committee recommended that NLEDS be managed differently and requested a complete update within six months.
In January, the PNC suffered a ‘significant data loss’ in which records of nearly 113,000 criminals were erased. Recovering the data took nearly five months. The Home Office said it was down to ‘human error’.
In August the Daily Mail revealed one of the new border IT systems was ‘crashing repeatedly’, leading to massive queues at Heathrow. The ‘Border Crossing’ database cost £372million and was rushed into use at the end of June, three years late.
A Home Office spokesman said it was not true to say no progress had been made on NLEDS, adding: ‘The programme is now on a stronger footing following a fundamental reset and, while we recognise there is more to do, we are working with policing partners to deliver it in a phased approach.’