{"id":352049,"date":"2021-10-17T14:22:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T14:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1483458"},"modified":"2021-10-17T14:22:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-17T14:22:33","slug":"cost-of-policing-database-rises-to-1-1bn-but-theres-an-even-bigger-hidden-cost-to-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/10\/17\/cost-of-policing-database-rises-to-1-1bn-but-theres-an-even-bigger-hidden-cost-to-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost of policing database rises to \u00a31.1bn. But there\u2019s an even bigger hidden cost to the public."},"content":{"rendered":"

The future of a billion pound police database is under question. The National Law Enforcement Database Service (NLEDS), which the Home Office has spent half a decade developing, will be delayed by a further five years. Meanwhile, the estimated cost of the service, which is yet to be rolled out, stands at\u00a0 \u00a31.1bn.<\/a><\/p>\n

The new system was originally designed to merge two outdated databases, the\u00a0Police National Computer (PNC) and\u00a0the Police National Database (PND). However, after extensive delays, the whole project was reset in 2020 after a:<\/span><\/p>\n

programme review found that the system being constructed would be difficult to maintain and adapt in future, and included a component that was already obsolete.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The PND was subsequently ‘removed from the programme\u2019s scope’.<\/p>\n

Now, with a further five-year delay, we spoke to experts who are concerned about the hidden cost to the public, and examined whether more data gathering by the police is either wanted or needed.<\/p>\n

Who will pay?<\/h5>\n
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One of our biggest concerns when investigating the NLEDS is that the Home Office won’t clarify how it will be funded. Huge amounts of taxpayers money have been spent on an unfinished system that doesn’t work and, that watchdogs believe poses a threat to communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The NAO has clarified<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The programme currently only has interim funding until March 2022. The 2021 business case for the reset noted that no funding was allocated to the programme from 2022-23 onwards. No business case had been submitted in 2020. In 2021, the programme was granted interim funding to start implementing the reset.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is an independent committee responsible for overseeing and investigating government spending. The PAC is now awaiting a formal enquiry into NLEDS. The committee, which is used to scrutinising<\/a> the Home Office, called<\/a> the departments efforts “miserable”:<\/p>\n

The Committee has warned, in previous inquiries, on the Home Office\u2019s \u201cmiserable record of exorbitantly expensive digital programmes that fail to deliver\u201d. It will question senior officials at the Home Office on whether National Law Enforcement Data programme is likely to meet user requirements and deliver technology that is likely to work, progress against time and budget, and the remaining risks to successful delivery.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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Data can’t be shared on a national level<\/h5>\n
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Another of the key findings by the NAO is that this billion pound database might not be able to share information on a national level. At least, how that sharing will work with police forces using different systems hasn’t been factored into the overall planning process. This means if an incident happened in one place, it may not be picked up by police in another area.<\/p>\n

The NAO explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Many police users access the PNC indirectly via third-party systems from some 25 suppliers. Although these offer a more modern interface than the PNC, some police officers told us that systems made by different vendors do not interoperate, so data cannot be shared on a national level.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These systems either need to be replaced or upgraded to work with NLEDS, but it will be difficult for the programme to ensure that this happens because the contracts are operated by individual police forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

400k documents deleted<\/h5>\n

The delays to the new system have also been blamed for the deletion of o<\/span>ver 400k documents including criminal and DNA records from the PNC in January 2021, in what the Home Office called a ‘coding error’.<\/p>\n

According<\/a> to the NAO, on 9 January 2021 over 400k documents were deleted from the PNC. It affected 112,697 ‘person’ records and saw the “unintended deletion” of:<\/p>\n