Urgent IT strategy needed from Police Scotland, Auditor General warns MSPs
Police Scotland has been warned it must urgently set out a strategy for IT following the collapse of its i6 computer system project.
Police Scotland has been warned it must urgently set out a strategy for IT following the collapse of its i6 computer system project.
MSPs on Holyrood's Audit Committee heard there is currently no timescale for a replacement for the programme, which had been expected to generate £200 million in savings over 10 years but was shelved in July last year.
Auditor General Caroline Gardner said this was despite the heavy emphasis on technology in the recently published 10-year Policing 2026 strategy.
SNP MSP Alex Neil asked: "When do you think Police Scotland is going to be in a position to put a plan in place to recover the situation and get into a position when they can get a computer system that does realise these savings?"
Ms Gardner said: "It's urgent they now do so. They have forgone having those benefits in place now as we speak based on the original delivery dates.
"The Policing 2026 strategy that was published just a couple of weeks ago is absolutely centred on much better, much more flexible use of IT to help police officers be out and about doing their work on behalf of all of us across Scotland, and there currently isn't a plan for how those benefits will be achieved. There isn't a date for that."
She said there is "no question" the failure of the project had had an adverse impact on staff in terms of "opportunity cost".
Police staff are still using 130 manual or IT processes whereas the i6 system had been designed to cover 80% of policing activity.
Audit Scotland found that while police had followed good practice in the planning and procurement for the project, a loss of trust and disagreements with contractor Accenture over what it needed to deliver contributed to its failure.
Ms Gardner said there is a question over whether the project could have been terminated sooner, highlighting the pressures caused by scrutiny of the single force at the time, including the failure of an earlier IT performance management system and high profile challenges around issues such as stop-and-search and armed officers.
She said: "I think all of that probably had the effect of increasing the focus of both the SPA (Scottish Police Authority) and Police Scotland on ensuring that this system worked, and I think that may have introduced that sort of optimism bias that is often a factor in large projects like this.
"I think that's probably one of the areas where we think there may be lessons to be learned about not allowing that pressure, that optimism, to colour decision making that's been taken when problems start to arise.
"That doesn't mean that we think the actions that Police Scotland took to try and bring the contract back on track weren't appropriate, but there is a question about whether the plug could have been pulled sooner."