By Andy McCue, 22 June 2004 17:15
NEWS The Bichard report, an investigation of police failures in vetting school caretaker Ian Huntley, who was convicted of murdering Soham schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, has demanded the urgent introduction of a national IT system to support police intelligence in England and Wales.
Sir Michael Bichard's damning report, published today, described failures in Humberside Police and Cambridge Constabulary as "deeply shocking" and "serious".
The inquiry was launched after it emerged Huntley had been accused of sexual offences before he took the job at the Soham school but both police forces failed to spot the allegations when he was vetted for the position.
"An IT system capable of allowing police intelligence to be shared nationally is a priority," said the report. "This recognition has not, however, always been matched by effective action. Nationally, the picture is disappointing. Although the need for a national intelligence IT capability has been recognised for at least a decade, I find that very little progress has been made."
Bichard cited the disparate development of local IT systems, many of which do not communicate with each other, as one of the reasons for the difficulty in accessing relevant information needed for decision-making.
He held up the Scottish Intelligence Database (SID) as an example of what the English and Welsh police should be aiming for.
"The inability to deliver an effective national intelligence IT capability in England and Wales should be contrasted, unfavourably, with Scotland. The Scottish Intelligence Database (SID) will be fully operational by the end of this year. It cost in the region of £10m to £11m and will have taken about four years to deliver from start to finish," the report said.
Along with a national police intelligence system, Bichard called for investment in the Police National Computer (PNC) to secure its medium- and long-term future and said the recommendations must be taken forward by the Home Office.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said in a statement: "The recommendations in the report apply to a range of public services and government departments. The government accepts Sir Michael's main recommendations and will act on them immediately."
Blunkett said a new national police intelligence system called IMPACT will ensure all forces use one system to manage and share intelligence information. As an interim measure the introduction of the police local exchange (PLX) will be brought forward this autumn. PLX is a searchable index of anyone the police hold information on.
Having discovered "errors, omissions, failures and shortcomings in police intelligence procedures and systems", Bichard said he could not be confident it was just Huntley who "slipped through the net". But he stopped short of blaming the forces for the murders and said there was no "causal link".
The inquiry will be reconvened in six months to review progress on Bichard's recommendations.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Craig
How about a national Police force? Then all their IT systems would be 'national'. I dread to think how many criminals flee over county borders and are never caught.
2. Roger Huffadine
Come on guys (Home Office)
Render all of your textual intelligence in HTML - don't worry too much about the formatting at this stage - and buy a licence for Google.
when I want to search for something it works well for me :)
Then you can pay someone like EDS billions to cock it up for you :-(
3. anonymous
It is the nature of society to blame someone and shift blame to others. What Huntly did was inexcusable and he should burn in hell for it. However, as a society we insist on the protection of an individuals rights. A person is innocent until proven guilty and they do not have a criminal record to be used against them until such a time of conviction. If we do not hold with this premis we open ourselves up to huge injustices.
The fact that the police forces involved were not able to access previous allegations against Huntly and the school were not able vet him adequately is a burdon for society to bear, not for it to follow the trend of looking for a scape goat to ease its own conscience.
4. Charles Willcock
The article about Sir Tim Berners-Lee yesterday crosses my mind...
5. Nick Sparrow
Police national intelligence sharing is not the only need after Soham. The position of the police needs to change. Too often the police arrive to convict after the event. But now more as crime prevention, the police must anticipate events by assessing and recording complaints, and sharing them with other agencies. There needs to be this deterrence of a complaints history on a person, with right of appeal, convictions or not.
6. anonymous
While I agree a national database would be a step towards improved security for our children, it does worry me that an acusation alone would carry such weight.
I thought we were innocent until proven guilty. If an acusation leads to action then there is no burden of proof required, no judge or jury decision and none of the legal safeguards that our society had used for centuries. The damage of a flase accusation is immesurable but to add to that a loss of career or livelyhood is not justice in a free country.
7. karl meyer
Can't find a suspect? Try Google
So the police need a system able to query multiple disparate systems for information on an individual. Have none of them heard of Google. Surely putting a decent search engine in front of these systems will be a start!
8. David Chalmers, Macro 4
The Bichard Inquiry makes for alarming reading. Yet again it shows the public sector has yet to fully integrate its adoption of new technology with systemic management and practices that can reap the fullest rewards. Within the private sector, such lack of alignment results in expensive waste. However, in the public sector, as we have seen, the consequences can be far more detrimental.
Integrated Document Management is a mature technology with advanced processes and an abundance of training and support available. Precisely because of this age, it is not perceived as a particularly sexy technology.
However it is obvious from the Bichard report that such cultural issues cannot be tolerated in public sector organisations – there must be disciplined and enforced practices for the creation of documents and records, and the information captured within these documents must then be shared across the relevant agencies.
It is here the private sector has a role to play – in not only providing the solutions or practices, but perhaps in going one step further and actively contributing to the education and training needed to ensure document and records management pulls its weight within the public sector.
Reliable, affordable, effective solutions exist that can cope with a wide spectrum of challenges from records of an offender’s history to medical papers for a patient or tracking down pension entitlements for unusual cases. However, unless changes are made within the public sector to adopt document management, it will remain a pebble the public sector will keep tripping over.
9. Nick Sparrow
National police information sharing is not the only need. The position of the police needs to change, from too often chasing convictions after the event, to more crime prevention. The police need to assess and record complaints made against persons, and share them with other agencies, eg. schools, conviction or not. There are social, legal and political issues here.