Criminal data to be consolidated in £250m deal

The National Probation Service (NPS) has signed a £250m contract with Steria to provide managed IT services for a new project, the Offender Management National Infrastructure (Omni).

Under a six-year contract that could be extended to 10 years, Steria, which has worked with the NPS in the past, will migrate 43 data centres into three larger ones in a bid to merge government databases.

The NPS National Offender Management Service (Noms) database will be linked with Her Majesty's Prison Service so offenders can be "better managed" throughout their time in the criminal justice system, according to the NPS.

Mike Manisty, head of offender information services in Noms, said in a statement: "The new Omni contract provides a flexible solution to Noms' long-term IT needs.

"The services that will be delivered as part of this contract will enable us to do our business better and will support the aims of Noms. This project will give us much better value for money and a mechanism by which we can continually improve our services to our customers."

The NPS said the project will enable staff to share intelligence with other criminal justice partners.

The Omni contract will start from 1 January 2006.

Next year, the NPS is expected to adopt Visor, a national database for managing sex offenders.