One (joined up) system to rule them all?
O.K., not really one system, for everything, but for god's sake, the clue is in the name, PNC, Police NATIONAL Computer.
In reality, it's not, it is a series of disjointed, fragmented and dated computer systems. You then have a series of disjointed, fragmented, and budgetarially challenged forces having to run their own systems to feed into their own area.
Several of these failures were down to people process as much as system processes.
I would advocate ONE Police National Computer Database, that would be fed by ONE Automatic Numberplate Recognition system that fed into it's own database.
The ONE ANPR system would be manned 24 7 and could be used by both Police and Security forces with the correct authorisation to place a specific vehicle (or individual) on a Watch list.
Tie this in with the One driver licence and vehicle licensing body perhaps?
If we want to make some savings as a country, stop spending hundreds of large lumps of cash around the country supporting individual government departments, and spend two or three VERY large amounts of cash in one place.
Design it right, outsource the infrastructure, (or perhaps several massive government owned data centres across the UK, I'm sure there are loads of cold war nuclear bunkers not being used that would be great for data centre activities)
We, as a country need to ensure that the money the government is spending (our money) is spend wisely and efficiently. and that is large and centralised with mandatory use as opposed to siloed and pocketed repeatedly used across the UK (Think all the local governments, all the different departments that do the same thing, the same way on their own systems)