back to article Concerns over cops' crap computer kit: UK MPs call for cash, capacity, command

Cops' investment in and adoption of technology is "a complete and utter mess", MPs have said in a scathing report on the parlous state of UK policing. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee pulled no punches in its latest report, warning of "dire consequences" if Whitehall doesn't boost funding and address the "complete …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Every government department: we’re underfunded

    Also every government department: we spent a billion or two on IT crap than none of our front line staff needed or wanted

    IT outsourcing industry: and you won’t even get it back in tax, ha ha ha

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      "Every government department: we’re underfunded

      Also every government department: we spent a billion or two on IT crap than none of our front line staff needed or wanted"

      The exact thing to be expected when you have politicians who have no real world experience, they come out of university with a degree in politics and think it's their right to become an MP. If you have an MP with real world experience put them in a job that allows them to use that experience to make decisions instead of heavy reliance upon "experts" who are only "experts" because they give their recommendation based on how much money they're likely to get.

      1. Warm Braw

        they come out of university with a degree in politics

        Given the complete failure of MPs to understand even the political components of the Brexit negotiations, or indeed parliamentary procedure which means that the "meaningful vote" they were promised - fingers crossed behind their backs by the executive - is nothing of the sort, you do wonder whether education of any kind is simply wasted on them.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You are being too kind

        The exact thing to be expected when you have politicians who have no real world experience, they come out of university with a degree in politics and think it's their right to become an MP.

        You missed:

        1. Attended the same 20K per year school as the outsourcer's board and C-suite

        2. Will receive places on the outsourcer(s) board(s) once they fledge from their pupa stage into the house of Lords.

        3. Will receive donations for their election campaigns from the outsourcer(s) board and CXX suite members. For an example Google for "Capita, Donation, Labour, Blair". That is one rear case that got paraded in front of the media - for a gazillion that did not.

        Corruption? What corruption?

  2. adam payne
    FAIL

    The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee pulled no punches in its latest report, warning of "dire consequences" if Whitehall doesn't boost funding and address the "complete failure" in Home Office leadership.

    "complete lack of coordination and leadership on upgrading technology over many years"

    Lack of leadership and coordination from the Home Office, well i've never heard that before...oh wait..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too many little forces that spend their own budgets, could have saved fortunes utilising a national procurement and merge a few forces.

    Don't get me started on the waste of money for elected police & crime commissioners.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      way too many forces in the UK something like 40 odd

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        >way too many forces in the UK something like 40 odd

        Indeed, The City of London Police is a prime candidate to be folded into the Met for starters.

      2. Commswonk

        way too many forces in the UK something like 40 odd

        Be careful what you wish for; the (previously eight) Scottish forces were merged to form Police Scotland and it didn't go well. Things might have improved now; then again they may not.

        It isn't as easy as one might think or wish.

        1. MGJ

          Scottish Police

          The title of the piece says UK but with as with all El Reg articles it actually means England (and possibly Wales) but certainly not Scotland or NI. For all that folk like to have a go at our unified force, when you look at its key task of detecting and solving crime, there has not been a single unsolved murder (in best Taggart voice) in Scotland for years.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Scottish Police

            " there has not been a single unsolved murder (in best Taggart voice) in Scotland for years."

            Dumb criminals, good police or corrupt coppers planting evidence?

  4. Commswonk

    Yet More Hogwash...

    But the loudest recommendation from the MPs was stronger national leadership from the Home Office on technology.

    "Ministers need to take ultimate responsibility for the failure of this crucial public service to properly upgrade its technology to deal with the threats of the 21st century," the report said.

    A "Department" cannot provide leadership any more than a "building" can. Leadership can only come from people and I simply cannot see how a politician with a PPE to his or her name can ever provide anything that even vaguely resembles leadership. A similar comment must also apply to the senior levels of the civil service where classicists hold sway. On top of that a politician is in place solely on the basis of patronage, and is fully aware that that patronage can be withdrawn on a whim at any time by the leader of the day, and of course, by the electorate every now and then. The civil servant - other than those at the very top - will be looking for the next career move no more than 2 years ahead.

    The above inevitably results in the employment of consultants, who (unsurprisingly) have their own agenda.

    Anyone expecting the police and the occupants of the Home Office and their consultants to be focussing on the same agenda is living in cloud - cuckoo land.

    There is also another unfortunate observation to make; the more that is spent on technology for the police the worse the detection / conviction rates become. I know perfectly well that correlation is not causation but I'd really like to know why this certainly seems to be the case.

  5. baggins84

    Having had first hand experience of procurement processes within the policing sector for digital services and hardware, it always seemed to boil down to price as the biggest deciding factor regardless of the outcome. Officers were tied up pushing next on over expensive hardware that was sold as 'the answer' to digital forensics when if they had just outsourced the work to a supplier that had the capability to do the work correctly they would have had more funds.

    Never heard any government body say they have enough funds. Or resources. Including anything NHS based. Not to take away from the people that do great work in these government funded services. The people on the ground all do great work IME.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    It has to be said

    Some will remember that when Mayhem was Home Sec, she abolished the National Policing Improvement Agency that was leading on IT renewal for the bizzies. Gesture politics at it's worst.

    That said, the NPIA had largely been 'captured' by CapGem,

  7. Cuddles

    But?

    "Policing in the UK has suffered massive budget cuts in recent years, but crime continues to rise."

    That's an odd way to phrase it. Policing in the UK has suffered massive budget cuts in recent years, which is why crime continues to rise. It may not be the only factor involved, but it's sure as hell one of the big ones.

    1. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Re: But?

      The police still have plenty of time to go and visit everyone who posts things the government disagrees with on Twitter and Facebook. So clearly they still have too much money to waste and there needs to be more cuts.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why all the various departments.

    When it comes to things like this, surely at the heart of the IT operation it's the same function as the security services like MI5/MI6/GDHQ (and possibly others - my knowledge of the security and intelligence services is limited to watching James Bond, etc!) So surely from a technology point of view it makes sense to have one large back-end system running all the data and various front-end systems giving the output relevant to the particular agency like the police, etc? Instead of having goodness-knows-how-many mini versions of essentially the same thing built by whoever working out their back bedroom puts in the lowest tender!

  9. codejunky Silver badge

    Hmm

    The problem with getting used to spending other peoples money is you always want more. If they would like more resources then reduce the admin and get cops on the streets and out there. When young troublemakers kick off the coppers need to be able to deal with them before they get into more serious trouble.

    Spending loads of money on kit that doesnt work sounds more like the gov.

  10. strum

    From U. of Bradford evidence to HoC (http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/science-and-technology-committee/digital-government/written/90141.html):

    " In material on “digital government” there is no recognition that the public sector exists as a result of administrative law that implements public policy, and most bodies exist to administer legislation objectively, consistently and fairly under the Rule of Law, and under NAO and parliamentary scrutiny — including “front line” ones like health and social services that apply entitlements. Commercial or technical terminology such as “deliver services”, “customers”, “end users”, “innovation” and so on has distorted the frame of reference, leading to wrong diagnoses of problems, inappropriate approaches to applying technology, and flawed research. For example, what are commonly called “services” are actually statutory processes with multiple stakeholders."

    Policing isn't like anything else. Bringing commercial perspectives to it is like hiring a painter&decorator to paint your family portrait.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Thinking outside the box!

    Maybe this is a task for the new head of the GDS to tackle?

    "Victim of crime - report it online!"

    "Abused because of race - added to our NoSQL database!"

    "Loved one in a shroud - our systems are in the cloud!"

    "Sexually harassed - we're agile to fail fast!"

    "Hope the police will hasten - our devs are using JSON!"

    etc.

  12. 2Fat2Bald

    Having experience of both policing and IT I can tell you that the Police themselves are culturally incapable of tackling high tech crime. They've almost been bred to be exactly the wrong sort of people to do it.

    To he honest. At this point I'd take high-tech and organised crime off the County forces and give it to a regional force made up of as few old-school cops as possible - made mainly out of geeks and nerds. Not necessarily graduates, but people from industry or with relevant skills.

    High tech crime is inherently complex and nuanced. It's not really suitable for investigation by someone who's been more-or-less bred to look for simple, quick disposals. And it's amazing how few people who can understand code, computer networks and so on want to spend 2 years on street duties before they can possibly apply for what they actually want to do with uncertain probability of actually getting it. All what earning less than they could do for any outsourcer or consultancy.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Priorities

    The police are to busy with wrong think, and bad words to deal with any actual crimes.

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