The Police IT Organisation (PITO) looks set to be replaced by a Police National ICT Group (PNICTG), a new central agency that would have responsibility for both national projects and the local IT needs of the 43 police forces in England and Wales.
The decision follows an end-to-end review of PITO by the Home Office, which began in January 2004. The review, which all non-departmental public bodies must go through, concluded that despite some successes over the years, "PITO has largely failed to meet the needs of the police... principally because PITO as a concept is fundamentally flawed".
The review concluded that "the fundamental requirement is for a central capability for delivering both the national dimension of police ICT and ensuring greater effectiveness and efficiency at force level."
If the review's proposals are adopted, PITO's IT responsibilities would transfer to the PNICTG, which would be headed by a CIO and report to a board comprising representatives from the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. The PNICTG would be part of a new National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), which is due to come into force in 2007. The NPIA's remit would also include HR, operational support and procurement.
The report also recommended the creation of a separate public sector body to act as custodian for police information databases, such as the Police National Computer.
Comment
There is no doubt that there is room for improvement in the way that IT is delivered to the 43 police forces in England and Wales. Local IT spending by the police is at least £750m annually, equivalent to around 80% of total police spending on IT, yet PITO has been unable to influence this to any great degree. As a result, there is a lot of duplication and huge scope of savings -- the report concludes that net savings of at least £100m per annum would be possible if its recommendations are adopted.
If the new agency is to succeed it will have to overcome the challenges that PITO has faced since it was created in 1998. Most importantly it will need buy-in from the 43 different police forces and some real authority if it is to deliver on its promises. Funding will be one of the keys to this, and we're pleased to see the review recommend that there should be an internal market with the individual police forces as customers. At the moment, PITO's funding comes almost exclusively from Government not its customer, the police forces, which creates confusion over who is accountable for what.
But if you're expecting a dramatic change overnight, you'll be disappointed. These proposals will require some significant changes to the way the police service works: the Home Office, for example, will have to negotiate a new framework for the tripartite management of the police. At the very earliest, it will be 2007 before the NPIA is in place and in the meantime PITO will continue preparing the ground. What is apparent though is that in the longer term there will be more national and regional IT projects in the police sector, and these bigger deals will continue to attract growing numbers of S/ITS suppliers to the market.
© Ovum 2005
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