THE first stage of the Impact programme to create a national intelligence system for UK police is being piloted across three forces.

The National Nominal Index (NNI) has been developed by the Police IT Organisation (Pito) as a way for forces to search five key local systems, and will be rolled out to all child abuse and protection units from April.

A name and date of birth entered into the NNI can be checked against the 13 million records held in all custody, intelligence, domestic violence, crime and firearms databases across the country.

In the project's early stages, matches will provide a contact number for the appropriate local force. But in the future users will be able to call up the full details of all records found.

The trial is going ahead in Hertfordshire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands, to vet applicants and contractors for police employment. It will be rolled out live to child protection units.

The Impact programme will ultimately provide full intelligence and information-sharing for UK police forces, in response to the Bichard Inquiry following the Soham murders in 2002.

'NNI is one very small but significant step on the Impact journey,' Jevan Morris, Pito director of intelligence, told Computing.