The government is to press ahead with the introduction of a national firearms certificate register despite the system being unable to connect to the Police National Computer (PNC).

Without the link, forces will be unable to receive automatic alerts from police in other parts of the country about firearm certificate holders acting suspiciously.

Last week Computing reported on fresh technical problems that forced the latest round of testing of the much-delayed National Firearms Database Management System (NFLMS) to be abandoned because of data quality issues (Computing, 19 January).

Now Home Office spokesman Lord Bassam has told the House of Lords that the NFLMS will launch as a standalone system – and not link with the PNC as planned – some nine years after it was first recommended.

‘The success of migrating records from local systems to the NFLMS suggests that it may be preferable to do that in the first instance without interfacing to the PNC at the same time,’ Bassam told the Lords.

‘The full benefit of NFLMS interfacing to PNC could be achieved at a later date, which appears to be the best way forward.’

The Police IT Organisation (Pito) is responsible for the system, which has been developed by supplier Anite. Anite declined to discuss the technical problems with Computing.

Pito hopes the NFLMS will start going live in April, and says the ultimate aim is to move the database to the PNC. But the organisation does not yet know when this will happen.

‘The delivery of NFLMS without the PNC link satisfies Section 39 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 for England and Wales,’ said a Pito spokeswoman. ‘For Scotland to come on board, the PNC link needs to be in place.

‘Once the two systems are interfaced, the system will automatically alert a certificate holder’s home force if they come to the adverse attention of a force in another area of the country.’

Lord Marlesford, who cited Computing’s coverage in the debate he initiated in the Lords last week, says the latest development is unacceptable.
‘This is deplorable and a major failure, and astonishing that we are at this stage in 2006,’ Marlesford told Computing.

‘What has happened with the national firearms system suggests a lack of computer sophistication within the government, and brings into question its ability to deliver ID cards.’