Police IT is in disarray as one major national programme was suspended by the Treasury this week, while another even larger scheme received £387m backing from the Home Office.

Police minister Hazel Blears has given the go-ahead for the Impact programme to develop national information sharing systems for the 43 independent police forces in England and Wales by 2010.

But implementation of the Custody and Case Preparation (C&C) modules of the Police IT Organisation (Pito) National Strategy for Police Information Systems (Nspis) has been put on hold pending a Treasury decision on funding, because the Home Office is no longer sure of the benefits of the scheme.

Since the programme started in 2002, 20 forces have gone live with C&C and another seven, including London’s Metropolitan Police, were due to go ahead this year. The Met is now reconsidering its options.

A definite Treasury decision is not expected until early next week but the signs are not good.

Peter Neyroud, acting head of the National Police Improvement Agency, which is to supersede Pito, told a supplier meeting in February that Nspis is a failed model that his agency will not be trying to redeliver.

The history of Nspis is chequered with delays, and police representatives say the service cannot wait much longer for custody systems.

‘We need something to streamline the process of people being taken into custody and the paperwork that entails. If we are not going to have C&C, what are we going to have?’ said the Police Superintendents’ Association president Rick Naylor.

‘It is really serious that we have reached the point where nearly half of the county’s police forces have a system before anyone realises it might not be as good as was first thought,’ he said.

Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation’s Sergeants Central Committee, says custody sergeants have one of the service’s hardest jobs and should not be regarded as the poor relation.

‘The question has to be asked: if Nspis is scrapped, what will replace it?’ said McKeever.

‘Once again it appears that custody sergeants and their staff are going to have to put up with outdated, antiquated systems.’

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