Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted it is proving ‘difficult and complicated’ to implement a national police information technology system deemed a necessity in the Bichard Inquiry.
The Impact programme was established in response to the Bichard Inquiry into the Soham murders in 2002.
In 2004 Sir Michael Bichard recommended the creation of intelligence sharing systems as ‘a national priority’. But Blair told the Commons last week that it is not a simple task.
‘It requires a lot of changes, not only in police practice but elsewhere, and we have to ensure that we get the delivery of this programme right,’ he said.
‘Although the full Impact recommendations will not come in until later, the data-sharing arrangements, including the sharing of intelligence, will come in next year.’
The Prime Minister was replying to comments from Barnsley Central Labour MP Eric Illsley, who has called for the recall of Bichard’s team to consider how its recommendations could be implemented more quickly.
Illsley said: ‘It is now two years since Sir Michael Bichard made his central recommendation for the police national information technology system. That system will not be available, if at all, until after 2010, and some of the latest cost estimates are up around the £2bn mark.’
Illsley is concerned that the national intelligence system does not go the same way as the much delayed National Firearms Licensing Management System.
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