Police IT needs reform, says think tank

Police forces need better co-ordination, the report argues

The agencies responsible for IT in police forces should be merged to help form a more coherent national strategy, according to a report by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

The two organisations responsible for IT in the police force are the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which is largely responsible for policy, and the National Policing Improvement Agency, which puts that policy into action. The NPIA should be merged with parts of ACPO to form a National Policing Agency (NPA), the report says.

The report also argues that information systems and processes across forces need to be more integrated to further co-ordination between forces.

Both of these measures would allow police forces to ensure that serious cross-force activity was being tackled properly, it argues.

The NPIA is already co-ordinating a scheme to join up IT between forces, though it will not be finished until 2015.

Separately, the IPPR report says that greater public access to police data and better use of social media would improve the quality of the relationship between the police service and the citizen.