Minor offences to be recorded electronically

Police will use PDAs to record traffic offences

All police forces in England and Wales will computerise the issuing of tickets for traffic and minor offences by 2011, it was announced today.

Currently Fixed Penalty Notices, issued for driving offences such as speeding, and Penalty Notices for Disorder, issued for offences such as petty shoplifting, are recorded on paper tickets and taken back to the station for processing by two different IT systems.

But a new scheme instigated by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) will see police recording such offences on handheld mobile devices currently being rolled out to frontline officers.

The offence will then be recorded on a single national system, known as PentiP, where previously it was only recorded by local forces.

Officers will be able to check if the offender has a previously issued unpaid penalty, and police and magistrates courts in England and Wales will also be able to access information on the system.

Chief constable Peter Neyroud, chief executive of the NPIA, said: "Quick access to information is essential to help frontline officers deal with offenders appropriately. PentiP will speed up the administration of penalty notices, cut bureaucracy and give officers more time to spend on the frontline and contribute to a more joined-up criminal justice system."

The NPIA has awarded the contract to design, build, deliver and manage the service to supplier Northgate Public Services. It will be trialled initially in Lancashire, Leicestershire and Kent from next July, with nationwide rollout anticipated by the end of 2011.

The agency estimates that moving to a central electronic processing system will deliver more than £120m in savings over 10 years to the police and courts services as well as improving the accuracy of information on driving offences held by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

The scheme is part of the Information Systems Improvement Strategy (ISIS) programme, which aims to co-ordinate and improve the IT systems used by all 43 police forces in the UK.