Delayed prison system gets a second chance

Controversial prisoner monitoring systems goes live after being scaled back

The system will monitor offenders

A revised version of a £513m IT application to monitor offenders as they move through the criminal justice system has been rolled out to its first three prisons ­ with a further four to follow by the end of this month ­ some two years behind schedule.

The controversial project ­originally known as C-Nomis, but renamed Prison Nomis ­ was the focus of a highly critical National Audit Office report in March which branded it “expensive and ultimately unsuccessful”.

But Phil Wheatley, director general of the National Offender Management Service, said he hoped the new version would deliver significant benefits.

“Nomis has just been rolled out to the first three prisons, and it works,” he said.
The project was originally conceived in 2004 to provide a single database of offenders for the prison and probation services to replace a number of legacy systems.

But C-Nomis was halted by the Ministry of Justice in 2007 as it emerged it would cost at least £500m more than the original £234m budget.

Sources suggest the government was keen to salvage the programme to prevent paying compensation to supplier EDS if it were cancelled.

A new contract with EDS is under negotiation.

Wheatley said the original vision for the project was too big, and probation staff do not need access to as much information as prison workers.

“The vision is now two separate systems with a bridge between them so that staff in the probation service can see what they need to see,” he said.