Police signal shift in strategy

New police agency turns focus to creation of common standards

Sufficient funding will be key

This week’s launch of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) heralds a fundamental change in police technology strategy.

Unlike its predecessor, the Police IT Organisation (Pito), the new agency will focus on common standards rather than specific applications, NPIA chief executive Peter Neyroud told Computing.

‘Agreement on standards is a key brief and is the route for the NPIA to be more successful than Pito,’ said Neyroud.

‘We have to look more to standards and information, because if everything is NPIA-compatible, it does not matter what individual forces decide to do.’

About £200m of the NPIA’s £700m budget is capital investment for central technology. This includes the Police National Computer, the Impact national intelligence sharing programme and the rollout of the Airwave radio network on London’s Tube.

Because of the new standards-based approach and budgetary pressures, not everything inherited from Pito will survive.

‘We have to find ways of making savings, and there are some tough choices about some of the things that are not working as well as they could,’ said Neyroud.

Only the management information and command and control elements of the old National Strategy for Police Information Systems suite of applications are likely to be completed. The future of the Cross-Regional Information Sharing Project (Crisp) – a provisional stage in the Impact programme – is also hanging in the balance (Computing, 8 March).

The decision on Crisp is imminent, but since it adds £8m to £10m to Impact’s £367m price tag, it is unlikely to go ahead.

The NPIA’s close links to police groups will help overcome historical difficulties finding a consensus among the 42 forces, says Association of Police Authorities chairman Bob Jones.

‘Previously, improvements such as technology involved negotiating with a whole set of different bodies with their own priorities and accountabilities,’ said Jones.

The Home Office must not squeeze budgets too far if it wants the NPIA to be effective, says Association of Chief Police Officers president Ken Jones.

‘We must make sure the NPIA receives the right funding so it can deliver on expectations. Without that it will be very difficult, if not impossible,’ he said.