National portal to share police intelligence launched

Impact Nominal Index is first step to meeting Bichard report recommendations

The first national police system developed to address concerns about lack of intelligence sharing between forces was launched by the Home Office this week.

The Impact Nominal Index (INI) uses the existing Criminal Justice Extranet secure infrastructure to allow individual constabularies to check if information on a suspect is held anywhere else in the country.

Until now only conviction data held on the Police National Computer or the sex offender register can be searched nationally and more nebulous intelligence information is not searchable across force boundaries.

Sir Michael Bichard led an investigation into the intelligence failures that led to Soham murderer Ian Huntley being employed in a school despite a string of previous sexual allegations against him. The Bichard report published in 2004 called for an intelligence-sharing system as a 'national priority'.

The INI is an interim measure in meeting Bichard's recommendation. It is a search engine and portal system that will provide a list of other forces holding details on a person, but will not allow automatic access to those records. According to current plans, it will ultimately be replaced by the Cross Region Information Sharing Project under the Impact programme.

At the official launch of the INI, police minister Hazel Blears said: 'The ability to share information across police force boundaries is the key to effective policing at the national level.

'The INI is the first step in our plans to provide a national information sharing capability which will prevent criminals from escaping detection simply by crossing force boundaries.

This will increase public protection and help create safer communities,' she said.