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back to article New company to lead UK police ICT procurement

A police ICT company, led by police chiefs and staffed by technology professionals, will be set up in spring 2012 to manage some of the £1.2bn the service currently spends on ICT each year, home secretary Theresa May has announced. In a speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), May said the police must have a …

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  1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    IT companies helping the police with their (procurement) enquires.

    Should this not include the Fraud squad as well?

    After all given the equation

    money * con-sultants * con-tractors * re-sellers * loose contracts

    Isn't fraud practically *guaranteed* ?

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Police need to be at the heart of defining what systems and services they need," she said.

    Oh can we have it in blue, oh and I saw a silverlight demo can we have that as well. And iPads, yes we need those, not sure what they do, but we do need them. Oh and they need that Flash thing and..Oh scrap that, can we have that cloud thing, yes I hear that's good, in fact no start again, can we have, hold on a guy gave me a powerpoint presentation somewhere.....

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  3. Mike 140
    Big Brother

    ACPO

    "May said she expects the Home Office, and possibly the private sector, to own shares in the company alongside police forces."

    ACPO Ltd *is* a private company.

    2 0
  4. asiaseen

    Fat chance

    of all these senior plods reimbursing the taxpayer for the time they're not spending doing their proper job I guess

    2 0
  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Down

    Senior plod "We demand right to put our snouts in the trough."

    Your wish is granted.

    My trivial psychic powers are picking up a message....

    It's feint. Let me concentrate..

    It's saying "Regional fire brigade control rooms."

    Does anyone know what it means?

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  6. Will Gilpin
    Facepalm

    The Met leading the way

    Ailsa Beaton to lead the new organisation. The shining light that is the MPS to trailblaze? The MPS is the most hidebound process-driven anti-delivery organisation I've ever worked for. "Making London Safer ... but not today"

    It's bound to be a success.

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  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      what ??

      we've given olympic tickets to Syria ??

      0 0
  8. Rustybucket
    Stop

    Why a company?

    Why not just run it properly in the first place?

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  9. Bram
    FAIL

    Muppets!!!

    Having worked at the NPIA on certain projects, I can say that Anonymous Coward (second comment) has hit the nail on the head, thats what you spend most of your time doing, while all the senior officiers go on the jolly around the globe.

    However the Home Office is the biggest bunch of muppets in the entire government. Arse and elbow regularly get confused. They created PITO (Police IT Organisation) which handled all the IT then they merged them and created the NPIA (National Policing Improvemency Agency) which done alll PITO done a little more.

    Then this government abolished them thinking its no longer needed because all they heard about is people going on the jolly and merged whatever left into the NCA (National Crime Association UKs FBI) Now they relised actually we need another company to do wht the previous ones where doing before.

    Why Why Why, what they dont tell you is how much all the rebranding and office musical chairs cost the taxpayer. trust me its higher than you think.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Centralised decentralisation

    It strikes me that the more they merge IT departments across forces, councils, etc, and the more they centralise purchasing, then the more they ARE repeating the mistakes of the past.

    By definition, centralised purchasing is slower, unreactive, and away from the frontline - and much as it has the power to negotiate 'better' deals, there are also a limited number of companies that can bid for the megadeals.

    i.e. a single UK wide deal with Tata Consulting might be cheaper than employing local IT service firms, but I'd question whether the level of service is competitive - from what I can observe as an outsider, it is considerably worse than would be accepted in SMEs, who would quickly change provider if they were being mucked about with - because they don't have to go through a huge bidding process to do so.

    The same is also true with software - the more they centralise and standardise, the less competitors can be sustained by the market, which means less competition.

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So I Take It

    SERCO, Fujitsu and HP squeeze out more of the smaller bidders and deliver more failed IT projects at considerable overspend ( 300-500%)

    UK.Con carries on as used car salesman blair's legacy

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  12. PeterM42
    FAIL

    Centralising IT Procurement and Systems

    Perhaps the NHS should do the same?

    Oh - they did!!! And look what that cost with no discernable result except a decline in health treatments

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