Mobile Phones
Home Department

Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department

(1) how many (a) BlackBerrys, (b) personal data assistants and (c) other mobile devices the Mobile Information Programme has distributed to each police force in (i) 2007-08, (ii) 2008-09, (iii) 2009-10, (iv) 2010-11 and (v) 2011-12 to date; and how many such devices are in use in each police force;

(2) how many (a) BlackBerrys, (b) personal data assistants and (c) other mobile devices have been purchased for the Mobile Information Programme in (i) 2007-08, (ii) 2008-09, (iii) 2009-10, (iv) 2010-11 and (v) 2011-12 to date; and what the cost was of providing such devices.

Nick Herbert (Minister of State, Justice; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

A breakdown of the type of devices per force, per year, delivered through the Mobile Information Programme (MIP) is not available centrally and neither is information on the number of devices currently in use.

The MIP ran until December 2010. It did not distribute or purchase devices; it allocated £80 million to forces in two phases: phase 1 on 26 May 2008 and phase 2 on 29 December 2008. When the programme closed, forces reported that over 41,000 additional mobile devices had been operationally deployed.

The requirement on forces to report additional devices obtained through the programme funding was removed when the programme closed.