Police Information Technology Organisation

Home Department written statement – made at on 23 June 2005.

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Photo of Hazel Blears Hazel Blears Minister of State (Home Office) (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Member, Labour Party National Executive Committee

The Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) is a non-departmental public body established as a body corporate under the Police Act of 1997. In January 2004, I commissioned an independent, end-to end review of PITO and its business processes, including its role in the provision of information technology and communications services to the police service.

I am pleased to announce today the publication of the review's report. The review has provided a critical analysis of the most appropriate structure and organisation to provide information and communications technology to the police, through PITO and from other sources.

The review recommends that PITO should transfer its non-IT responsibilities and transform itself—either as a separate organisation or as a component of the National Policing Improvement Agency—to become a Police National ICT Group, with responsibility and accountability for ICT to the 43 forces in England and Wales. It recommends that this function should be owned by and professionally managed by the police service, with funding flowing from the police authorities, through the establishment of regional collaborations or combined police delivery groups.

The provision of high quality information and communications technology to the police and the criminal justice system is vital, not only to manage efficiency throughout the system, but also to deliver better equipped front line policing. The Government welcome the review's analysis of the issues we should address but I do not intend to implement its recommendations wholesale. I intend that those PITO responsibilities that support the core functions of the National Policing Improvement Agency, that were outlined in the White Paper on Police Reform, "Building Communities, Beating Crime" in November last year will be rationalised and will transfer to the agency, along with a wide range of functions currently discharged by other national bodies. The considerable value of this report will be its significant contribution to the planning now under way for the new agency.