In mid-2019, after a ten year slog to replace outdated computer systems, Greater Manchester Police was supposed to have launched their new Capita-designed computer system, “iOPS” (the “Integrated Operational Policing System”) at an initial cost of some £29 million – quickly rising to well over £80 million. Since mid-2019, there’s been a litany of issues documented with the platform, including various problems related to a component called PoliceWorks. Inaccurate recording of crime statistics, loss of information relating to crimes and intelligence and significant data breaches. The old system it was supposed to replace, named OPUS, had to be kept online in a read-only state to fill the gaps in police intelligence and inputting errors.
In August, Neil Wilby wrote that Leslie Thomas QC described GMP as ‘rotten to its core’, and iOPS seems to have adopted that approach.
Back in January, the Manchester Evening News reported on this, and nothing of consequence has happened since that’s been made public, but much of the public don’t realise the sheer levels of incompetence involved…
The ONS and Police Inspectorate got involved at the time, and ultimately nothing came of the probes except this lame, wet flannel quote:
“Following the implementation of a new IT system in July 2019, GMP have been unable to provide police recorded crime data for July, August and September 2019.
Office for National Statistics report
This issue is ongoing and will also affect next quarter’s data. In order to allow for accurate comparisons across the years, data for GMP have been excluded from all the police recorded crime data and tables presented in this bulletin for the years ending September 2019, March 2019, September 2018 and March 2018.â€
Neil Wilby writes,
In September 2013, two senior GMP officers, believed to be the then chief constable, Sir Peter Fahy, and one of his assistant chiefs, Garry Shewan, reported to Tony Lloyd, at the time the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, that the contract for a £30 million overhaul of GMP’s computer systems should be given to professional services giant EY, formerly Ernst and Young, without inviting rival contractors to bid for the work.
Neil Wilby: Cost of GMP’s disastrous IT Transformation Programme rises to £80m
By that time, EY had already been paid £300,000 by GMP for preparatory work to scope the merits of introducing a single new system, which would unify the existing GMP databases, transfer them to a virtual infrastructure (Cloud), and allow officers to access key information whilst out on patrol or responding to incidents.
In the event, the PCC couldn’t countenance such a large contract being effectively handed to a single favoured contractor and, quite correctly, ordered that the project be put out to tender…
Capita won the tender process, taking the integration away from EY. And to put it gently, Capita doesn’t have the greatest public track record in functional IT systems delivery. £500 million Army contract underperforming consistently with deliverables delivered years late, significant miscalculations in a £330 million NHS project resulting in tremendous losses and other issues around upgrades of a back-office support system, and so on and so on.
In February 2020, GMP described iOPS issues as “intermittent problems”. Interesting interpretation of the definition.
As it stands, Greater Manchester Police is now the only force in England to have not published any crime statistics since June 2019. As we roll towards 2021, this situation looks to be unchanged. HMICFRS made nine recommendations to GMP earlier this year to improve iOPS, none of which appear to have been implemented.
Despite this, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins has said on the record that iOPS does provide accurate crime data, apparently showing an 8% reduction in recorded crime (presumably since June 2019). However we have no way to see this, because the system still isn’t providing public datasets to Government.
What an utter shambles.
Despite crime investigations requiring further actions rising 68% in the first three months of iOPS’ deployment, Capita still felt it necessary to perform planned work which effectively took iOPS out of operation for four days in February 2020. Officers had to resort to using pen and paper!
The continued failure of iOPS has huge implications for external audit and assessment of police performance and effectiveness, appropriate policing and protection of vulnerable individuals and efficient communication between GMP and the Courts Service for timely serving of justice. It also makes it incredibly difficult to do things like research an area when considering a house purchase, using what should be readily available public data.
To add insult to injury, at the start of October 2020, a significant data breach – of thousands of victims’ personal details, including those who suffered sexual abuse – were accidentally published online as part of a test by a contractor, presumably while trying to fix broken aspects of iOPS. Both GMP and the ICO got involved investigating that one – and the Mayor’s office wasn’t even notified. Shameful.
People like Jennifer Williams and Neal Keeling at the MEN has been doing sterling work reporting on the continued failures of iOPS, Capita and GMP.
In the article linked above, Williams explains how GMP are prevaricating, obfuscating and plain denying access to information which would inarguably confirm the sheer scale of ineptitude surrounding the iOPS rollout,
Among the Freedom of Information requests I have had rejected, for example, was a request for details of the iOPS procurement exercise; how much the awarded contracts were worth; any in-built penalties; and who all the different elements had been awarded to. Virtually all public reports or documents that went to the then-police commissioner, Tony Lloyd, about the system’s procurement have vanished from the internet.
Jennifer Williams, MEN, 2020-03-04
From another of MEN’s articles, here’s some of the now familiar failings:
Senior officers did not know what was in a huge backlog of cases that had built up between July and November last year following the introduction of iOPS.
Inspectors found nearly 700 domestic abuse incidents had been sitting in the queue, not being dealt with, concluding that senior command did not know what risks or threats were waiting to be addressed.
In one case, a domestic abuse incident involving a known sex offender was assessed as being appropriate for resolving over the phone rather than a visit in person – because staff could not find the necessary information.
Referrals for high-risk domestic abuse victims initially halved following the introduction of the network.
Staff also told Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services they had felt ‘blamed’ for problems with the new system, introduced July 2019, and that they felt they ‘weren’t being listened to’
The M.E.N. has repeatedly reported the concerns of frontline officers around iOPS, which went live in July 2019 to replace the force’s old, creaking IT systems – with particular fears raised over risk to the public and safeguarding of vulnerable people.
Senior command have repeatedly insisted the issues it has faced were expected and that nobody was being placed at risk.
Neal Keeling, 2020-10-02, Manchester Evening News
When is Andy Burnham’s office going to step in and force Ian Hopkins and GMP to own up to the scale of this disastrous rollout? How much extra work are taxpayers going to have to fund to fix this disaster? And will anyone actually face dismissal, disciplanary action or even prosecution by NAO/ONS for this gross negligence in what should be a watertight, well tested and high priority project?
Further reading
- https://neilwilby.com/2020/08/21/rotten-to-its-core/
- https://neilwilby.com/2019/09/04/cost-of-gmps-disastrous-is-transformation-programme-rises-to-80-million/
- https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/greater-manchester-police-having-problems-18545559
- https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/wp-content/uploads/greater-manchester-police-integrated-operational-policing-system.pdf
- https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/names-details-thousands-victims-crime-19039572
- https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/astonishing-testimony-police-whistleblowers-who-16749861
- https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/gmp-police-computer-iops-crime-17621926
- https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/07/manchester_police_outage/
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manchester-police-work-paper-computer-system-malfunction-a9319441.html