- Scottish Police Services Authority - Information Communications Technology
Infobox UK Police
name = SPSA-ICT
area = Scotland
size = N/A
population = N/A
start = 2007 (re-baged from Scottish Police Information Strategy (SPIS), and moved from Atlantic Quay, Glasgow, to St Vincent Street, Glasgow)
HQ =Glasgow
budget =
officers = Approx 50 Police Staff, plus 2-3 seconded officers
divname = N/A
divno = N/A
stations = N/A
title = Director
head = Robert Kirkwood
web = http://www.spis.police.uk/The Scottish Police Services Authority - Information Communications Technology (SPSA-ICT), formerly known as the "Scottish Police Information Strategy", is an organisation within the Scottish Police Service responsible for the development of new systems with a national, cross-force scope. The personnel consist primarily of around 50 Police Staff, mainlyIT professional s specialising in a range of discrete technologies, with a large contingent of those staff comprised of JavaJ2EE Developers and Oracle DBAs. SPSA-ICT also retains a small number of development staff specialising in .NET technologies. Non-technical members of staff includeproject manager s, administrative staff, internal personnel resources,software tester s, senior management, and a very small number of seconded police officers with specialist knowledge of the areas impacted by projects under construction. Seconded police officers are drawn from Scotland's eight police forces, and fromSPSA-Criminal Justice (formerlySCRO ).Projects Undertaken
The Scottish Intelligence Database (SID)
The Scottish Intelligence Database was designed by an external supplier, ABM Intelligent Solutions, under the supervision of a team from SPIS, headed by Detective Superintendent Ian McCandlish, seconded from
Strathclyde Police . In respect of his involvement with the SID Project, Det Supt McCandlish was a contributor to the The Bichard Inquiry (concerning the 2002 murders ofHolly Wells andJessica Chapman byIan Huntley , in particular the concerns that case raised regarding how a person with Huntley's police record and background could have been approved to work in proximity to children).Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR2)
The ANPR2 Project is an ongoing SPSA-ICT project, concerning the provision of automated number plate recognition (
ANPR ) technologies to the Scottish Police Service. Notable/controversial aspects of the technologies employed in the project include the collection of information viahidden camera s, concealed in cats eyes in the road.The Scottish Criminal Records Office replacement system
The Scottish Criminal Records Office replacement system, also known as the Criminal History System (CHS), was developed by SPIS for
SCRO (now known as Scottish Police Services Authority - Criminal Justice, or SPSA-CJ for short).The CHS Project was undertaken between 2001 and 2007. It was implemented using Java J2EE and Oracle, with Hibernate and Spring. The Project proved problematic for SPIS / SPSA-ICT, eventually culminating in negative news coverage and questions being asked in the Scottish Parliament regarding the cost of the system, the rationale of its design, and the way it had been managed (see "Controversy and External Criticism" below).
Scottish National Firearms Certificate Holders Register (SNFCHR)
The SNFCHR project was developed by SPIS between 1995 and 2005. In July 2005 a decision was made that an off-the-shelf software package that was already being used by several English police forces provided a better-value solution to the issue of maintaining a register of persons authorised to keep firearms, and as a consequence the SNFCHR project was cancelled.
The National Custody System
The National Custody System was designed for the .NET and Oracle platforms. Initial scoping and design work took place between November 2002 and January 2007, with first rollout of the system to a Scottish Force (
Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary ) taking place in February 2007. As of January 2008, the system is currently being reviewed for rollout within a second Scottish force,Strathclyde Police .Human Resources System
The HRS Project aimed to provide a single, coherent personnel system to the Scottish Police Service. Another personnel system, originally developed internally by
Tayside Police , known as SCOPE, also remained in use, however. As a combined result of the move from SPIS to SPSA-ICT, and of the elements within Tayside Police responsible for SCOPE also moving to come under the SPSA, as of April 2007, the SPSA is effectively maintaining two, essentially competing, systems geared at providing a personnel management solution. A decision has still to be made regarding which of the two systems will go on to become the single system originally envisaged. This issue is complicated by the fact that different forces in Scotland independently use each system, and by the fact that some of SPSA-ICT's own projects (for example, the National Custody Project) are actually designed to interface solely with the SCOPE solution that was developed by Tayside Police, rather than the HRS solution that was developed by their own staff.Controversy and external criticism
SPIS, and later SPSA-ICT, came under considerable public criticism for their handling of the delivery of the Criminal History System project. The cost of the system rose from an initial estimate of £1.5m, to an eventual bill of over ten times that amount. In addition to the cost overrun, the system was delivered more than three years later than even a revised estimate of the delivery date, and did not provide any new capabilities that the system it was intended to replace had previously provided. In the most literal sense, the new system was an exact replica of the 1980's-style green-screen, unifont, text-only system that preceded it; the only difference was that this exactly-identical interface was presented to users via a secure web browser, rather than via a mainframe terminal. The rationale given for this decision to re-invent an outdated wheel was that proceeding this way would save on training costs for existing staff. This was widely-perceived as incredibly shortsighted, given that staff retire or leave and are replaced on a rolling basis, and that consequently the training of new staff will therefore always be an issue, regardless of the nature of the system they require to be trained upon. Additionally, as the new system did not take full advantage of the considerable advances in information technology that have come along since the original 1980's design was envisaged, it was felt that a chance to significantly enhance the safety and efficiency of, for example, the processes that allow persons to be vetted for working with children had been missed. Questions about SPIS / SPSA-ICT's handling of the project were raised in the Scottish news media, by the
BBC News , and by an opposition MSP,Stewart Maxwell , in theScottish Parliament , who called the project "a complete disaster". The net result of the criticism received was that an external software supplier, Real Time Engineering, was brought in to provide Development expertise and Project Management oversight to the project during the period Summer 2005 - Autumn 2007.ources
* [http://www.spsa.police.uk/services/information_services_ict/information_and_communication_technology SPSA website] , as at January 2007
* [http://www.spis.police.uk/index.html SPSA-ICT website] , as at January 2007
* [http://www.s168008297.websitehome.co.uk/pdf/Scotland%20Remains%20one%20Step%20Ahead%20press%20release.pdf ABM Intelligent Solutions / SPIS press release on SID]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/feb/17/internet.it Bichard Enquiry] : "The Guardian" report from February 17 2005, including a contribution from Detective Superintendent McCandlish of the SPIS Scottish Intelligence Database team.
* [http://www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/cateye.htm UK Speed Trap Guide] : cameras concealed within Cats Eyes.
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4578206.stm BBC article] regarding questions asked in the Scottish Parliament about the handling of the CHS Project by SPIS.
* [http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1478006.0.0.php Glasgow Herald report] on the delayed CHS rollout, June 2007.
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