National Law Enforcement Data Programme

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry
Opened: 1 Sep 2021 Closed: 1 Mar 2022 Parliament page
The Home Office’s National Law Enforcement Data Programme was created to replace the Police National Computer, the national record of data on arrests and missing or wanted persons, and the Police National Database, which facilitates sharing of intelligence between forces. These systems are vital to police operations and are used … Read more
1 Recommendation
32 Conclusions
1 Report
1 Oral session
1 Letter
1 Event
Activity timeline 5 events
1 Mar
2022
Report published
8 Dec
2021
Report published
25 Oct
2021
Correspondence
16 Sep
2021
Oral evidence
16 Sep
2021
Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House
Oral evidence sessions 1 session
16 Sep 2021
View on parliament.uk
National Law Enforcement Data Programme
Joanna Davinson · Cabinet Office Matthew Rycroft CBE · Home Office Mike Hill · Home Office Stephen Webb · Home Office
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National Law Enforcement Data Programme HC 638 8 Dec 2021 33 Responded
Recommendations & Conclusions
33 results
2 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department made poor decisions at the outset of the NLEDS programme and, despite signs...
The Department made poor decisions at the outset of the NLEDS programme and, despite signs it was going badly, was slow to make the necessary changes to correct this. The original scope and ambition for the NLEDS programme was unrealistic. … Read more
Government Response
2022. It should report against these metrics annually to enable Parliament and the public to determine what progress it is making towards meeting the objectives set out in the Government’s … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
3 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
Working effectively with the police is critical to the delivery of NLEDS and other technology...
Working effectively with the police is critical to the delivery of NLEDS and other technology programmes, but it is not yet clear that the Department’s new approach will resolve longstanding challenges in delivering national programmes for local forces. We recognise … Read more
Government Response
4. PAC conclusion: Skills shortages in the civil service could compromise departments’ ability to achieve efficiency savings.
HM Treasury
View details
4 Recommendation
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The police must continue to rely on the PNC for another five years, despite the...
The police must continue to rely on the PNC for another five years, despite the risks to its availability. The PNC is the most important law enforcement technology system in the UK, and it is vital that it is constantly … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
5 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department does not yet have a plan for maintaining the PND and combining its...
The Department does not yet have a plan for maintaining the PND and combining its data with NLEDS in future. The Department has changed its plans for integrating the PND with the NLEDS programme several times, and it has now … Read more
Government Response
6. PAC conclusion: Government efficiency drives tend to be one-off events rather than being embedded as a continuous priority.
HM Treasury
View details
6 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
There is a risk that the Department still lacks the capacity to prioritise and deliver...
There is a risk that the Department still lacks the capacity to prioritise and deliver major digital programmes on time. In common with many other government departments and agencies, the Department is reliant on a range of legacy technology systems … Read more
Government Response
1. PAC conclusion: The pandemic has demonstrated the importance of departments retaining sufficient capacity to respond to emergencies when identifying potential efficiencies.
HM Treasury
View details
1 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence...
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office (the Department) and from the Department’s Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the National Law Enforcement Data Service … Read more
Government Response
2. PAC conclusion: Past experience shows that attempts to improve efficiency can inadvertently reduce the quality of services or increase costs elsewhere – what this Committee has called cost shunting. Read more
HM Treasury
View details
7 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department told us about its new engagement model, with more iterative delivery intended to...
The Department told us about its new engagement model, with more iterative delivery intended to enable quicker release cycles, so that capability gets into the hands of police forces more quickly.9 Where previously the Department had been looking at release … Read more
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
8 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department told us that it has also retained what it called a ‘no-go option’...
The Department told us that it has also retained what it called a ‘no-go option’ for the programme, whereby it could still decide to transfer the PNC on to a different platform, but without getting the same benefits of transformation, … Read more
Government Response
4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: August 2022 4.2 The Police National Computer (PNC) is a critical national infrastructure, and it is vital that it … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
9 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
One of the critical success factors for the programme is having the right people in...
One of the critical success factors for the programme is having the right people in place to deliver it. The programme depends on access to the PNC team but that team lacks capacity to support other programmes as well as … Read more
Government Response
6.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 6.2 The Home Office Portfolio and Project Delivery Directorate already work with all major programmes to assess … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
10 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
There were numerous reasons for the Department’s failure to deliver the NLEDS programme to the...
There were numerous reasons for the Department’s failure to deliver the NLEDS programme to the originally expected timetable. These included: • The Department and the police did not have a consistent shared understanding of the programme, with the focus of … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
11 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
By early 2018, the Department had recognised that the programme would not deliver as originally...
By early 2018, the Department had recognised that the programme would not deliver as originally planned. It had underestimated the amount of work required and the effort remaining was unaffordable within the allocated budget. In June 2018, the Infrastructure and … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
12 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The former SRO for the NLEDS programme acknowledged that the Department should have come earlier...
The former SRO for the NLEDS programme acknowledged that the Department should have come earlier to the stage where it stepped back, stopped work and considered more fundamental choices about how to proceed. He described how the Department had under-estimated … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
40 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The lack of documentation for the PNC meant that the Department repeatedly came across such...
The lack of documentation for the PNC meant that the Department repeatedly came across such surprises.23 The Department’s former CDDTO added that “our real error was that we underestimated the complexity.”24 Working with the police forces
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
13 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The operational independence of UK police forces is a key challenge for the Department’s implementation...
The operational independence of UK police forces is a key challenge for the Department’s implementation of national law enforcement programmes such as NLEDS. The 45 UK police forces are independent of central government, which means that the Department does not … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
14 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
Despite the Department’s attempt to reset the programme in 2019, the police continued to have...
Despite the Department’s attempt to reset the programme in 2019, the police continued to have concerns about progress. In September 2020, the programme’s Chief Constables’ Reference Group stated that a failure to deliver against a proposed second reset would result … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
15 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The former SRO acknowledged that the Department had not achieved the sense of partnership with...
The former SRO acknowledged that the Department had not achieved the sense of partnership with the police that it would have liked and that, following the first reset and finding things were even worse than previously realised, it was understandable … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
16 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department told us that the approach it is now taking is “to have the...
The Department told us that the approach it is now taking is “to have the police on the inside”, with policing involved in all the decision-making at every single level.29 The Department said that previously in the programme, police had … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
17 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
We asked about the inherent difficulty of reconciling the need to maintain the autonomy of...
We asked about the inherent difficulty of reconciling the need to maintain the autonomy of individual police forces with the need to implement co-ordinated and consistent IT transformation across all of the forces. The Department said it accepted that the … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
18 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
On funding, the Department confirmed that it might give forces funds to ‘come on board’...
On funding, the Department confirmed that it might give forces funds to ‘come on board’ and test things early, and that it had put aside a £30 million contingency, specifically to work with individual forces on their adoption of the … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
19 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department’s failure to deliver NLEDS to date means that the increasingly fragile PNC system...
The Department’s failure to deliver NLEDS to date means that the increasingly fragile PNC system has not been replaced, bringing greater risks for police operations and requiring the police to bear more cost. In this report we have already mentioned … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
20 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The PNC has consistently met its service availability targets in recent years; from January 2020...
The PNC has consistently met its service availability targets in recent years; from January 2020 to March 2021 the PNC’s availability was 99.74%, exceeding the Department’s target of 99.65%. However, in January 2021, the PNC experienced a data loss affecting … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
21 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
Concerning the January 2021 incident, the Department told us that all deleted data had now...
Concerning the January 2021 incident, the Department told us that all deleted data had now been recovered and everything that had gone wrong in January had been put right.38 The Department said that the data had been recovered by the … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
22 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department also confirmed that there had been an outage earlier this year, which was...
The Department also confirmed that there had been an outage earlier this year, which was due to a problem with network availability and the ‘wider PNC ecosystem’ in its Hendon data centre, affecting the ability of the police to access … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
23 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
As the NAO reported, the PNC’s current technology will no longer be fully supported beyond...
As the NAO reported, the PNC’s current technology will no longer be fully supported beyond 2024. The Department told the NAO that it had decided to accept the risk of running the PNC without support for the database after 2024.46 … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
24 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The PND enables police forces to share intelligence that they have gathered locally.
The PND enables police forces to share intelligence that they have gathered locally. It was created in 2011 following the 2004 Bichard Inquiry prompted by the murder of two girls in Soham, Cambridgeshire, which criticised police information-sharing. The PND holds … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
25 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department intended that the NLEDS programme would combine the PNC with the PND, which...
The Department intended that the NLEDS programme would combine the PNC with the PND, which was over-optimistic given the time originally available, but has now decided that the NLEDS programme will focus on replacing the PNC alone. In December 2020, … Read more
Government Response
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2022 5.2 The Police National Database (PND) business case is currently being reviewed and refined by key stakeholders. … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
26 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
Police and other users will therefore be unable to access PNC and PND data from...
Police and other users will therefore be unable to access PNC and PND data from a single system, which was one of the Department’s original objectives for NLEDS, for the foreseeable future. The previous intention to integrate the PND and … Read more
Government Response
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2022 5.2 The Police National Database (PND) business case is currently being reviewed and refined by key stakeholders. … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
27 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department’s former CDDTO commented that the Department had added complexity to the NLEDS programme...
The Department’s former CDDTO commented that the Department had added complexity to the NLEDS programme by trying to bring together the PNC and the PND into a single service. It had not understood the complexity of bringing that data together. … Read more
Government Response
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2022 5.2 The Police National Database (PND) business case is currently being reviewed and refined by key stakeholders. … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
28 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department told us that there would be a separate five-year programme for the PND,...
The Department told us that there would be a separate five-year programme for the PND, starting from April 2022.54 The Department said it had been working with the NPCC lead for the PND over the last nine months on a … Read more
Government Response
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: April 2022 5.2 The Police National Database (PND) business case is currently being reviewed and refined by key stakeholders. … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
29 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department is delivering several other national ICT programmes for police use, in addition to...
The Department is delivering several other national ICT programmes for police use, in addition to NLEDS, and needs to work closely with the police on all of them. The portfolio of programmes includes the Emergency Services Network, Home Office Biometrics … Read more
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
30 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The NLEDS programme team is also changing the way it delivers technology to be more...
The NLEDS programme team is also changing the way it delivers technology to be more iterative. The November 2020 external programme review recommended an ‘agile’ approach in which technology is released gradually and changed in response to feedback. The Department’s … Read more
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
31 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department told us that its new way of working with the police for the...
The Department told us that its new way of working with the police for the NLEDS programme would be a pathfinder programme for this new way of working. It would learn lessons and then roll this approach out to the … Read more
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
32 Conclusion
Twenty-Ninth Report - The National…
The Department also said it was now trying to really think about its portfolio of...
The Department also said it was now trying to really think about its portfolio of programmes as a whole and that a lot of the issues concerning NLEDS are relevant elsewhere; not just the way of working with the police, … Read more
Government Response
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2022 3.2 The department has worked closely with policing and made good progress in embedding the new partnership … Read more
HM Treasury
View details
Correspondence 1 letter
25 Oct 2021 Correspondence from Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Secretary, Home Office, re National Law Enforcement Data Programme – product roadmap, dated 7 October 2021
Parliament page