Recommendation R7: Court results PNC transfer
From The Bichard Inquiry Report, published 22 June 2004.
Recommendation
The transfer of responsibility for inputting court results onto the PNC should be reaffirmed by the Court Service and the Home Office and, if possible, accelerated ahead of the 2006 target. At the least, that deadline must be met.
In brief (written by this site)
In May 2007, the Home Office reported that delivery remained in progress but had experienced slippage and a revised timetable due to complex technical issues and dependencies in directly inputting court results to the Police National Computer (Home Office, May 2007). Earlier, in December 2004, the department confirmed that it and partner agencies had agreed on an electronic data transfer solution rather than continuing to re-key data (Home Office response, Dec 2004).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
The Home Office, the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA), ACPO, PITO and Criminal Justice IT (CJIT) have agreed that the preferred solution for inputting court results onto the PNC should be the electronic transfer of data from the CJS Exchange Portal to the PNC, or from the CJS Exchange Portal to the PNC via the National Strategy for Police Information Systems (NSPIS) Case Preparation. All agencies agree that any solution which continues re-keying of data would be a retrograde step in view of the progress in delivering data electronically within the criminal justice community, in particular from the Crown Court Xhibit system via the CJS Exchange Portal, and using the Libra application for magistrates’ courts.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The Government accepted all 31 recommendations collectively: the Home Secretary's written statement of 11 January 2005 records that "All 31 recommendations were accepted by the Government when the Inquiry reported in June 2004". No document states an acceptance decision for any single recommendation. The response shown against each recommendation is the Home Office's answer to it in the first progress report, sent to Sir Michael Bichard on 22 December 2004 and placed in the Library of the House on 11 January 2005. The Government then reported against the recommendations three more times, in November 2005, May 2006 and May 2007; the updates shown are taken from those reports.
Delivery
Home Office says in progress (22 May 2007)
The Government remains committed to delivering Recommendation 7, despite the complex technical and business change issues involved in achieving the direct inputting court results to PNC from police forces to HM Courts Service (HMCS). Due to the complex nature of key dependencies and the technical issues, there has been slippage to the project and the timetable for delivery has been revised since the Third Progress Report. Nonetheless, work is no less energetic and real progress is being made. The Government remains determined to realise the benefits in terms of timeliness and accuracy which will flow from the automation of the information updating process.
From: Bichard Inquiry Recommendations: Fourth Progress Report
Responsible bodies
Who has spoken
- Home Office
Response, delivery statement