The mayor’s office will this week consider the future of Greater Manchester Police’s ‘scandalous’ frontline computer system - with many insiders expecting it to finally be ditched.
Deputy mayor Beverley Hughes admitted on Friday that the system ‘continues to be a very serious issue for the police’ because it is stopping the force, which is in special measures, from making improvements.
Options drawn up by the Chief Constable are due to go to her in the coming days, with a decision due in the next two or three weeks.
Multiple sources predict that will mean Police Works, the failing frontline part of the overall iOPS system, will be replaced.
iOPS has been causing officers intense frustration and stress ever since it was introduced in the summer of 2019.
The part used by senior command and call handlers - known as Control Works - has largely been rolled out without too much issue, but Police Works, which rank-and-file cops are meant to use day-to-day for investigations, intelligence and records, has been a major problem from the start.
Within days of its introduction they came forward in their droves to warn of its failures, while the policing watchdog would go on to hold it responsible for huge safeguarding backlogs and for potentially putting vulnerable people at risk as a result.
One police officer told the M.E.N. last summer that the damage done to public safety by iOPS had been ‘incalculable’, while the Home Secretary called it an ‘absolute scandal’ a few weeks later and pointed to 'terrible, terrible leadership and decision-making'.
Speaking to councillors at the police and crime panel last week, Baroness Hughes admitted that in 2022 it was still a major problem.
“There’s no doubt about it - iOPS has been and continues to be a very serious issue for the police, because it’s undermining the improvement really that we’re doing while we haven’t got a fully functional computer system,” she said.
“Much of iOPS works really well - Control Works. Police Works is still a problem. The Chief Constable has been working on that and he is about to bring a paper to me identifying now the options going forward.
“I don’t know what those are yet but I'm getting that paper next week. But I’m hoping that we do get to a position where we can at least see...we can see a point in time where we can get to a position where police officers have that capability which they do really need.”
While those options will be considered in private this week and no decision has formally been made, multiple sources expect Police Works to be replaced, against a widespread consensus that it is not fit for purpose.
The failures of Police Works - which was meant to be a state-of-the-art records management system - have been documented by the M.E.N. since its introduction in July 2019, when a flood of police whistleblowers came forward to warn of the crisis it had prompted.
While senior command at the time insisted the issues had been overblown, an inspectorate report the following winter found a huge drop-off in referrals to safeguarding agencies and victims’ services, leading it to conclude that victims had potentially been put at risk.
When a new Chief Constable took up post in May 2021, he promised to urgently review the system.
Stephen Watson would go on to declare last September that a decision was now imminent, but since then it is understood the force’s options review has taken longer than anticipated, including legal and commercial questions around contracts.
The overall financial cost to the public purse of the system’s failure has never been disclosed, although many insiders have reported the price-tag spiralling from the £29m originally stated, partly due to the levels of overtime and legal advice prompted by its problems.
Andy Burnham has last year said that some money had been clawed back from contractors, but no details have been disclosed.
It is understood GMP has not asked for more money for the system from any raised by a proposed £10 rise in the policing precept, which goes out to consultation tonight. But it remains unclear how much any decision to change or replace iOPS will cost, or how that would be paid for.
An update paper on the system, originally promised for October, is now due to go before the police and crime panel on February 7.
