Soham inquiry to make crime-record data sharing easier

The £1.2bn criminal justice IT programme will make data on criminals and suspects easier to share by linking more government databases together in response to the Bichard Inquiry into the Soham murders.

John Suffolk, director general of criminal justice IT, speaking today at the Government UK IT Summit in London revealed that an agreement has already been made to use the DVLA.

"We are adding in authorities like the DVLA, which has already been decided, and we will extend the model to the Department for Work and Pensions as well because they are entirely relevant to the same procedures," he said.

The Bichard Inquiry is due to report its findings next month and it is expected to highlight the failure of police forces to share vital data on murderer Ian Huntley that could have prevented him getting the job as school caretaker in Soham.

Suffolk, who has only been in the role for 13 weeks, highlighted several areas where the much-maligned criminal justice IT programme is making progress. These include the secure email system now available across the whole of the UK criminal justice system and the rollout of more custody and case preparation systems across 12 police forces.

But he admitted the legacy of the problematic Libra case management system for magistrates is a millstone. It is now expected to be available by February 2006 after several delays and cost overruns.

"It is sometimes difficult to shake off historical views of how projects are run. For the team that can be very demoralising. It is a very large and complex programme," he said.

Suffolk also claims another £800m is needed on top of the £1.2bn already allocated to make the full "joined-up criminal justice system" a reality.

Speaking after Suffolk on a panel debate at the conference, Crown Prosecution Service CEO Richard Foster said that while much of the technology is in place there is still a lot of work to be done to get frontline staff to use the systems.

"We have got the technology in but I run an organisation with 3,000 lawyers whose response is 'I'm a lawyer not a typist'. We are still a long way from getting the process and cultural adjustments," he said.