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back to article Outsourcing to 'play a part' in reducing £1bn police IT bill

More outsourcing will "play a part" in reducing the eye-wateringly expensive £1bn-a-year police IT bill, according to the new chief exec of the just-established Police ICT Company, Martin Wyke. Wyke became head of the Police ICT company in June, after the body was established four years after it was first proposed. Previously …

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  1. Anonymous Cowherder

    Is it too late for entries to Edinburgh's funniest joke?

    Outsourcing, save money?

    Ho ho ha ha ho ho ha ha ha hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

    Reduced cost of ownership, return on investment..... I wouldn't say my sourcing partner is fat...... I haven't spoken to my sourcing partner for months, I don't like to interrupt the bills, the additional charges, the hidden costs....

    I'm here all week, try the chicken in a basket, it's lovely but the basket was out of scope so it will be served with your pudding and you'll be charged twice.

    12 2 Reply
    1. Chris Miller
      Reply Icon

      Re: Is it too late for entries to Edinburgh's funniest joke?

      TBF outsourcing can save money where genuine economies of scale are possible. I doubt this is likely for many police forces, though.

      0 2 Reply
      1. Smoking Gun
        Reply Icon

        Re: Is it too late for entries to Edinburgh's funniest joke?

        To be fair to the bloke he seems to talk a lot of sense. 40 odd datacentres, multiple Microsoft and Oracle licensing bills, I bet there is an horrendous range of services (I mean how different could each force be <ducks>), seems like lots of money to be saved through consolidation here.

        2 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Blowhard
        Reply Icon

        Re: Is it too late for entries to Edinburgh's funniest joke?

        Outsourcing can save money where Crapita and Crap Gemini aren't in the mix...

        I think that the problem is that the different police forces all want to solve the same problems independently so that there's no option to look at combining forces; after all, why have one set of highly paid leaders when you can have nearly fifty!

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police_forces_of_the_United_Kingdom

        I wouldn't necessarily advocate a single force for the whole country, but some rationalisation could help reduce costs, and some forces (South Yorkshire) have been involved in so many scandals that removing them could improve morale and public support at the same time.

        2 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    I can save a shitload of cash

    Stop spying on innocent people, hoovering up as much biometric data as possible and deleting data you've been ordered to do.

    Should save a few million in storage costs alone.

    6 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I lament the state of Register reporting. A whole article about Police IT, and not one mention of fuzz-y logic <g>

    5 0 Reply
  4. Tromos

    Time to start worrying...

    ...is when the emergency calls centre is outsourced to India.

    2 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too many police forces, they would save a lot of cash by merging a few and getting rid of idiotic elected police commissioners who are just gravytrain politicians.

    3 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "idiotic elected police commissioners"

      Would that be the ones who have told tax dodging management to stop using blue lighted cars?

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11844261/MPs-demand-inquiry-as-police-civilians-given-cars-with-blue-lights-and-sirens.html

      0 0 Reply
  6. Elmer Phud

    It's only money

    "The Police ICT Company was originally hoped to cut coppers' IT costs by £465m a year. However, the body has since said it is aiming for savings of "at least £150m" per year."

    Usually the beancounters have already allowed for these 'savings' in the budget available. Then the 'savings' never materialise so the plod wil be shat on for something out of thier control

    Sure works like that with my local authority.

    2 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Outsourcing

    Organized crime would be interested in outsourcing police IT; it makes it so much easier to manipulate databases than hacking in.

    5 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    "I was proceeding in a litigatious direction..."

    The recent example of Police Scotland's bungled i6 project for a single IT system run by Accenture doesn't inspire confidence

    6 0 Reply
  9. chris 17 Silver badge

    I wish government and her agencies would in source IT. outsourcing means they will have no clue what they want and the costs will spiral.

    3 0 Reply
  10. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Get real everyone

    That £1B for police IT is actually £250, with £750M siphoned off within the HO to covert shenanigans; Total Information Awareness and the Communications Capabilities Development Programme costs you know!

    1 0 Reply
  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strange but true

    Most police call handling and emergency response systems are actually re-purposed taxi-booking apps.

    1 0 Reply

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