The Bichard Inquiry - Report - Digital Education Resource Archive ...

Recommendations
Investment should be made available by Government to secure
the PNC’s medium and long-term future, given its importance to
intelligence-led policing and to the criminal justice system as a whole.
I note that PITO has begun this work.
Responsibility: The Home Office, advised by PITO
The new Code of Practice, made under the Police Reform Act 2002,
dealing with the quality and timeliness of PNC data input, should be
implemented as soon as possible.
Responsibility: The Home Office
The quality and timeliness of PNC data input should be routinely
inspected as part of the PPAF and the Baseline Assessments, which
are being developed by HMIC.
Responsibility: HMIC
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.
Responsibility: The Court Service and the Home Office
Information management
4.39 € Data has to be collected, analysed and input correctly. Records then need
to be properly reviewed, with regard to the data protection legislation,
so that the potentially useful records are retained, while those that are no
longer needed for policing purposes are deleted. In this way the creation,
review, retention or deletion of records will all become part of one system.
Where information is held, it must be used effectively and shared, where
appropriate, with other key agencies. Each part of the process must work
well if the whole system is to be effective. The contacts Humberside Police
had with Huntley graphically illustrate how important this is.
National guidance on record creation, retention
and deletion
4.40 € There is little national guidance available on how best to use the
information systems needed for effective record creation. It may be
that most police forces have ensured that they already have efficient
arrangements in place. But the nature and scale of the problems in
Humberside Police, together with the persistent problems with the input of
data onto the PNC, suggest that the problems are not unique to that force.
134 The Bichard Inquiry – National systems and structure – the findings