The National Audit Office (NAO) has criticised an £80 million Home Office scheme to provide police officers across the UK with smartphones.
A recent report undertaken by NAO revealed that just one in five police forces has used the devices effectively.
Initially, the Labour Government started to provide police forces with technology such as BlackBerry handsets in order to minimise time spent doing administration.
That was five years ago. Now, auditors have cited their concerns that the scheme has not yet delivered a good return on investment.
It is estimated that 41,000 BlackBerrys and other devices had been distributed to officers across England, Scotland and Wales.
Interestingly, since the scheme launched there have been some benefits:
- On average, police officers are out of the station for an extra 18 minutes per shift
- Since the scheme was launched, police officers spend less time processing information
However, despite this, three police forces ended up with more devices than officers whilst 19 forces were only given enough smartphones for half of their work force.
The NAO reported that this was a direct result of handsets being distributed before any assessment, regarding how many would be needed and how they would be used, was carried out.
In the future, the NAO has advised that investment of this type should be based on ‘robust analysis’ to ensure the technology can be used in an efficient way.
