Police national database and MPS implementation

Report: 8
Date: 8 September 2011
By: AC Specialist Crime Directorate / Director of Information on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The Police National Database (PND) is the Government’s response to the Bichard recommendation 1, namely that ‘a national IT system for England and Wales to support police intelligence should be introduced as a matter of priority’. The PND will provide forces with a national intelligence and information sharing system. It will improve significantly the ability of forces to exchange data around all offenders. PND will also include victims relating to Schedule 3 and 5 of the Sexual Offences Act. PND will have a significant impact on intelligence, Child Protection, Public Protection including serious violent and sexual offenders and delivery of a range of crime strategies such as the MPS anti-violence strategy and counter terrorism. This paper sets out specific questions asked by the MPA. The MPS first users of PND will start to gain access during October 2011.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the contents of the report.

B. Supporting information

1. The Soham Murders in 2002 led to the Bichard enquiry which found a national gap in the extent to which information and intelligence was shared between forces.

2. To address this, the First Progress Report, Bichard Inquiry Recommendations 2004 was for:

“An effective integrated national, regional and local information-sharing and intelligence capability, which will improve the ability of the police and partner agencies to proactively use information for intelligence purposes to prevent crime, bring offenders to justice, safeguard children and vulnerable persons and further professionalise the investigation process.”

3. The national launch of PND by Nick Herbert, the Police Minister, the Home Secretary and the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) was 23 June 2011. On the same day a presentation was given to MPA members.

4. The Impact Nominal Index (INI) was a temporary solution and is now being replaced by the Police National Database. INI only allowed officers to see where information existed. They then had to contact the force to find out the detail. PND will allow the detail to be seen from users’ terminals, which in the MPS will be through AWARE.

What is the PND?

5. The PND is a new IT system that allows the police service to share, access and search local force information on a national basis. It provides forces with immediate access to up-to-date information drawn from local crime, custody, intelligence, child abuse and domestic abuse systems.

6. PND should not be confused with the Police National Computer (PNC) that holds information on convictions and vehicles. PND holds information on intelligence.

7. The aim is seeing the whole UK picture through PND. These are not new records but information forces already hold. PND will allow MPS staff to have direct access to four times as much information as the MPS currently holds.

What benefits will the PND bring?

8. PND is one of the most significant developments for UK law enforcement in recent times. It heralds a step change in the community’s approach to the sharing of information and intelligence and presents significant opportunities in tackling serious crime and protecting the most vulnerable.

9. The PND will deliver significant efficiency benefits to the police service through much swifter processes for exchanging information between forces. Forces will no longer have to request information from other forces and wait for responses, as they will have direct access to the underlying record. More importantly, the PND will deliver significant benefits to forces through enabling analysts to:

• Identify new lines of enquiry;
• Identify new patterns in crime;
• Remove the current artificial borders;
• Make much better risk-assessments and improved decision-making; and
• Uncover bad character evidence.

What will this mean for forces?

10.The PND will change fundamentally the process for exchanging information between forces. With the INI, a force has to send a request for the underlying information to the relevant force or forces and wait for a response. With the PND, forces will have direct access to the underlying record.

11.PND users will have to decide what information in that record is relevant and what to do with it. But the information will be made available more quickly meaning analysts and investigators will have a more timely product to act upon.

12. MPS information referenced within the Impact Nominal Index accounts for 25% of all records nationally and come from the MPS Crimint Plus, Custody and CRIS systems.

13. The national priorities for PND are:

• The safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults
  • Child Abuse Investigation Units
  • Public Protection Units
  • Vetting Units
• Countering terrorism
  • Regional Counter Terrorism Units
  • SO15
• The proactive disruption and prevention of crime, including serious and organised crime
  • Force Intelligence – Met Intelligence Bureau – 24/7
  • Intelligence Units – B/OCU Intelligence Units
  • Serious and Organised Crime Units

How much information will be included on PND?

14. PND will include 48 million people records from 65 Forces / Agencies UK wide. This does not mean that the PND will hold records on [48] million discrete individuals. The term 'record' relates to a snapshot view of a person, object, location or event at a point in time. If a person is involved in numerous events at different dates and across many forces it will result in many 'records' being sent to PND for that one real-world individual. It is estimated by the NPIA that in practice the PND will probably hold information on between 10 million and 15 million people.

15. By comparison PNC has information relating to 10 million people and driving details of 54 million drivers.

16. The MPS will provide for inclusion in PND:

• 5 Million Custody Records;
• 8.4 Million Crime Records (but these will not include the details of the investigation);
• 14 Million intelligence records.

17. All intelligence is graded as to the extent it can be shared and of the 14 million intelligence records in London, 95% will be shared on PND to allow other forces to see our intelligence. The MPS will be able to view a similar percentage of other forces information recorded nationally. This will make sure we are able to ‘join the dots’ nationally.

18. More sensitive intelligence will be protected by the MPS and it will be sign-posted on PND so other forces know that it exists but will be referred to the Met Intelligence Bureau for a disclosure decision to be made. This will reduce the risk of information being used inappropriately.

Will victim and witness data be included on the PND?

19. Witness data should not be included on the PND but some victim data will, in limited cases, be available. All police forces through ACPO have decided that information relating to victims of sexual offences, and additionally those victims of child abuse or domestic violence where a crime has been recorded, will be shared on the PND. Improving the protection of the vulnerable is one of the key aims of the PND and so this was deemed necessary and appropriate to public protection and safeguarding our communities. This will help officers and staff to identify offenders who repeatedly victimise vulnerable people and who move across force area boundaries.

Which organisations will have access to PND?

20. PND will be available to all 43 Forces in England and Wales, National and Regional CT Units, Regional Intelligence Units, 8 Scottish Forces, Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), British Transport Police (BTP), Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency (MDPGA), Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS), Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Scottish Police Services Authority Vetting Unit, Services Police Crime Bureau (incl. Royal Military Police), ACPO Criminal Records Office (ACRO), Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC), National Fraud Reporting Centre, City of London.

How is PND being delivered?

21. PND is delivered in 2 phases, Phase one runs up to 2012. Phase 1 consists of delivering 12,000 users nationally of which 550 will be trained in the MPS by August 2011. By the end of this current year we are aiming for 1,000 users in the MPS and to have 2,000 users by the Olympics. So compared to 30,000 users of our crime and intelligence systems there will be a relatively smaller number of users. Phase 1 will include two releases of capability. Phase 2 has not yet been defined by the NPIA.

22. PND Release 2, which will deliver more enhanced capabilities, is scheduled to be delivered in May/June 2012.

23. The PND implementation has been led by the Met Intelligence Bureau, Commander Sue Wilkinson with the support by the Directorate of Information to get the technical infrastructure in place and to prepare the data for inclusion in PND.

What will users receive in PND Release 1?

24. PND Release 1 functionality allows PND users to conduct a person search and, more significantly, to access the underlying record. This saves forces valuable time and ensures that important operational information is available when it is needed, rather than having to be requested from the force that holds the information on its local systems.

25. Release 1 groups person records together (Matching), simplifying search results and giving users much more information about a particular individual and potentially identifying new lines of inquiry. This will also help identify people who attempt to mislead the police by swapping around or only using part of their name, address and date of birth.

What will users receive in PND Release 2?

26. PND Release 2, which will follow in May/June 2012, will deliver more advanced functionality. It will allow searches by other fields, such as objects, locations and events. It will also allow ‘free text’ searches. This would, for example, allow a user to search for a ‘red Audi’ across the PND, including all intelligence reports. Release 2 will also include alerts, markers and flags and other more sophisticated functionality.

27. PND will identify who knows who and how they are associated. It will make links across forces boundaries. For instance you will be able to tell how a person in one force is linked to an address in a different force area.

28. The MPS have been encouraging OCUs to use national information from INI in preparation for PND and INI use has increased year on year. INI was used in:

• 2007/8 - 18,915 times,
• 2008/9 - 47,306 times,
• 2009/10 - 124,222 times and in
• 2010/11 - 146,111 times and a 20% increase on the previous year.

29. We are now using INI 18,000 times per month in the MPS or 700 times per day. PND usage on full roll-out is likely to be much higher than this as there will be five times more users than INI and much more user friendly with direct access to the information. INI was switched off nationally in June for all other forces apart for the MPS and Scottish Forces who were experiencing technical delays in getting the CONFIDENTIAL infrastructure in place. INI was due to be switched off for the MPS by the end of August, 2011. The implementation of both the chip and PIN and the confidential environment, needed for PND, is very complex and even more so in an organisation the size of the MPS. Technical difficulties within the MPS have led to a delay for PND delivery and the need for INI being extended by the NPIA until the end of September. This is likely to be at a cost of £85k per month and an additional £50k for licensing if delivery extends beyond September 2011. The implementation is still not confirmed but likely to start rolling out at the end of October, 2011.

Impact on the MPS in terms of intelligence

30. PND is the most significant development since PNC over 30 years ago and will be the key intelligence system for years to come. It will have a significant impact on policing. At a strategic level, information from the PND will provide a ‘richer picture’ to guide the Strategic Intelligence Assessment (SIA) and drive the Corporate Tasking process with more informed Tactical Assessments developed by MIB and other intelligence units. At a local level PND will be used to develop the ‘local picture’ and enable OCUs to task resources accordingly. PND will be particularly useful for outer boroughs where criminals move freely and daily across MPS boundaries.

31. One of the biggest users of PND are expected to be the Child Abuse Investigation Command (SCD5) who currently use INI 7,000 times per month and account for over 40% of MPS use. PND will enable SCD5 staff to properly research the suspects/families of victims and would therefore be able to make a further assessment of the risk to a child or victim.

32. Other big users will include the MPS Vetting Unit (SCD26) who will use PND to inform recruitment processes as an integral part of the MPS vetting process for all employees and non police personnel (contractors etc.) The use of PND is a more robust way of establishing whether there is information held outside London in relation to the vetting of the candidate.

33. PND will be used across all operational business groups and will help to tackle serious and organised crime ranging from murder, rape, kidnap, Trident, armed robbery to specialist and economic crime. PND will also be used to support MPS activity such as Operation Target.

Public Protection around serious violent and sexual offenders

Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)

34. Sections 325 to 327 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and Part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 places a duty on the Responsible Authorities who are Police, Probation and Prison Services, to risk assess and manage the risks posed by specified sexual and violent offenders in a way which best protects the public from serious harm. This is known as the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

Jigsaw Offender Managers

35. The 32 BOCU’s in the MPS each has a Jigsaw Team whose officers and staff undertake the Police functions as a responsible authority for MAPPA. There are currently 116 Police Offender Managers, who manage a total of 6764 Registered Sex Offenders as the lead agency and are partnered with 605 Violent Offenders, being managed by London Probation.

36. The three agencies of the Responsible Authorities must act in co-operation, which includes the exchange of information in assessing and managing the risks posed by MAPPA offenders and effective risk management requires all agencies to share relevant information.

37. PND will be an invaluable tool to inform the risk assessment processes. The present release enables a search to be completed on a person’s Name, Date of Birth and other descriptive personal details. Once inside a person’s record other information and intelligence is available. PND will be especially useful with offenders new to the Register and those who frequently move across force boundaries and the information obtained will influence safeguarding actions and inform an offender’s risk management plan (RMP).

38. The significant benefits of Release 1 of PND in terms of there being no delay in obtaining responses, will be further enhanced with Release 2 in 2012, when PND’s functionality will enable searches directly on objects, locations and policing events. Police Offender Managers will also be able to use the PND functions of schedule searches and alerts. These functions will ensure early notification of information concerning a MAPPA offender which could identify a change of circumstances e.g. the offender has a new partner, child protection or victim issues, job, address or behaviour, leading to a more timely review of an offender’s RMP, which may be changed as a result of the new information.

39. Within the MPS, Jigsaw Offender Managers have been identified as key users of PND, as it is recognised that victim safety, preventing re-victimisation and avoiding the creation of new victims is fundamental to MAPPA’s fulfillment of its public protection role. PND licences will be given to each Borough Jigsaw Team to assist with the management of offenders.

Impact on the MPS in terms of Delivery against the MPS anti-violence strategy

MPS Anti-Violence Strategy - Background and context

40. The MPS Anti-Violence Strategy is designed to co-ordinate and improve the police response to violence and ensures the MPS is in a position to support the London Anti Violence Partnership (AVP). The following aspects of violent crime are within the scope of the strategy:- violence with Injury, common assault, harassment, serious sexual offences, personal robbery.

41. Within this definition, certain types of offences and incidents will be specifically monitored or the subject of specific police activity - namely: domestic violence (DV), violence against women and girls (VAWG), serious youth violence (SYV) and repeat victimisation. During the financial Year 2010/11 there were 121,284 Domestic Violence incidents of which 48,432 were actual offences.

Delivery Plan

42. The internal Anti-Violence Delivery Plan 2011-12 provides the means to deliver and monitor progress under RIPE (Reassurance, Intelligence, Prevention, Enforcement). Each objective has an identified strategic and delivery lead with the emphasis on reducing violence around VOLT (Victim, Offender, Location, Time) model.

43. The Anti-Violence Board (AVB) programme management team have reviewed the delivery plan and identified those areas deemed pertinent to the potential use of PND. The following activities will significantly benefit:

1. TP Intelligence Model Roll-out - this new intelligence model is designed to guide the 32 Borough intelligence units away from specific crime types towards ‘harm and risk’ identification across all areas of violence. Boroughs will be able to better understand their repeat victims, offenders, locations and manage risk. Release 1 of PND (Sept 2011) will coincide with this roll-out (commencing October 2011) and therefore complement the new intelligence model.
2. Integrated Offender Management (IOM) - Work is underway to devise a framework / matrix system with which to manage dangerous offenders. It is intended this model will service MAPPA, MARAC and Prolific and Priority Offenders subjects to direct offenders onto the right path or programme. This work also feeds the Anti Violence Programme and the introduction of Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASH). The use of PND can only improve delivery of public protection by quickly identifying vulnerable victims and dangerous offenders.
3. Operation Connect - seeks to reduce violence related incidents within gangs. With PND, there will be potential to identify harm and risk to vulnerable individuals potentially linked to wider organised gang activity.
4. Violence Against Women & Girls - It is anticipated that Borough Community Safety Units could benefit hugely from PND particularly in the investigation of domestic violence being able to identify repeat perpetrators where there is a differing victim enabling investigators to set appropriate proportionate risk management plans in light of better intelligence picture; and pursue a greater number of prosecutions through the use of similar fact and bad character evidence identified from previous conduct of offenders. Likewise SCD2 Sapphire Command will be better placed to assess risk and the possibility of linked series in the investigation of serious sexual offences.

44. PND will allow the MPS to identify repeat violent and serious offenders. The MPS Anti-Violence Strategy recognises the impact of violence upon public safety and clearly, the Police National Database will be an invaluable tool to inform investigations.

Decision making

45. It is relevant to mention that violence is a complex and diverse area ranging from ‘volume crime’ investigated by Boroughs through to serious and organised crime investigated by specialist units. It is therefore important to highlight the case that not all investigations would necessarily require individuals - whether victims or offenders - to be checked against the PND database. Proportionality and perspective will naturally feature in any decision by an investigating officer as to whether a PND search - at a national level - is necessary or required.

46. Any decision by an investigating officer not to check the PND database could however potentially ‘miss’ investigative opportunities to identify harm to an individual or a potential linked series. Whilst it is not realistic to anticipate all eventualities, it may be useful for guidance to be considered within each business group as to the type of cases or investigations that would justify a PND check or indeed be mandatory - over and above standard checks that would normally be carried out on internal MPS intelligence databases. This would need to take into account the resources needed and access to PND, which is not as high as other systems. It is anticipated that such decisions would also need to be reflected nationally through the ACPO portfolios.

TP Intelligence Model

47. In respect of the new TP Intelligence Model it is envisaged that PND licences will be owned by Boroughs and can therefore be reallocated to new staff members within Borough Intelligence Units. The Borough Research, Evaluation, and Dissemination (RED) Desk is central to the new model and it is deemed sensible that PND licences are issued to police staff and police officers operating within this desk. It is also important that staff selected to receive such licences have adequate knowledge in respect of handling and disseminating intelligence, as well as anticipated longevity of posting within the intelligence unit.

Confidentiality

48. In respect of the proposed Integrated Offender Management framework and proposed Multi Agency Safeguarding Hubs, where statutory and non statutory partners in a Local Authority are housed together in non MPS buildings, access to PND licences will need to be addressed nationally as CONFIDENTIAL systems such as PND have a higher level of security that are normally positioned within police buildings. At present, it is anticipated that IT infrastructure will be in place within the initial Hubs by October 2011. However, multi-vetted units pose security accreditation challenges that will not be easy to overcome. This issue has been raised by Brian Moore at ACPO level with the PND Lead Deputy Chief Constable, Michael Barton, Durham.

Impact on the MPS in terms of resources

49. It is difficult to gauge the impact on resources. PND on one side will save time as information will be immediately available and there will not be a need to chase and track down further information other than relating to details of a particular investigation, which is not held on PND.

50. There will however be a significant increase in the information available to assess and this is expected to take time to review, identify risks and opportunities and to report on results by way of intelligence products and analysis for officers requesting the information. An INI check takes 10 minutes and then a request is sent to the force to retrieve the information, which could take days or weeks. With PND, the information is immediately available and where information is found, a considerable amount of time is needed to look at all the information. A typical PND check and associated research takes 1 hour and some have taken 4 hours or longer depending upon the criminal intelligence relating to the person involved.

51. The full impact on resources will not be known until the MPS has had some experience of working with PND and the information it holds. Whilst a blanket policy for PND checks to be conducted on all named suspects would be desirable, the time and cost implications will have to be considered when developing policy.

52. Coupled with the reduction of staff within intelligence units there will be challenges to ensure that the use of PND is focused and targeted.

53. If other forces want more information from the MPS such as from the details of an investigation, which are too detailed for PND, they will contact the Met Intelligence Bureau who work 24/7. Currenly, the MIB receives 50 requests daily for such information from other forces or agencies. Many of these requests involve establishing details of an investigation, which is not included on PND.

PND Roles

54. There will be five high level PND roles: Standard User, Researcher, Investigator, Analyst and Auditor. These will have different levels of access depending upon their role and best fit for MPS. PND users must be vetted to national ACPO standards.

55. In August 2011, 550 INI users will be trained in the use of PND. We are on course to complete the training for the first PND users before INI is switched off. Our aim would be to have full deployment of over 2,000 PND users in June 2012 prior to the Olympics.

Will it be available to front-line officers?

56. The PND must be deployed into a CONFIDENTIAL environment and so will not be directly available to front line officers on the streets. In future, it will also be available in a RESTRICTED environment. Forces will decide on the best way to make information from the PND available to relevant front line officers through briefing and taskings.

How confidentiality is secured for data on the site and what safeguards are in place to minimise abuse of the system

57. PND brings together all UK records so there are many protections in place nationally to protect the information. There is a PND Code of Practice that governs the use of PND. The standard vetting requirement for the MPS allows basic users to access PND (Recruit Vetting plus CTC). Certain higher level users of PND will require an enhanced level of vetting (MV). There will be a PND Policy that aligns the MPS use of PND to ensure that it is only used for a proper policing purpose. There will be a PND Audit Policy and regular audits of PND use. There will be enhanced technical security called Identity Access Management (IAM), which means that as well as a password, a Chip and Pin swipe card will need to be used to gain access to PND. PND will only be used in locations where there are adequate physical security measures and each user will be vetted to the right level. The access users get to PND will be based on the role and this means Role Based Access Control making sure your access is on a “need to know” basis. There will be training and business processes will be changed to make best use of PND information. Other technical measures will be in place such as the PND Code of Connection to assure all of above. There will also be a limited number of users compared to other systems.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity Impact

1. PND is a national system and the NPIA ran the Equality, Diversity and Privacy Consultation recommended by the Cabinet Office Consultation Criteria, closing on the 4 April 2008. There were no major concerns raised regarding the equality and diversity of the PND itself, and it was felt that existing police force policies and practices were sufficient to prevent any adverse impacts on equality. When launched nationally on 23rd June, 2011 there was good media coverage, which focused on the number of people who would be on the database quoted to be the equivalent of one in four in the UK. Citizens will be able to make Subject Access Requests, which will be referred to the force owning the data before a disclosure decision is made.

Consideration of Met Forward

PND will be a key tool that will help to fight crime and reduce criminality, increase confidence in policing and give us better value for money. PND is going to be an important tool nationally for the next 10 years+ and using it effectively will make London safer.

Financial Implications

3. The cost of PND nationally has been £75 million. The cost to the MPS has been relatively low (around £1.3 million) due to previous investments in a Corporate Data Warehouse. Due to the demise of the NPIA the annual support costs for PND of £7m will need to be picked up by forces and the MPS slice of this is £1.3m covered by budgets within SCD. As mentioned previously, technical difficulties within the MPS have led to the INI contract being extended by the NPIA until the end of September. This is likely to be at a cost of £85k per month and an additional £50k for licensing if the current challenges take implementation beyond September.

Legal Implications

4. The proposed national information management system, the Police National Data base (PND), offers a capability for police forces to share, access and search local information electronically overcoming jurisdictional boundaries thereby improving overall service delivery.

5. The legal framework for the disclosure of information is set out primarily in the Data Protection Act 1998 (“The Act”). The Commissioner, as Data Controller, will remain responsible for the data processing that takes place within the PND, and for any breaches that may occur as a result of the processing.

6. This report sets out the measures to be taken by the MPS and other police forces to ensure all data within the PND is secure, and processed fairly and lawfully. The National Information Sharing Declaration and the Data Protection Agreement should assist in providing some protection in relation to what information is placed on the PND and how in practical terms parties will exercise their continuing obligations over the information once on the database.

7. The Secretary of State has issued statutory guidance “Code of Practice on the Operation & Use of the Police National Database“ pursuant to s39A of the Police Act 1996, which came into effect on the 31 March 2010. This Guidance has been published to promote the lawful and consistent use of the PND and the information from it; ensure consistent practices by all Chief Officers and police forces; and the operation of the PND complies with the Data Protection Act 1998, Human Rights Act 1998 and all Common Law duties.

8. Further advice may be obtained from DLS and the Public Access Office on issues arising from the operation PND, and particularly in relation to FOIA requests, as and when required.

Environmental Implications

9. There are no environmental implications.

Risk Implications

10. There is a risk that the MPS will not share appropriate or accurate information which could lead to high risk scenarios, such as Soham. To mitigate this, the measures put in place under the Management of Police Information and the PND Programme ensure that MPS Core information is shared through PND and where information is sensitive, but not covert, it is sign-posted on PND for UK users before a disclosure decision is made by MIB.

11. The un-authorised disclosure of information is a risk with any system, particularly national systems. To mitigate this risk a comprehensive range of protections have been put in place nationally. MIB/DOI have also a PND Audit Policy in place so that there is robust auditing of PND usage to ensure that its use is appropriate.

The implementation is still not confirmed but likely to start rolling out at the end of October, 2011. There is a risk of further delays and increasing costs as a result of the need to continue INI service. These costs are being negotiated. There has been significant engagement with suppliers’ to mitigate this risk.

D. Background papers

• MPS Intelligence Systems and Information Sharing, Strategic and Operational Policing Committee - 5 November 2009. Michael Askew, Superintendent MIB.

D. Contact details

Report author: Michael Askew, Superintendent MIB

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback