£150m offender-tracking system scrapped

£150m offender-tracking system scrapped

By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 09/01/2008

A £500 million computer project to underpin the criminal justice system and protect the public has been scrapped.

C-Nomis was supposed to track and manage offenders from charge to sentence, imprisonment and beyond, linking the courts, prisons and probation services.

But the Government said a ''version" would be introduced in prisons only.

C-Nomis was designed to make it easier for probation staff to prepare for a criminal being freed, protecting the public and reducing the chance of new crimes.

But, after spending more than £150 million, David Hanson, the Justice Minister, pulled the plug. He said steps would be taken to increase data shared between prisons and probation.

Opposition MPs said this could have been done without spending so much. Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary, said: "This blows a hole in the Government's promise to deliver end-to-end offender management."

Harry Fletcher of the probation union Napo, said: "This is yet another government IT disaster. Tens of millions have been wasted on projects that have not delivered".

Comment: I suppose this makes a change from losing discs containing data...now they just lose the whole system!