SCOTLAND’s unitary police force is facing a fresh crisis after it emerged that the budget for a crime-fighting computer project has almost quadrupled to £45 million.

Earlier this year it was disclosed that Police Scotland is using eight separate IT databases from the former regional system.

The systems, though, are incompatible with each other, despite the merger of Scottish Police forces into a single force on April 1.

This has led to warnings that criminals may escape detection because of poor sharing of intelligence.

At First Minister’s Questions, yesterday, at Holyrood in Edinburgh, Alex Salmond said the cost of replacing the police computer network is estimated to be £45 million over a decade.

The Scottish Government had originally estimated that integrating the systems of the old eight forces would initially cost £12 million over three years.

Lewis Macdonald, the justice spokesman for Labour, said that public faith is dwindling fast following one calamity after another for the new police service.

It has been revealed that police have been privately briefing for two years that integration would cost £45 million. The Scottish Police Authority (SPA), the body set up to oversee the new force, made the revelation. The true figure was only made public yesterday at First Minister’s Questions.

Information and communications technology (ICT) integration has been described as Police Scotland’s priority but critics fear the Scottish Parliament’s scrutiny of ICT has been downgraded following the resignation of three senior SPA executives, events that have prompted claims of a leadership crisis.

Mr Salmond insists the resignations ‘will have no impact’ on ICT integration because the SPA’s chief information officer remains in post. The First Minister said the ‘proposal for the acquisition of the single ICT system to cover recording, management, analysis of data and crime, vulnerable persons, criminal justice and custody, missing persons and property is a major advance’.

The First Minister added:

… Discussions with the SPA indicate the estimated total cost of £45 million over ten years is affordable within their existing budget.

Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) have previously heard the present ‘hamfisted’ IT network still relies on outdated floppy discs, does not comply with police regulations and leave officers open to criticism if a prisoner dies in custody.

South Scotland Labour MSP Graeme Pearson, a member of Holyrood’s justice committee, said:

… This is the first time this number has been brought to light and brings to a conclusion the ambiguity that has existed up to now about the cost and the likely way forward for the service; £12 million was the Government’s guess and it was obviously an unreasonable figure.

Mr Pearson also said that a highly publicised ‘turf war’ between Police Scotland and the SPA over division of power at the top of the new service has been resolved. He added:

… Many of the major government issues have been reallocated so that Police Scotland will be in charge of human resources, finance and corporate services… The SPA will do what it was designed to do: utilise governance and accountability by watching the way the service delivers according to the strategy. Until now, the SPA deemed it would be responsible for all support staff, all ICT, be the accountable officers for finance and human resources and so forth.

Holyrood’s justice sub-committee on policing will question SPA chairman Vic Emery and Police Scotland chief constable Sir Stephen House on the SPA resignations. That meeting will take place next Thursday. An SPA spokesman said the papers for the next SPA meeting on Wednesday would include details of the revised ICT strategy.

The SPA further added that the £12 million was only a theoretical figure that existed in a Government document. It says there is ‘no ring-fenced sum’ in its capital budget purely for technology.