- An revision has revealed deficiencies in the National Crime Agency’s IT
- Almost 80% of NCA’s IT Budget is used on older systems
- NCA must tackle these weaknesses with extensive plans
An independent revision of the Police Watchdog, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), has published a worrying report on the IT systems in the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
The report outlines that ‘many of the IT systems it depends on are outdated and unsuitable for purposes’, which says NCA is burdened with technical debt thanks to a continued priority of quick fix repairs rather than more extensive long-term solutions.
That’s not all, as the report also recommends that NCA improve its control of bulk data sets – as there is currently no data set from regional organized crime units, and no plans to allow NCA to perform bulk analysis of data from the law enforcement data – despite plans for the service to replace police national computer in 2026.
A ten -year strategy
A significant restriction that NCA faces, especially given the sensitive nature of much of the organization’s data, is the lack of cloud -adoption;
“NCA has also been slow to embrace the benefits of cloud -based technology fully that have adverse practical consequences. For example, staff cannot automatically transfer data between computer systems operating on each of the three security levels in the government’s security classification policy.”
The older systems still operated by NCA mean higher maintenance costs, limited functionality and compatibility with other internal systems, increased training needed for new staff, and an inability to fully utilize data sets from other outdated systems.
260 older systems were identified, which has led to an astonishing 80% of the organization’s IT budget used to service these outdated systems.
The report concludes with nine overall recommendations, including a ten -year development strategy for replacing Legacy IT systems, developing a plan to implement bulk data analysis of the data ward data set for law enforcement and adopt the government’s framework for digital and data boundary subjects.
NCAS DG Graeme Biggar confirmed to Techradar Pro;
“We take extensive actions in areas identified in the report’s recommendations, of which much was well underway at the time of the inspection. This includes an agency -covering technology defense program.”
