A Coppers Blog Goes Panorama

I have just watched A Coppers Blog on Panorama, in which Stuart Davidson has been outed as David Copperfield.

I'd like to say I was shocked, or surprised. With regret I am not. I will say something can be done.

For a start, a policeman will have to fill out a form when he arrests someone. This form is about one side of A4. Fair enough. He will then have to add about another half a side of A4 on top of that across anywhere between 30 and 50 forms. This is plainly stupid. Bonkers. Idiocy.

It is not that the information does not need to get to where it gets to, or that it needs to be verified as correct by the arresting officer. It is that we do not need to repeat the entry of the data so many times, with the obvious creation of mistakes by double entering the same data.

There are computer companies, like the one advertised on the right, that can build small and cheap systems to fill in all the forms necessary for any given crime, on the basis that the arresting officer tells it what class of offender and crime has been committed and then fills in all the fields. Alas government IT projects seem to have a much bigger and all encompassing scope, that fails to talk to the grass roots and so costs a bucket and falls on its face.

Panorama has this, whilst a Coppers Blog has this.

PS.

I note that Tony McNumpty rubbished A Coppers Blog in parliament, but has since in the face of reality at least partially withdrawn his attack.