Metropolitan Police to cut 700 staff in IT outsourcing plan
Staff at Digital Policing arm facing the axe under plan to outsource software development and IT services
At a time when many organisations are looking to bring software development in-house, the Metropolitan Police is looking to outsource its software development capabilities in a plan that will see just 100 staff retained out of a current workforce of 800.
The news was disclosed in Digital Policing Newsletter, which is sent to all staff.
The Metropolitan Police currently has an IT workforce of around 500 in-house staff and 300 contractors and is evaluating the level of staffing that it will require in-house and the activities to be outsourced. The aim is to cut the organisation's IT costs as part of overall annual budget savings. The outsourcing programme is to be split into separate, functional "towers" and redundancies are expected.
"...the intention is that the functions and resources focused on the Met's strategic business needs will remain within the Met and the functions and resources associated with solution development, deployment and service delivery will be outsourced," claimed one newsletter article, published at the beginning of February.
A later newsletter article added that the organisation would "soon" be starting its first "downsizing and cost-reduction programmes". It added that an "Intelligent Client Function" would remain within the Metropolitan Police Force to help manage the various outsourced contracts, which would comprise approximately 100 staff.
The Metropolitan Police is already planning to outsource HR, payroll and procurement to services provider Steria under a "Shared Services Connected" initiative, which will see 500 staff shifted into the private sector.
The Metropolitan Police has been criticised for the exceptionally poor quality of its IT. A 2013 London Assembly report claimed that 90 per cent of the organisations IT platforms would be redundant by 2016 due to age and obsolescence. It currently runs more than 400 separate IT systems, with some of them dating back to the 1970s.
"We have an expensive technology function keeping the system going, rather than innovating and supporting the front line," Rowley told the Committee back in 2013.
He continued: "We have a collection of systems that are individual good ideas wired together over 40 years. Even the language the systems are written in - most people who can write that language are nearing retirement. It is slightly frightening. We need a fundamental root and branch reform to be more efficient and better at crime fighting."