Farce as Met Police’s ‘disastrous’ £150 million supercomputer is shut down for FOUR hours
A stock image of a police officer using a computer
NEC
The Metropolitan Police’s new IT system will be inactive in a planned outage for four hours on Tuesday, GB News can reveal.
The CONNECT system, which cost £150 million and was finally introduced in November 2022 after years of delays, will be under a planned outage from 11am to 3pm.
The planned outage covers the crucial 2pm slot, when policing teams switch shifts and a handover-takeover process takes place.
The CONNECT system is used by officers to create any case files, property records and custody records, all of which will be unavailable tomorrow.
Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley
PA
GB News has seen internal messages sent by police leaders which explain the planned outage, which admit that “DNA samples will need to be taken manually.”
Officers have also been advised to only do “what is absolutely necessary for back record conversion.”
A police officer in the Met, speaking on condition of anonymity, told GB News: “If I was a criminal I would want to commit crime today between 11am and 3pm.”
They added: “Previous CONNECT outages have seen criminals released without charge because of technical problems, while crucial evidence and property have gone missing. It wouldn't be a surprise if half a day’s outage of the most important policing computer system in the country’s capital caused the same.”
A police officer using a mobile phone
NEC
The serving frontline constable said: “CONNECT has been a disaster since day one.
"Already stretched and stressed frontline cops pull their hair out and spend hours in overtime over simple tasks that previously took minutes while senior management, who will never use it, claim there's nothing wrong.
"£150 million of taxpayer’s money and years of delay for something that will make it harder to be on the street actually policing.”
A Met Police spokesperson said: “There is a CONNECT outage planned for Tuesday 20 June between 1100hrs and 1500hrs.
A New Scotland Yard sign outside the Curtis Green building on Victoria Embankment in London
PA
"Advice and information for what to do during this outage is available to officers and staff.
“In November 2022, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) joined a number of other police forces across England and Wales who have replaced their aging IT systems with CONNECT.
“As is usual in large-scale IT programmes the MPS built a strong contingency plan around its ongoing implementation to ensure any issues arising did not impact on our work to keep the public safe, and whilst there have been some early functionality issues, they are being tackled and improvements being made.
“CONNECT will replace a total of eight aging IT systems and help the MPS achieve best value for money on behalf of the public by reducing the number of IT systems requiring maintenance. Crucially, we are confident it will improve the quality and accessibility of data, intelligence and information available to our officers.”