APPENDIX 18
Further supplementary note by the Home
Office
LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FROM
MR CHARLES CLARKE MP, MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE
When we met on 12th February, I undertook to
write to let the Committee have some additional information on
certain matters. This letter follows up two of these—the
relevance of the law of defamation to the disclosure of "soft"
information from local police records, and improvements in IT
arrangements within the criminal justice system.
As to the former, the law of defamation would
apply to the publication of information provided by a chief officer
of police under section 115(7) or (8) of the Police Act 1997.
However, this means also that the normal defences would be available.
Apart from the possible defence of justification (that is, that
the statement made was true), there would in most cases be a defence
of privilege. Thus, provided that information were published in
accordance with the Act, the person publishing the information
(whether the CRB itself, in pursuance of section 115(9), the police
in pursuance of a request under subsection (7) or (8), or the
registered person in accordance with section 124) would be able
to rely on the defence of qualified privilege. The grounds for
such a defence would be that the person publishing the statement
was under a duty to do so and the person receiving it had a reciprocal
interest in obtaining the information. The publication would have
to have been made honestly. Once it had been established that
the publication took place on a privileged occasion, it would
be for the claimant to prove malice.
As to the second matter, the published IBIS
(Integrating Business and Information Systems) medium-term strategic
plan (October 1999) set out how we intend to join up IT across
the criminal justice system. Each of the six main organisational
components of the criminal justice system—the police, Prison
Service, Probation Service, Crown Court, magistrates' courts and
Crown Prosecution Service—is developing or implementing
a major IT programme. The medium-term strategic plan sets out
how these will be joined to ensure that information can be shared
and exchanged between these systems. The plan also envisages links
between these systems and Phoenix, the criminal records database
on the Police National Computer, both to access information, and
to update Phoenix—for example, with court results. Current
plans are that court results will be passed from the court systems
to the police Case Preparation system (under NSPIS—the National
Strategy for Police Information Systems), and the appropriate
results will be selected and forwarded by the police system to
the PNC. The current plan is to roll out the Case Preparation
and Custody aspects of the NSPIS package by early in 2004. The
magistrates' court system, Libra, should be implemented throughout
the country by the summer of 2003, and the Crown Court system
by 2005.
Implementation of the IBIS medium-term strategic
plan depends on the delivery of the six strategic systems, and
the interfaces between them. We have established an interdepartmental
group at Ministerial level to oversee the work—the IBIS
Ministerial Group. The Group has commissioned a high-level technical
review to assess whether there are different technical options
for joining up the systems, which would not have the same high
level of dependency on co-ordination delivery of these large,
complex systems. The review will be completed later this year.
If it recommends a different technical approach, we will establish
a test programme to confirm the theoretical possibilities and
to reduce the risks of implementation.
As was identified by the Committee, the new
arrangements will still critically depend upon the prompt inputting
of data by each of the agencies concerned. I highlighted the experience
in another area where delays by different agencies had had a pronounced
cumulative effect on performance overall. Clearly, it will be
important that each agency should have quantified performance
indicators, such as those that, as we discussed, the Association
of Chief Police Officers has set in its Compliance Strategy designed
to improve the quality of personal data held on the Police National
Computer.
I hope that this is helpful. I shall write to
you on the remaining matters as soon as I am able to do so. I
am copying this letter to the Clerk of the Committee.
Charles Clarke MP
5 March 2001
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