British Home Office

Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” – a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.


British Home Office – UK
Project type : Mobile computing implementation
Project name : Mobile Information Programme (MIP)
Date : May 2012
Cost : £103M

Synopsis :
Equipping 41,000 British Police Officers with Blackberry devises was intended to cut down on paperwork, improve efficiency and allow officers to spend more time on the beat.  Savings from the plan were projected to be £125M per year, but in the end benefits of just £600,000 were realized. An investigation by the Public Accounts Committee found that the project simply focused on getting the devices into the hands of officers rather than focusing on business benefits.  Although there were some successes, following deployment some police stations reported that officers actually spent more time in the police station rather than on the beat, a complete reversal of the intended outcomes.

Contributing factors as reported in the press:
Failure to perform an effective cost benefit analysis.  Failure to establish measures of success.

Reference links :

  1. Police BlackBerry plan makes ‘woeful’ savings of £600,000
  2. Mobile Technology in Policing – Public Accounts Committee

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