A huge backlog of crimes in need of investigation has built up as a result of Greater Manchester Police’s troubled new computer system, the Manchester Evening News can reveal - including thousands of individual safeguarding concerns about vulnerable children and adults.

Senior officers have now launched an urgent operation aimed at resolving the situation ahead of a one-off visit by the police inspectorate at the start of November.

Two high-level reviews have also been launched after a baby from Bolton suffered serious head injuries at the end of last month. GMP has refused to confirm claims by a whistleblower that the computer system could be partly at fault, but said the force’s professional standards branch is investigating.

The M.E.N. has been cataloguing concerns about the £29m new ‘iOPS’ network ever since it was introduced in July in a bid to bring the force’s technology into the 21st Century.

Officers have repeatedly warned it is preventing them from doing their jobs properly.

It has now emerged that by last week, the number of ‘open’ crimes - those considered worthy of investigation but awaiting action - had rocketed by more than two thirds since the system was introduced, from 25,000 beforehand to around 42,000, as officers have spent more time searching and entering data or trying to overcome glitches.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Among them has been a 5,000-strong backlog of safeguarding concerns in need of assessment and potential referral to other agencies, a situation Stockport MP Ann Coffey has called ‘very worrying’.

She has now written to the Home Office raising concerns about the force’s ability to protect the public.

Separately, Freedom of Information requests by the M.E.N. have revealed arrests and court summonses both fell dramatically after the new system was introduced, while overtime spending rocketed by £500,000 in August as extra hours were racked up entering data.

The Capita-built iOPS system was introduced on July 9 as part of a £70m IT transformation across the force.

Force command have insisted the problems were to be expected in any large-scale IT roll-out, suggesting much of the issue lay with staff taking time to adapt rather than fundamental issues with the system, and that things have since significantly improved.

The chief constable has also stressed the difficulties are not putting the public at risk.

However last week force command launched an urgent operation, codenamed Alban, in a bid to address the 68pc rise in open investigations - with multiple insiders suggesting senior management feared a forthcoming visit from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies, Fire and Rescue Services, due in the first week of November, to look specifically at the system.

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Several cops said the biggest worry of all was around the protection of vulnerable people, with thousands of safeguarding assessments - known within iOPS as ‘care plans’ - languishing in the system rather than finding their way to social services departments and other organisations tasked with ensuring safety.

"Because of IOPS there are 5,000 'care plans' that have not been implemented or reviewed,” one detective told us late last week on condition of anonymity.

“The assessment of the risk has not been done. Assistant Chief Constable Mabs Hussain has raised very serious concerns about the situation regarding child protection and adult protection - he is trying to do something about it.”

The officer added that GMP were also investigating the computer system's role in a case where a baby suffered a fractured skull last month. GMP confirmed that both a serious case review and an internal professional standards investigation have been launched following reports on September 30 that a child had sustained a serious head injury. The child has now been temporarily taken into care.

GMP refused to discuss any potential role the computer system may have played in the incident, or its review.

A second officer familiar with the detail of the system said risks that need following up, such as mental health or domestic violence concerns, had not been finding their way to the necessary GMP teams but instead getting ‘lost in the ether’ as a result of iOPS failing to transfer information.

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They said the system was meant to automatically allocate those concerns to the right officers, but up until the last couple of weeks had regularly been failing to do so.

Some town hall insiders fear the resulting backlog has implications for their own legal ability to protect children, including the possibility that any unannounced Ofsted inspection could see council safeguarding departments blamed.

At least one high-level meeting has been held over the past fortnight in which council chief executives and children’s services directors have continued to raise concerns with GMP. The M.E.N. reported earlier this month how Oldham council had seen a sharp drop in safeguarding referrals from the police during August.

A third well-placed police officer told us on Monday: “Alban is the name given to the two-week long ‘demand reduction’ operation. Thousands of pounds in overtime are being thrown at it.

“Open 'care plans' are down from 5,000 to about 4,500 today, but that’s because so much focus has been put on them in the last week. That’s still too high, however, and there’s lots of potential vulnerability so far unseen.

“There is real concern about being found failing in the area of child/adult safeguarding. HMICFRS are due any time in order to review iOPS.”

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GMP stressed there are always care plans open at any one time, but confirmed that on Tuesday there were 4,389 awaiting action.

“As part of Operation Alban, the ‘vulnerability’ strand of work is being addressed as an urgent matter to ensure care plans are assessed and triaged for risk appropriately across Greater Manchester,” a spokesman added.

The police officer said that while Alban had so far reduced the overall backlog of open crimes from 42,000 to around 39,500 over the last week, that situation remained ‘a huge challenge’, while ‘the number of crimes being closed immediately - even with decent lines of enquiry - has risen’.

GMP said Alban had been established ‘to ensure the appropriate organisational oversight is provided by chief officers across a number of strands, including crime reporting, vulnerability, open cases, and criminal justice’.

Several officers said the system continued to have a serious impact on staff morale, however.

“There’s been a great deal of damage caused to the frontline as a result of the new system, but I’m not sure the chief officers really appreciate - or want to appreciate - to what extent," said one.

“Confidence in the system remains really low, with the system continuing to be frustratingly slow at times.

"The delays in processing reports of all types have created major backlogs in managing incoming incidents and investigating crime, to such a degree that many officers openly state that they no longer feel able to provide any real service to the public.”

Alban would ‘hopefully have some benefit’, they added, ‘but history would suggest that any impact won’t last beyond the short term’.

Officers have continued to tell the M.E.N. that entering new cases into the system is taking three or four times longer than it used to, because of its clunky design.

One said that previously all overnight reports of missing people on a division, usually around a dozen, could be dealt with in a couple of hours, whereas now it would take an entire shift to sort through four or five and allocate them to officers.

Meanwhile Freedom of Information responses received by the M.E.N. this week show a 15pc year-on-year drop in arrests following the system’s launch, along with an 81pc fall in charges and court summonses issued by the force’s ‘Judicial Processing Unit’ - which is meant to deal with lower-risk crimes such as theft, criminal damage and traffic offences by sending out charges and court appointments by post, in order to avoid clogging up custody.

The figures fit with a warning sent out by the JPU after the system came in, which asked officers to stop chasing up their cases because it was unable to carry out 90pc of its usual workload .

They also fit with reports from court staff, magistrates and solicitors that cases reaching the criminal justice system slowed down to a trickle over the summer, although multiple sources said that situation is now improving.

Overtime spending also rocketed 26pc in August as officers were offered extra hours in order to enter outstanding data, with overtime costing the force £500,000 more between July 21 and August 21 than in the same period in 2018.

Among those to raise serious concerns about the system’s impact is Stockport MP Ann Coffey, who has a particular interest in child protection issues.

She has written to new Home Office minister Kit Malthouse, telling him that officers are spending 40 minutes stuck entering information that used to take less than half that time.

“This is not a sustainable situation and is going to undermine public confidence in the ability of the police to investigate crimes and bring offenders to justice,” she warned the government.

She told the M.E.N: “We understand the police not having enough resources, but it’s a different thing making that argument when you’ve introduced a system that’s going to take up a vast amount of officer time administrating instead of being out on the streets.

“The public want their police officers on the beat, not on computers.”

She called the backlog of safeguarding cases ‘very worrying’, adding: “Sharing data saves lives. If you haven’t got a system that enables risks to be recognised, that means action can’t been then taken effectively. You are exposing children to risk of harm that could be prevented.

“Information is absolutely critical.”

The MP has also flagged with government particular worries about part of the new network called ‘Cognos’, which is still being built by Capita so has not yet been switched on at all.

That is intended to provide a high-level analysis of crime trends so the force can take strategy decisions and assemble data that must be provided to the Home Office each year.

GMP has been unable to say when Cognos will be switched on, but told Ms Coffey it has had no impact on its ability to share data locally.

There has been no Greater Manchester crime data on the national police.uk website since June, however, bar the odd incident, with a message on the site confirming the problem was down to iOPS.

“The force will rectify this issue and provide the missing data over the coming months,” it adds.

The M.E.N. requested copies of the contract between GMP and Capita with the system under the Freedom of Information Act at the start of August, but no response has yet been received.

An FOI request for all reports shared with mayor Andy Burnham or his deputy Beverley Hughes about iOPS is now also more than a month overdue.

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Mr Burnham's office has been asked to comment on safeguarding concerns, the financial implications of rising police overtime bills and the effect the case backlog will have on the public.

HMICFRS confirmed it would be visiting GMP to inspect the implementation of iOPS, with a report due early next year.

Serious case review launched

GMP has confirmed that both a serious case review and an internal standards investigation have been launched after a baby from Bolton received serious head injuries at the end of last month.

A police officer said there was a concern internally that the case may be linked to a safeguarding review not being carried out due to iOPS.

"[Assistant Chief Constable] Mr Hussain is carrying out a review into the situation. There are significant risks that GMP are trying to address."

GMP did not confirm the case could be linked to iOPS, however.

A spokesman said: “On 8th July we received a referral in relation to an incident which occurred in Lancashire involving a child who resided in Bolton. Details were referred to partner agencies and safeguarding measures were put in place.

“On 30th September we received reports of a child who had sustained a serious head injury. The child has since been released from hospital and is subject to an interim care order. The investigation is ongoing and further safeguarding measures have been put in place. The circumstances surrounding this case are subject to a serious case review and the matter has been referred to GMP Professional Standards Branch for assessment.”

What GMP says about iOPS, three months on

A spokesman for GMP said: “As we have previously said, this is a major IT transformation project, which we know has created some significant challenges for officers and staff across the force. We only went live with iOPS three months ago and are still in the early stages of this major IT transformation project.

“As with any significant change, it takes time for everyone to adjust to a new way of working. Early in the post-launch hypercare period, system performance defects were identified however these were resolved and service demand is returning to the levels it was at prior to the system going live. If there are any further outstanding issues, these are being checked through and ways to resolve these are progressing well.

“iOPS has not only replaced several end of life systems but is far more advanced and is capable of producing automated reports around missing person investigations. This wealth of information and access across all levels is in stark contrast to the previous systems which required manual searching by the call handler, radio operator or officer attending.

“Again, as previously stated, first and foremost we do not accept that children are at risk as a result of our new system. Additionally all historic child case conference and family conference data remains available within a new integrated legacy data store developed in parallel with iOPS.

“Protecting the public from harm will always be our top priority. At a time when we have less officers, more demand, and more complex and serious crime, we have to make difficult decisions every single day to ensure we are protecting our most vulnerable and assessing the threat, harm and risk posed by each incident. The cases which are deemed the highest in terms of those three priorities are where our resources must be allocated.

“We are also in regular contact with all partners, updating them on iOPS progress and further system improvements, this includes local MPs, Councillors and key local authorities.

“Protecting the communities we serve is, as always, our number one priority.”