Software rollout failure led to Devon & Cornwall cops recording zero crime for 3 months It is a sleepy corner of the United Kingdom, but even the southwest peninsula is likely not a place where there is no crime whatsoever for a whole quarter. Well, maybe it is a crime-free paradise, and maybe it isn't, because a failure in the implementation of a new computer system has meant Devon & Cornwall Police registered …
Devon & Cornwall Police Software Purchases and Digital Transformation Initiatives
"Congratulations to Devon & Cornwall Police for completely eliminating crime in their area for the last 3 months. A team will soon be visiting them to learn how we can apply their approach across the whole country, and ensure that the whole country is completely crime-free by the end of this year."
and ensure that the whole country is completely crime-free by the end of this year."
Of course, this will involve a one off charge of a few billion in redundancy payments next year, but that will, over the following years result in a large budget surplice allowing for many more work-place "events" with free wine and birthday cakes in Westminster.
Nice idea but Excel isn't the tool to use. It has column limits that's famously tripped-up civil servant wonks attempting to use it to move data. See https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/05/excel_england_coronavirus_contact_error/ for details of one such cock-up. Sure, it's a million now - but if the civil service can't deal with that, I dread to think what a Police Constable would make of Excel; most of them seem to struggle with concepts more advanced than a clockwork watch.
Maybe not Excel to use, but is it that the system is so trash that police couldn't enter reports / keep records, or that the reporting part that sent data to ONS didn't work (ie they could data in but not out)? The wording of the report seems to suggest the latter, meaning the stats should be in there somewhere as soon as someone works out how to dig them out
theres nothing for you Grockles & Emmets here
[Sucks teeth]..
You know, you'll be in trouble in both Devon and Cornwall for using their words in the same sentance..
(My wife has an ancestor who, to his very great shame, was exiled to Cornwall from Devon for posessing sheep that weren't strictly his.. just as well that this was post-Oz-transportation otherwise she'd have the societal handicap of being Australian. The whole family is now tainted in both counties. In Cornwall as a jonny-come-lately incomer and in Devon as someone who willingly went to Cornwall)
Ive worked with many customers who ran two systems in parallel. You syphon off the data from the old system to the new system as it comes in... Everyday you compare the reports, and check they match. You do not go live until the data matches. It is slow - but better than debugging the live system.
"better than debugging the live system
Anything at all is better than debugging a live system. One of my sidelines is research instrumentation control. In that context, debugging live systems can actually be damned dangerous (it can injure people or cause things to catch fire).
lets not forget this is the same police force that gave shotguns back to someone (recently convicted of assault and with mental health issues) who later went on the rampage in Plymouth and killed several people. The same force that took over a year to renew my shotgun cert. they really re a shambles of a force
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