Earlier this week, Eric Illsley MP claimed that the government was “drifting” over the implementation of the Bichard Inquiry recommendations. The Labour MP claimed that there was “little will to implement the recommendations as a matter of urgency” and suggested that the government was trying to distance itself from its responsibility.

As if by magic, the Minister of State for the Home Office, Hazel Blears, declared the launch today of the first system to be delivered by the IMPACT programme, INI. INI should allow officers to discover, within seconds, whether any police force in England and Wales holds relevant information on someone they are investigating. Previously, this information would not have been visible outside the force holding the record, a situation that led to the Soham murders.

So does this mean that cynics like Mr Illsley can now sleep soundly? It would appear not.

Whilst the INI system has been implemented with success (throwing up new lines of inquiry in an armed robbery case) it is still expected that the full recommendations in the Bichard Inquiry will not be implemented until 2010. Furthermore, there is some debate as to the effectiveness of the INI as a whole as it is largely dependent on the quality of data and the speed at which that data is inputted. A final concern may come from Human Rights activists, should information on individuals when they have not been convicted of any crime be kept on a system indefinitely?

Watch this space to see if the estimated £2 billion IMPACT system lives up to expectations.