POLICE TURN IT OFF AND ON AGAIN: IOPS POLICEWORKS UPGRADE SCHEDULED FOR TUESDAY 11 MAY 2021

Part of Greater Manchester Police's computer system, the iOPS PoliceWorks records management system, which is where staff and officers can access information about crimes, case files and missing people, is being upgraded on Tuesday 11 May 2021. This will not impact on public safety which is of upmost priority.

The planned upgrade brings a significant number of fixes to bugs and minor defects which have accumulated over time, and are to some degree inevitable with a system of this scale and complexity. This enables staff and officers to carry out their roles more efficiently and keep people safe. 

The upgrade is a complex piece of work, and as such PoliceWorks will be offline for a short time while the work is completed but will be back online later the same day. 

Not all of the iOPS system will be offline, however to ensure disruption to the service is minimised, a business continuity plan will be in place, including paper based recording where appropriate, to ensure officers and staff can still carry out their roles and the safety of the public is not compromised while the upgrade takes place.

GMP's partners and stakeholders, such as local authorities and victim support services, have been given the relevant information ahead of the upgrade so that any impact on partnership working can be understood and addressed in advance.

Assistant Chief Constable Chris Sykes said:

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"The upgrade is essential as it brings improvements to the tools our officers and staff need to effectively deal with crime and continue their valuable work with communities.

"The upgrade is a complex piece of work but our business continuity plan will ensure there is minimal disruption to our service and the safety of the public is not compromised. Staff and officers will still be able to carry out their roles during the outage, and we plan to have everything back online later the same day."