The Metropolitan Police is set to spend tens of millions of pounds more than expected on its IT upgrade.
The聽London Evening Standard reported that the Met will overspend by 拢30 million whilst also using 拢24m from its reserves.
Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon, said:聽 鈥淭he Met has a very long history of costly IT blunders, which have cost the public millions of pounds.
鈥淚t appears the Mayor was duped by the Met鈥檚 forecasts, which were wildly optimistic in terms of the savings that new technology would make.鈥�
In January last year, Theresa May called on police forces to 鈥渆xploit the potential of technology鈥� and use it to drive efficiency and innovation.
May said that when the Government came into power police forces were spending 拢1 billion a year on IT with 2,000 different systems in 42 forces.
She said this has improved with expenditure/costings on police IT in England and Wales coming in at around 拢600m in 2015/16.
To support police forces in their IT adoption the Police ICT company was launched in 2015, with a target to save police forces up to 拢465m a year through the central provision of national IT systems.