The early days of the single force were marked by an unseemly row between Police Scotland and its oversight body, the Scottish Police Authority.
Poorly-drafted legislation left a key question unanswered: which organisation would be responsible for backroom functions like IT and human resources?
The force and the SPA both wanted control, and the standoff persisted for months. Stephen House, at that point the chief constable, won the battle.
Over two years later, it is clear that the wrong balance has been struck.
In theory, the i6 project is a welcome initiative that should drive up efficiencies.
Replacing around 135 IT and paper-based systems is not only common sense, but could improve joint working.
In practice, though, i6 has been a disaster.
Nobody knows the final bill for the project and the roll out date – due to “defects – remains unclear.
An initial “go-live” date of December 2015 was missed, while a full rollout of Autumn next year seems highly implausible.
It also does not require a Kremlinologist to interpret the tensions between Police Scotland and contractor Accenture. This is a project in serious difficulty.
While it is welcome that the Scottish Government has committed itself to a review of the scheme, a wider look at decision-making will reveal an obvious flaw.
It is ludicrous that a chief police officer – in this case Neil Richardson – was put in charge of a complex IT project.
Such matters should have been given to the SPA, but the damaging spat in 2013 has given Police Scotland yet another headache the country can do without.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here