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Police are probing whether Sir Ian Blair broke the rules after Scotland Yard computer contracts worth more than £3million went to an IT consultancy owned by his close friend. Andy Miller of technology firm Impact Plus, who is the long-time skiing companion of Sir Ian, won the first in a series of IT contracts from the Metropolitan Police in 2002. The consultancy contract, worth £150,000, for Met’s C3i project, broadly to manage 999 calls, went to Mr Miller’s company at a time when Sir Ian was deputy commissioner. Although Sir Ian personally chaired a panel and attended presentations made by its bidders, both the contract and ensuing IT work won by Impact was not subject to external scrutiny. “Only contracts above a value of £5m or more require Metropolitan Police Authority approval,” an MPA spokesman told CUK, pointing to Impact’s IT contracts, worth a reported £3m in total. For all contracts below the threshold, the spokesman said all day-to-day management of the procurement process is delegated to the Met Police Service, effectively Impact’s client. He added: “[Our] Internal Audit [team] is aware of concerns about single tenders concerning Impact Plus and Hitachi Consulting and is currently researching the matter.” The MPA declined to be drawn on whether the tendering rules for the Met’s IT contracts now need to be overhauled, but hinted there was no evidence rules had been broken. In line with a reported statement by Sir Ian Blair about the row, the authority said it received notice from him in November of 2002, which detailed his friendship with Mr Miller. Disclosures obtained by the Daily Telegraphy add that Met officials insisted that “at no time did he [Sir Ian] participate in the evaluation” part of Impact’s bid for IT contracts. In his own statement cited by the paper, the police chief rejected any ‘inappropriate behaviour’ to do with the IT contracts, but said he had alerted the MPA “in the interests of transparency.” For his part, Mr Miller reportedly says Sir Ian removed himself from the “vast majority” of activities related to the IT deals, but admits they once spoke of them on a skiing trip together. Jul 22, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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