The Ministry of Justice keeps the contents of its Official Statistics under continuous review, to ensure compliance with the three pillars of the Code of Practice for Statistics; trustworthiness, quality and value. At present, we do not routinely publish this as part of our Official Statistics, as the information held on specific nationalities is not sufficiently robust.

The Ministry of Justice keeps the contents of its Official Statistics under continuous review, to ensure compliance with the three pillars of the Code of Practice for Statistics; trustworthiness, quality and value. At present, we do not routinely publish this as part of our Official Statistics, as the information held on specific nationalities is not sufficiently robust.

The Police National Computer (PNC) is a system that provides real-time access to criminal records of offenders, vehicle data, and other information relevant to policing. The PNC retains records by individual suspects and offenders rather than by offences.

The PNC holds some information on the place of birth and in some circumstances the nationality of the individuals, but that data is not held for all convictions. It does not retain information in a format that would provide an answer on the number of offences committed in the last 12 months, by where the offender was born. In any case, the PNC is not designed to provide such bespoke reports and would need development to obtain such information.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office hold regular discussions about the appropriate use of this information for purposes beyond policing.

Non-resident individuals may have nominal records created on the Police National Computer where information suggests that they may pose a risk to UK residents.

Changes to the residency status of a person are not routinely considered as a factor in the ongoing retention of their nominal record.

The data could only be obtained for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.

The Police National Computer (PNC) provides police and law enforcement agencies with access to centralised information about individuals, property and vehicles.

A Nominal record is retained until at least 100 years after a Nominal’s birth, regardless of the date of death. This is to facilitate criminal investigations that might start or conclude after the death of a Nominal.

The data retention practices on the PNC are governed by:

1. The Police Information and Records Management Code of Practice

2. The Code of Practice for the Police National Computer (PNC) and the Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS)

The information requested is provided in the table attached. This table includes data on the:

• Proportion of the records on the Police National Computer (PNC) in each category specified, by offenders of working age.

This analysis looks at the proportion of records that fall into the categories a – d. It does not provide the proportion of individuals as each individual offender may have a record in each category. It is not possible to answer parts (e) and (f), as the Ministry of Justice extract of the PNC does not contain the information required. Arrest information (part e) is a matter for the Home Office.

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.

Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.

The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.

The Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) is being delivered to enable the retirement of the legacy Police National Computer (PNC). The priority is to ensure that LEDS delivers full parity with all current PNC capabilities, using a modern technology foundation which enables the further evolution and modernisation of UK policing. The programme plan is to achieve this by March 2026 to align with the end of the current PNC support contract.

This Government has been clear that we will strengthen our border security, undertaking thorough checks to prevent serious criminals from entering the UK. Border Force and Police work closely together to protect UK security, and our border systems identify individuals wanted on the PNC.

Number of outages affecting the PNC, breakdown below. Partial PNC outages are included in the breakdown. Therefore, elements of the PNC service may have been available during the outage period.

Outages on the same day have been counted as separate instances.

* Outages for 2024 are reported up to 31^st March 2024.

Regular Security IT Health Checks/Audits are undertaken on PNC with actions to manage, mitigate or resolve vulnerabilities progressed to enhance the security of the system. The PNC is security assured by the Police Digital Service on behalf of Policing and in line with HO policy.

PNC has a number of back up servers for resilience and mirroring to provide a Disaster Recovery capability from a secondary site. There are numerous back up servers at the primary site and also at the DR site providing several layers of back up for the operation of the PNC

****NOTE - providing detail on the numbers of actual servers increases the operational risk to PNC.

Number of outages affecting the PNC, breakdown below. Partial PNC outages are included in the breakdown. Therefore, elements of the PNC service may have been available during the outage period.

Outages on the same day have been counted as separate instances.

* Outages for 2024 are reported up to 31^st March 2024.

Regular Security IT Health Checks/Audits are undertaken on PNC with actions to manage, mitigate or resolve vulnerabilities progressed to enhance the security of the system. The PNC is security assured by the Police Digital Service on behalf of Policing and in line with HO policy.

PNC has a number of back up servers for resilience and mirroring to provide a Disaster Recovery capability from a secondary site. There are numerous back up servers at the primary site and also at the DR site providing several layers of back up for the operation of the PNC

****NOTE - providing detail on the numbers of actual servers increases the operational risk to PNC.

Number of outages affecting the PNC, breakdown below. Partial PNC outages are included in the breakdown. Therefore, elements of the PNC service may have been available during the outage period.

Outages on the same day have been counted as separate instances.

* Outages for 2024 are reported up to 31^st March 2024.

Regular Security IT Health Checks/Audits are undertaken on PNC with actions to manage, mitigate or resolve vulnerabilities progressed to enhance the security of the system. The PNC is security assured by the Police Digital Service on behalf of Policing and in line with HO policy.

PNC has a number of back up servers for resilience and mirroring to provide a Disaster Recovery capability from a secondary site. There are numerous back up servers at the primary site and also at the DR site providing several layers of back up for the operation of the PNC

****NOTE - providing detail on the numbers of actual servers increases the operational risk to PNC.

The Ministry of Justice has access to an extract of the police national computer (PNC). This extract primarily focuses on fields of information relating to individuals cautioned and/or convicted, their court cases, offences and disposals. The extract is classified as secret and making public a detailed list of fields would leave the Ministry of Justice exposed to security risk. Requests relating to the extract are assessed on a case-by-case basis.