Uncertainty about what the future holds for the Police Digital Service (PDS) continues, despite the UK government confirming the organisation is set to be absorbed into a new national policing body, as part of a wider reform of the policing sector.
The UK government published its long-awaited whitepaper, detailing its plans to reform the policing sector, on 26 January 2025, with its contents being described as the most “radical blueprint for reform” the sector has seen in 200 years.
The changes the whitepaper commits the government to delivering on “over this parliament and the next” include a “significant” reduction in the number of police forces in operation, informed by an independent review of the 43 forces in operation now across England and Wales.
Once this process is complete, the remaining local police provision will be “better supported by a much more coherent organisational structure regionally and nationally”, thanks in part to the creation of a “national tier of policing” dubbed the National Police Service (NPS), according to the whitepaper.
The overarching aim of these changes is to make the way the sector operates more lean and efficient, because having 43 separate forces “each providing back-office functions to local policing” is a waste of money, the whitepaper stated. “Fewer forces would provide more effective specialist services in areas like major crime and firearms, while also being better able to deal with surges in demand and major incidents.”
The document also acknowledged that there are “too many organisations overseeing different elements of policing, none of whom have the necessary powers to drive change”, which is where the NPS comes in.
“The NPS will bring together existing national bodies, including the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP), into a single organisation with a clear mandate and the powers to get things done,” the whitepaper confirmed.
Saving money
The NPS will also help in the delivery of “commercial efficiencies, improved productivity and new technology capabilities” by absorbing the work of PDS in the name of saving money, the whitepaper said.
“We have already mobilised an ambitious Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) to deliver better value for money in police procurement … [which] will drive the delivery of significant cashable efficiencies of around £350m by the end of this parliament,” it continued.
“The NPS will support its long-term sustainability through bringing together enabling services into this single body … [and] as part of this, Blue Light Commercial and the Police Digital Service will be rolled into the NPS.”
Speaking to Computer Weekly, Dale Peters, a public sector-focused senior research director at IT analyst TechMarketView, said the government’s decision to streamline the number of forces in operation across England and Wales, and centralise procurement processes within the policing sector, is the right one.
“The 43 forces model does not align with 21st century requirements, either from a technology perspective or to address the changing nature of crime,” he said. “The NPS should drive better value for money, deliver much-needed interoperability improvements and help alleviate competition for in-demand skills.”
That said, these changes will require careful management to ensure the individual, local policing needs within communities are not overlooked or ignored as a result of this change in strategy, added Peters.
“There is also an SME [small and medium-sized enterprises] risk,” he said. “As contracts consolidate nationally, smaller suppliers who may struggle to compete for large frameworks could be squeezed out. The NPS will need to design mechanisms to preserve competition and innovation, otherwise there is a risk the market consolidates too far. We do not need 43 solutions to the same problem, but we do not want more monopolistic positions either.”
What next for PDS?
The absorption of PDS into some form of national policing body has been repeatedly foreshadowed in the Home Office’s various communications about its plans to reform the policing sector, which it first went public with news of in November 2024.
At that time, the then home secretary, Yvette Cooper, confirmed the national policing body the government was plotting to create would have IT in its purview.
This statement prompted questions about what this development would mean for the future of the PDS, given it is responsible for the development and delivery of the National Policing Digital Strategy.
This strategy is focused on enabling forces through technology to tackle increasingly complex crimes and, in turn, improve public safety, which are all areas the whitepaper suggests the NPS will eventually be responsible for.
“The NPS will be empowered to set mandatory standards in areas such as professional practice, training, technology, data and workforce planning,” it said.
“Efficiencies will be realised by buying technology and equipment nationally, delivering savings that will be reinvested in the frontline, [and] NPS will provide a platform for developing new technologies and deploying them across the country. By bringing together … focused capabilities … into a new national police force, we will be better able to share technology, intelligence and people across the range of serious threats we face.”
Artificial intelligence
In terms of what these shared technologies are likely to be, the whitepaper confirmed that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role in helping officers “catch more criminals, speed up investigations, reduce the administrative burden on policing”.
This will be achieved through the establishment of a National Centre for AI In Policing – known as Police.AI, which will receive £115m in funding over the next three years.
“Through Police.AI we will create a public-facing registry of the AI being deployed by police forces and the steps they have taken to ensure the reliability of tools before being used for operations,” the whitepaper stated. “We will [also] create a platform for identifying, testing and then scaling AI technology, as well as enabling chief constables to deploy AI responsibly and in a way which builds and maintains public consent.”
Funding is also being allocated to support the deployment of 40 additional live facial recognition (LFR) vans in what the whitepaper termed “high crime areas” – as part of a clampdown on violent crime and sexual offences.
“In all cases, we will give the police the resources and expertise to deploy AI in an ethical, robust and responsible way, supported by a new regulatory framework with strong oversight and accountability,” the whitepaper added.
NPS and policing IT reforms
The creation of NPS should help address long-standing concerns that police forces across England and Wales are being hampered in their ability to fight crime due to technological limitations, but it’s not a “silver bullet”, cautioned Peters.
“Currently, decisions about technology adoption are fragmented across 43 forces, each with different systems, budgets and risk appetite,” he said. “The risk-averse culture in policing means good innovations often get stuck in one or two forces and struggle to scale.”
“Meanwhile, criminals are increasingly turning to technology as a way of opening new opportunities, and to enhance and expand their activities.
“Centralising resources under the NPS should help policing reduce the velocity gap and enable it to build more effective countermeasures to tech-enabled threats,” said Peters. “However, success will depend on its ability to address the cultural challenges in policing – not just the structural ones.”
Where the whitepaper lacks detail is on the specifics of how PDS will be absorbed into NPS, and how integrating it will help the government achieve its tech ambitions for the policing sector.
Will PDS’s status as a privately owned company, funded by the Home Office, remain intact once its integration with the NPS is completed, and – furthermore – how long is that process expected to take?
Computer Weekly contacted the Home Office for clarification on all of these points, but the department did not provide a direct response to these questions.
All that is known about when these changes might be introduced is that the creation of NPS will be subject to legislation, and Computer Weekly understands the government is keen to make the necessary legislative changes as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Computer Weekly is aware that PDS has been actively participating in the planning process for its integration into some form of national policing entity for some time.
In a statement to Computer Weekly, a PDS spokesperson said the government’s plans “align with its mission to deliver digital services that support policing and keep the public safe”, and that it is committed to ensuring a smooth transition of its responsibilities during its absorption into the NPS.
“We look forward to working closely with the Home Office and policing partners to ensure a smooth transition and to leverage technology in building a more transparent, efficient and community-focused policing model,” the spokesperson said.
Low morale and lack of clarity
Computer Weekly has previously reported on issues of low staff morale at PDS, linked in part to the uncertainty surrounding what will happen to the organisation in the wake of the Home Office’s policing reforms.
In its statement to Computer Weekly, the PDS spokesperson said the organisation is “committed to ensuring our stakeholders are informed and engaged through the transition” to becoming part of NPS. “Our commitment to continuity and innovation remains unwavering as we help shape the future of policing,” the spokesperson added.
The PDS has been rocked by scandal in recent years, following the news that two of its employees had been arrested in July 2024 on suspicion of bribery, fraud and misconduct in public office. In the wake of this, its then CEO – Ian Bell – departed the organisation.
The company has undergone a sizeable reshuffle of its senior leadership team since then, resulting in the appointment of various interim leaders, with Computer Weekly reporting in January 2026 that three of the firm’s senior executives, including a director, had recently left the organisation.
Computer Weekly also revealed that PDS is set to be the subject of at least two employment tribunals in 2026, with former staffers making claims of harassment, sexual discrimination and unfair constructive dismissal against the organisation.
That aside, TechMarketView’s Peters said that while the whitepaper provides “no detail” about what PDS will “look like on the other side” once it’s a part of NPS, it is likely its operations will be impacted.
“The Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme is seeking to deliver savings of £354m by 2028–29, which will clearly have an impact on enabling services such as those provided by PDS,” he said. “This may mean significant restructuring with functions being absorbed and redistributed across the new structure, but to what extent depends on implementation decisions that have not been made public yet.”
