§ Lord Tanlawasked Her Majesty's Government:
What percentage of police stations have access to broadband data transmission services and have computer literate officers to operate them in Scotland, England and Wales. [HL1970]
§ Lord Bassam of BrightonOur understanding of a broadband service is one which provides the capacity for multiple users to transmit and receive simultaneously. The broader the band, the greater the number of users and data capacity which individuals can use. Using that definition, it is possible to say that 40 per cent of police force or divisional headquarters in England and Wales currently have access to broadband data transmission services through the Criminal Justice Extranet (CJX). The plans are to extend the service to 100 per cent of forces in England and Wales by March 2002. None of the Scottish forces has CJX access yet but they plan to take the service when their funding is in place. The staff who access CJX services are or will be trained and computer literate.
The CJX broadband service provides the potential to access the Internet. Forces will decide themselves whether to take this facility and whether to extend the facility to police stations or to individual police officers. The degree of access will also depend on the capability of their own force systems and networks.
The Airwave project is currently piloting a digital radio network service which will be capable of handling data transmissions within the next three months. Airwave will make data accessible by individual police officers through their radio handsets or vehicle terminals, as well as through control rooms. Officers will be fully trained in the use of Airwave.