Long overdue answers to written questions put to the Minister of Finance are confirmation that Incis is nothing more than 'Wanganui with Windows', Labour police spokesperson George Hawkins said today.

The replies show that the Wanganui LES computer system remains the main Police operational system for management of incidents and offences.

"Incis has just provided a flash 'Windows' interface," George Hawkins said.

"The Incis project was supposed to actually replace the LES computer with new, much more capable databases that would allow all kinds of sophisticated data manipulation and intelligence matching.

"Instead nothing much has changed except the way the data looks on the screen.

"Despite Government assurances that we have got value for money, we obviously have not. Over $100 million has been spent and what have the police got? New desktop PCs and $14 million worth of Microsoft software.

"Meantime, 25 police officers assigned to work on Incis are left to play computer solitaire, while the impact of IBM's decision to pull out of the project is 'assessed'.

"Every police officer now has access to the National Intelligence System (NIS) - which was never part of Incis! NIS was developed initially in-house for just $50,000 back in 1991. Incis has given NIS a 'make-over' and delivered it to desktops but again, nothing much has changed in terms of technical functionality.

"Incis was supposed to allow the police to disconnect the Wanganui computer because they said it was clunky and old. Instead it turns out that the old technology, the tried and true, is the only thing keeping the flash new Incis system from being a complete and utter disaster," George Hawkins said.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

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