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“

The INI is the first step in our plans to provide a national information sharing capability which will prevent criminals from escaping detection simply by crossing force boundaries.

”
- Hazel Blears, Home Office Minister

Nominal Index

The IMPACT Nominal Index (INI) allows police officers to establish whether any forces, in England,Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland hold information about a person of interest.

The INI draws upon information downloaded from local police systems via the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and is accessed via a web-based search.

As of January 2008, a total of 61 million records were held on the system and it is estimated that, by 2010, a total of 110 million records will be accessible. As a step on the path towards a national information and intelligence sharing capability, the INI is proving to be a big stride in the right direction.

Success Stories

There have been many success stories to come out of the use of INI, below are just four:   
  1.  A 14 year old boy who had recently arrived in the country wanted to live with his uncle. Social Services requested a police check on the uncle. A Police National Computer check revealed no concerns but the INI showed that the uncle was currently under investigation for grooming young females for prostitution and sexual harassment. Social Services presented this information at the child's immigration hearing and have stopped the uncle having access to the child.    
  2. A force re-investigating an armed robbery from 2004 carried out research on the INI. Two suspects had already been arrested and successfully prosecuted but the third gang member had so far evaded arrest. Whilst the Police National Computer had no new information, the INI identified that the third suspect was the subject of intelligence reports in another force area. Officers from both forces have thus been able to develop a joint directed surveillance operation to arrest the man.
  3. As a result of a query received in a child abuse unit, a police check was completed on a registered sex offender who had just moved in with a woman and her two young daughters. The INI check revealed that not only was he now under investigation by another force for sexually abusing two young girls, the force that owned his record on the sex offenders register did not even know he had moved out of its area.
  4. A Child Abuse Investigation Unit carried out research on the INI concerning a family that was the focus of a case conference following their recent arrival in a new force area. A grandparent was to be given responsibility for the child rather than the mother due to a history of abuse by the latter.
    The INI identified, however, that another police force held information about the grandparent indicating that, whilst no convictions were recorded on the Police National Computer, that person had also been the subject of a child abuse investigation.
    This information would not otherwise have come to light and thus Social Services were alerted to the potential risk to the child and could take appropriate action to address it.

   "Doing investigations into Child Protection cases was limited to our own force systems and it only came by chance that we discovered information was held by another force. Now, with one check, we know whether another force holds information." 
Elaine Cook, Police Constable, Bedfordshire.