Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been criticised after the force has not made crime data available on the national police system for more than three years.

Oldham and Saddleworth East MP Debbie Abrahams said it is a problem "she will continue to raise" with GMP.

But days and weeks keep passing by while one of the UK's largest forces fail to offer figures to be published online for residents to see, while neighbouring areas willingly present them.

A message on the Police.UK website reads: “Due to a change in IT systems no crime, outcome or stop and search data is available from July 2019 onwards.

“The force are working to rectify this issue and provide the missing data over the coming months.”

The issue stems from the use of the Integrated Operational Policing System (iOPS), which has been criticised for causing several issues.

In 2020, the system came under fire for causing delays in answering 999 calls.

Journalists and members of the public have been unable to download crime data from GMP for years, despite other forces having data available.

While residents in areas like London can download and compare crime, stop and search, and outcome statistics in their local areas, Oldhamers and Greater Mancunians have been unable to do so for years.

For example, The Oldham Times was unable to produce an article similar to this one in the Brighton Argus, which shows where crime is happening and reveals the changing trends.

It is understood that there is no timescale set for the issue to be fixed.

Jody Doherty-Cove is the special projects editor at Newsquest, which owns The Oldham Times.

Jody, who regularly works with crime data, said: “The College of Policing set out four key values which underpin and support everything a police service should do and should be.

“One of those key values is transparency: transparency in their actions, but also transparency in the data they provide to the public. GMP are obviously failing in this transparency when it comes to providing data as they have not been able to produce what’s required of them under a statutory duty.

“This should be rectified as soon as possible so journalists can work on the public’s behalf in holding our police service to account.”

Debbie Abrahams

Debbie Abrahams, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said: “It is important the public has access to fully transparent and accurate crime data.

“This is an issue I will continue to raise with Greater Manchester Police.”

What the police have to say

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said: “We have been working to resolve an issue with supplying data to partners at Police.UK who require more than just crime data as part of pack of information they accept from forces.

“We are keen to ensure that communities in Oldham and across Greater Manchester can access these important statistics, and we are open to Freedom of Information requests for crime and incident data to be shared with the public by their local district.

“We have worked through significant challenges with part of our new IT systems since it was introduced, and while some persist, we have made remarkable improvements to ensure we can share and report on lots of data and continue to improve so all data can be shared as soon as we are able.”

The Government view

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are in contact with Greater Manchester Police to ensure progress is being made in resolving the data issues.”