Top cops in Scotland have gone more than a million pounds over budget on a computer project that is already a year late.

The £100m programme run by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) is ironically designed to make Scottish coppers more efficient. But the Common Performance Management Platform project has cost £4m to date but has yet to provide any efficiency savings. According to papers put online by Acpos indicated that had now risen to £9.6m and has yet to begin in any of the force areas. Originally the coppers hoped that efficiency savings of more than £30m by 2010 might be achieved.

According to the Herald no efficiency savings have yet been realised. One of the project's cunning plans was to put the crime figures for the eight forces on an equal footing and allow detailed comparisons. The first phase, which will allow coppers to look at the figures connected to car crashes will be rolled out soon.

Chief Constable Patrick Shearer, president of Acpos, said: “We are confident that the solution will deliver the benefits intended.” Many of the delays have made the project better, he claims.