After the failed i-Police project, Quintin wants a tenth fewer hired IT staff at the federal police from 2027

Interior Minister Bernard Quintin (MR) has asked the commissioner-general of the federal police to cut the number of external consultants by ten percent in 2027. He said so on Tuesday in the Chamber's home affairs committee, answering questions about the abandoned i-Police digitisation project, VRT NWS and RTBF reported, citing Belga. According to RTBF, he called excessive dependence on consultants the main lesson of the Court of Audit's report.

That report found that i-Police, launched in 2021 and contracted out to Sopra Steria, cost around 140 million euros with little to show for it. The Court of Audit pointed to poor steering and to the hiring of up to 453 external IT profiles because the police lacked the expertise in-house, VRT NWS writes. Quintin wants smaller projects from now on, with clear goals, deadlines and budgets, and more staff of the police's own. External experts remain welcome for short, specialised tasks, but a consultant can no longer spend an entire career at the police, he said. The reduction will be gradual so as not to put services at risk.

On Wednesday Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) appears before the same committee. She was in charge of home affairs in the previous term and was repeatedly warned then about the project's costs, according to VRT NWS. She is under pressure because her spokesperson and a spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor's office have been placed under suspicion; the latter allegedly passed secret information from the judicial investigation into i-Police to the minister's office.