Collaboration
Kent and Essex Collaboration
Essex Police began collaborating with Kent Police in 2007 and the
Kent/Essex Collaboration Team was formed. At the first meeting of
the joint police authorities, on April 18, 2007, the decision was
made to pursue ‘full collaboration on operational functions and
support services, whilst maintaining operational
independence’.
Since then, the collaboration programme has achieved a
number of successes, including the sharing of air support and
marine services and the formation of a pioneering joint IT
Directorate – the first of its kind in England and Wales – and a
joint procurement unit – which has increased the two forces’ buying
power and helped to save money.
Together, we are also creating one of the largest joint serious
and organised crime units in the UK – the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate
(SCD).
The main aim of collaboration is for both counties to benefit from
an improved policing service through
- more effective and efficient use of resources – including
police officers and staff, buildings and vehicles etc
- achieving better value for money.
Governance for the collaboration programme is provided by a
Joint Statutory Committee – comprising chairs, vice-chairs and
Performance Committee chairs of both police authorities, supported
by the chief executives and treasurers of both police authorities
and the chief constables of both forces.
Through our collaboration with Kent, we want to use our
resources more effectively and put more officers on the front line,
something the public always tell us they want.
The first collaborative project to come to fruition was
Operation Forefront in October 2007, to deliver the Protective
Services strand of the Kent/Essex Collaboration Programme.
Work under Operation ForeFront included the formalised provision
of joint air support, the formation of a joint Marine Unit and the
joint deployment of specialist automatic number plate recognition
(ANPR) teams. The benefits of these projects are ongoing
within everyday operational policing practices.
In 2009, a pioneering joint Procurement
Services department was established – attracting attention from
police forces across the UK interested in the procurement successes
which had already been achieved by partnership working.
The department was set up in order to provide both Essex Police
and Kent Police with streamlined procurement functions and united
purchasing power. The following year, the department moved to a
single site and continues to provide both forces with greater
savings and efficiencies.
The joint Serious Crime Directorate
was launched in 2010. It will consist of six key departments
dedicated to tackling serious and organised criminality across both
counties, including the investigation of murders and serious sexual
assaults and the targeting of organised criminal groups, drug
dealers and burglars.
Meanwhile, the Kestral Programme (Kent and Essex Strategic
Alliance) is creating the first converged IT Directorate serving
two forces in England and Wales. It is anticipated the directorate
will help to deliver significant savings to both forces.
In 2011, current IT projects include the development of a
comprehensive IT infrastructure to support the Serious Crime
Directorate (SCD), enabling its police officers and staff from both
counties to work co-operatively and more efficiently.
This joint working – the Serious Crime and IT directorates and
Procurement Services – was formalised on September 30, 2010, when
both forces and police authorities signed Section 23 Agreements confirming the terms
under which they will collaborate. An earlier agreement, covering
the provision by Essex Police of air support services to Kent
Police, was signed on April 1, 2008.
Since the creation of the Kent/Essex Collaboration Programme in
2007, other significant benefits to both forces from collaborative
working include the establishment of 12 Memoranda of Understanding
(MOUs) – covering such areas as specialist search, firearms
intervention teams and specialist vehicles.
And reviews are carried out to identify areas where our business
can be performed differently in order to provide significant
improvements and/or alternatives to our service delivery and also
areas where efficiencies can be made.
Reviews have so far included procurement, travel and fuel,
custody provision, IT strategy and structure, digital forensics,
transport and uniform.
Essex and Kent police authorities won a Value for Money award
from the Association of Police Authorities (APA) in 2010 for their
collaboration work. The APA represents police authorities across
England and Wales.
Both forces and authorities believe that "collaboration is part
of the solution for the future and the fact that we are so advanced
in our working relationship is a testament to the passion,
enthusiasm and forward-thinking on both sides of the water.
"We will explore more opportunities to collaborate to ensure we
continue to protect both our counties from harm and deliver the
best possible police service."
The level of confidence both forces have in the collaboration
programme has resulted in the original mandate being extended to
include work on core aspects of front-line policing, as well as
support (back-office) functions and Protective Services.
And the programme aspires to deliver a total of £9million
savings to the two forces by 2012 in addition to enhancing their
Protective Services capabilities, increasing resilience and
reducing risk and meeting the challenges posed by the 2012 Olympic
Games.
Collaboration is proving that large savings can be made
but, more importantly, that our service to the public can be
improved.
Project
Athena
A national framework
agreement* has been signed by Essex Police Authority for a new
‘one-stop’ IT system which will help police to identify criminals
more quickly and cut crime.
Not only will Project Athena improve front-line policing, it will
save police forces time and money, helping to improve the service
they provide to the public.
Project Athena is the largest-ever collaborative police IT
project** and will be delivered by Northgate Public Services.
The seven ‘early adopters’ – Essex, Bedfordshire,
Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk – will be
paying a total of £32million during the lifetime of the agreement
but the costs to each force will drop as and when more forces come
on board.
Essex Chief Constable Jim Barker-McCardle said: “The
collaboration and the technology that underpins this initiative
will significantly improve the lives of people in the communities
we serve.
“We will be better able to investigate crime, support victims
and reduce threat and harm to vulnerable people.
“Athena is a key tool in the fight against crime, ensuring that
we see the complete picture relating to our offenders. Information
will be linked as soon as records are created, thus a full picture
of a person or location will rapidly be built up and can be viewed
across all forces using the system."
Essex Police Authority chairman Anthony Jackson said: “Essex
Police Authority is proud of the important part played by the Essex
and Kent IT team and the collaboration and support of the six other
founding police authorities in bringing into being this powerful
tool in the fight against crime.
“That it brings not only improved performance but also at a
significantly lower cost sets a benchmark for the future and should
fuel the nationwide interest of other forces to join the Athena
network.”
Until now, police forces have largely managed data on offenders,
suspects, victims and incidents on different systems at a local
level. This made it a challenge to share information quickly with
other forces.
Athena, however, will be a single IT system managing police
investigations, intelligence and defendants (both custody and case
preparation) across all member forces, giving front-line police
officers and staff in those forces access to more detailed and
up-to-date information, while reducing bureaucracy. This will help
them to build comprehensive ‘pictures’, both of suspects and of
crime and incident patterns, more swiftly.
Officers and staff at each phase of the criminal justice process
– from report to court – will be able to view all records for the
suspect from each member force and from all other stages of the
process. This will mean that a suspect arrested for crimes
committed in any of the Athena force areas can be dealt with for
all offences in one custody suite without the need for the suspect
to be transferred between each force and processed for crimes
committed exclusively in that force area.
Time will be saved after a suspect is arrested, as those
officers working in custody and preparing cases will automatically
have access to all the intelligence already held about a
suspect.
And, in line with recommendations of the 2004 Bichard***
Inquiry, the new system will let each force share a much wider set
of operational police data with officers and staff in other forces.
Historically, such day-to-day police information has been shared
between local forces upon request, which is both time-consuming and
results in delays.
Ian Blackhurst, Executive Director of Northgate Public Services,
commented: “This project is a huge step forward in policing and is
a signal that forces are embracing collaboration in order to work
more effectively together and in doing so reduce administrative
costs.
“We will use our understanding of UK policing to deliver a safe
and secure system that transforms police operations. It will result
in vastly improved services to the public, at a significantly lower
overall cost, which is great news in these times of austerity.”
Athena is due to be fully implemented towards the end of 2012,
with Essex Police being the first to go ‘online’. The system will
be managed centrally, in partnership with Northgate, helping to
save forces money by reducing the need for ongoing management of
multiple IT systems.
Athena is supported by the National Policing Improvement Agency
(NPIA) as part of the national strategy for police IT (ISIS)****.
NPIA chief executive Chief Constable Nick Gargan said: "The NPIA
has been very happy to support the collaborative work undertaken by
the forces involved in Project Athena as part of the Information
Systems Improvement Strategy.
"When Athena comes to fruition, we will see front-line officers
who are able to make better use of better information. The 'Athena
forces' have done exactly what everyone agrees needs to happen but
which is sometimes stubbornly difficult to achieve."
Athena will replace up to ten existing police IT systems in each
force, all of which cost money to maintain and upgrade and will
eventually require replacing. The money the ‘early adopters’ are
spending will be significantly less than that they would have to
spend on replacing each individual existing IT system.
The agreement can be used by any other police authority or law
enforcement agency in the UK – several others have already
expressed an interest, further reducing opportunities for criminals
to operate across geographic boundaries.
About Project Athena
Project Athena is a joint police project to which seven police
forces have signed up so far. The forces currently signed up to
this project are Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire,
Hertfordshire, Kent, Suffolk and Norfolk.
About Northgate Public
Services
Northgate Public Services is a leading supplier of software and
services to public services. Northgate’s customers include 98% of
local authorities and 100% of police forces and it has systems in
use at every NHS hospital. Northgate works with customers to
improve services for local people using technology, service
redesign and outsourcing. Northgate Public Services is part of the
Northgate Information Solutions group, which currently employs more
than 12,000 staff and operates in 46 countries across five
continents. The original company was founded in 1969. Northgate
Information Solutions is privately-owned.
References
*
Framework agreement: a framework is an agreement with suppliers to
establish terms governing contracts that may be awarded during the
life of the agreement. In other words, it is a general term for
agreements that set out terms and conditions for making specific
purchases.
** outside of a nationally-driven IT project
*** http://www.londonscb.gov.uk/library/
**** ISIS: The Information Systems Improvement Strategy is a
reform programme for the police service which views IT as an
enabler for business change. It will release savings, delivering
operational improvements across policing and into the wider
criminal justice system, and is founded upon the consensus that
police ICT can be delivered in a more consistent and affordable
manner. It is approved by both the National Policing Improvement
Agency (NPIA) and the Association of Chief Police Officers
(ACPO).
http://www.npia.police.uk/en/12730.htm