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.