£100 million contract involves fixed and wireless connections, IP phones and changes to back office IT to support One Met digital strategy
The Metropolitan Police has signed up BT to provide an infrastructure of fixed and wireless communications networks, along with a range of cloud and IT services, to underpin its One Met strategy for digital policing.
The company said the £100 million deal will involve the provision of high speed network connections to about 500 of the police force’s sites across the city, as well as upgrading local area networks and supplying a corporate Wi-Fi solution across the estate.
Other elements include an overhaul of some of the Met’s back office IT, including its workforce management system for staff scheduling and rostering, and the deployment of cloud technology, including a voice system to support about 20,000 IP enabled phones.
Colm O’Neill, managing director of BT Business and Public Sector, said: “We’ve built a longstanding relationship with the Metropolitan Police and are working with them to help them find better, smarter and more productive ways of working.
“Our systems will greatly enhance the way the force organises itself and responds to crimes across the capital, while reducing its IT and infrastructure costs. Moving to a cloud based infrastructure, for example, will allow the Met to get even more services for less money, helping it to invest in future policing priorities.”
Video boost
BT emphasised that the extra data capacity would support police officers in the field and their use of body worn video cameras. The Met announced a major investment in October of last year, with plans to issue 22,000 cameras to all of its neighbourhood and response officers.
The deal should provide support for the force in implementing its One Met Digital Policing Strategy, published in February. It involves a number of programmes, including optimising responses with an integrated command and control centre and an in-vehicle mobile app, increasing use of body worn video and video interviews, and the roll out of table computers around the force.
The new contract is also the latest step in the Met’s creation of a multi-supplier model of its IT estate. It follows last year’s agreement on a £40 million deal with Accenture on the upgrade and rationalistion of the Met’s IT applications, and earlier contracts with Atos for service integration and management and CSC for computing and hosting.
Image from Metropolitan Police Service
