The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) has awarded Deloitte and BT the contracts to support delivery of the National Enabling Programmes (NEP) for improving the IT systems used in policing.
The professional services firm and communications services provider will obtain shares of a £100 million investment aimed at modernising systems and making them more consistent, including the introduction of cloud based services and a strengthening of cyber security.
Deloitte has been selected as the client delivery partner to lead on the programme’s implementation and will provide a range of services around a Microsoft Azure cloud platform, access management and cyber.
This will include the establishment of a centre of cyber excellence for police forces, which will be based in one of BT’s existing security operations centres and provide a dedicated team of cyber professionals.
The underlying aim of the programme is to enable police forces across the country to collaborate more effectively, with access to secure, cloud based services and national standards, while providing economies of scale through a centrally procured contract. Local forces will retain their autonomy for choosing local IT and controlling their digital assets.
It responds to the digital policing policy laid out in The Policing Vision 2025 and includes an emphasis on making it easier for the public to contact the police online, improving the use of digital intelligence and evidence, and ensuring the transfer of all material in a digital format to the criminal justice system.
Foundational change
Wayne Parkes, the NEP’s programme director, said: “The NEP is a key enabling tool that will deliver a foundational change within policing as we exploit new ICT resources in a unified way across our forces. This ‘joined up thinking’ will facilitate a radical change in both what the police do and how the public interact with us.
“We are delighted that our delivery partners, Deloitte and BT are now on board as we move to the next, exciting and challenging phase of the project.”
Ian Dyson, Commissioner City of London Police, said: “During 2017 and 2018 the NEP team has worked very successfully with a handful of forces to trial the implementation of these new technologies and business models. Now with the delivery partners in place, we can begin the planned roll out to deliver and embed these changes across forces.”
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
