National Enabling Programmes - UK

OPINION: Improving system interoperability has been something of a technology holy grail for UK policing, and key to overcoming the frustrations felt by frontline officers as well as operational ineffectiveness and inefficiency; Wayne Parkes, former Chief Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Officer for the Police Digital Service and now a DDaT policing consultant, believes the wider adoption of Integration Platform-as-a-Service (IPaaS) could be the solution.

FEATURE: As specialists and stakeholders from the UK public safety communications sector gather for this week’s BAPCO annual conference and exhibition, PoliceBox CEO Simon Hall highlights the importance of interoperability in police IT systems, and explores whether ‘Integration Platform as a Service’ products could finally provide the solution to greater co-operation and collaboration.

OPINION: UK policing budgets remain under pressure, and spend on IT often takes the hit; but Simon Hall, CEO of police digital mobility platform PoliceBox, believes that approaching expenditure on Software-as-a-Service and cloud platforms as an operational rather than capital cost could overcome the budget barriers while also improving forces’ technological capabilities.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: While UK policing has faced major challenges as a result of COVID-19, the innovative ICT responses to the pandemic from police forces, government and the private sector have driven change that will deliver benefits for years to come, as VMware Chief Technology Officer Joseph Langford explained to Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix on a recent leg of the Policing Friendship Walking Tour.

INNOVATION: As delegates gather in Coventry for this week’s BAPCO public safety technology event, Simon Hall, CEO of police digital mobility platform PoliceBox, looks back at the predictions he was invited to make regarding police IT in 2006 – and the success stories, disappearing initiatives and surprise arrivals on the policing technology scene over the intervening 15 years.

POLICING FRIENDSHIP TOUR: Policing Insight Publisher Bernard Rix’s Policing Friendship Tour recently caught up with Ian Bell, CEO of the Police Digital Service (PDS), for a stroll around the urban landscape of Wembley; after 18 months of rapid technological change in policing and across the public sector – driven in large part by the pandemic – Mr Bell spoke about the challenges of COVID-19, the development of the PDS and the National Policing Digital Strategy, and the organisation’s aims and ambitions move forwards.

INNOVATION: The need for policing to maximise the potential of the continuing digital revolution is often highlighted – but how well have UK forces ridden the wave of digital transformation so far? Policing adviser and former deputy chief constable Paul Kennedy, and policing consultant Damon Ugargol, examine the key new technologies for policing, how to overcome the challenges of legacy systems, and the opportunities offered by greater integration and interoperability.

Insight: A new multi-partner approach to sharing data has been adopted in Thames Valley to help tackle the scourge of violence; Governed by a principle of no 'misuse' of data, whilst ensuring there is no 'missed use' of data, the project aims to direct early intervention and prevention strategies, explains its head, DCI Lewis Prescott-Mayling.

INNOVATION: Among a number of key issues covered at this month’s UK Police Digital Summit was the importance of agile, cloud-based services for frontline officers; Simon Hall, CEO of PoliceBox, believes the move to adaptable, police-specific solutions is crucial for future policing.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-2030 recommends that forces take a cloud-first approach to applications and data. Join this webinar on 24th February 2021 to learn more about the police assured mission accelerator developed by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Police ICT Company, and the National Police Technology Council. which helps forces to migrate workloads and deploy services quickly and securely to the cloud.

Insight: Cumbria’s use of Microsoft Teams has snowballed during the coronavirus pandemic and UK lockdown; Policing Insight Deputy Editor Sarah Gibbons looks at some of the innovative uses of the system, and how public engagement and officer satisfaction levels have benefited.

FEATURE: Bringing forces, chief constables, PCCs, the Home Office and suppliers together to unite behind the Police National Digital Strategy will be ‘complicated’, NPCC Chair Martin Hewitt told this week’s Police Digital Summit; but delivering the Strategy is essential if policing is to retain legitimacy with the public.

INNOVATION: The National Enabling Programmes (NEP) have been working with UK police forces to provide new technology over the past four years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has provided fresh impetus to the transformation, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: The lack of interoperability between police systems wastes taxpayers’ money and reduces effectiveness, says Coeus Software CEO Simon Hall. So how can police ICT escape from the silos of legacy systems?