MPS Approach To And Progress With The Pito Custody And Case Preparation System In The MPS

Report: 5
Date: 10 September 2004
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report has been commissioned by the MPA in response to a letter from the Home Office of 22 July 2004 to Chief Officers and Chairs of Police Authorities regarding its NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation Programme.

A. Recommendations

That the report be noted.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. The MPS has intentionally deferred ICT investment in support to its Criminal Justice business environment in anticipation of the promised delivery of national Custody and Case Preparation applications.

2. These national applications have taken longer than promised to become available and as a result are not compliant with the Information Systems Strategy for the Police Service (ISS4PS), nor are they technologically leading edge. Nevertheless, they provide a core set of standard functions that exceed the capabilities of current MPS applications as well as delivering a set of defined system-to-system interfaces across Criminal Justice Organisations (CJOs). These include the Police National Computer, the Magistrates Courts and the Crown Prosecution Service. The adoption of these applications by police forces enables 65% of the information required across CJOs to be captured and shared.

3. From an MPS perspective, the adoption of the NSPIS applications supports the strategic goal of revitalising the Criminal Justice System by:

• Development of a pan-MPS information and process solution for the management of offences from Custody to Court appearance
• Delivery of corporacy and commonality in business processes from the MPS – CPS - MPS
• The development of the basics for centralised management information within Criminal Justice business area
• Additional support for witness and victim care, in respect of feedback on the results of court cases
• Providing additional cumulative improvements to the narrowing of the justice gap.

4. In 2002/03, when asked about its intentions, the MPS indicated its intention to adopt the NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation applications provided a viable solution could be delivered from a technical and financial perspective. This intention was re-affirmed on 1 July 2004 with the caveat that the MPS could not ask the MPA for approval to commit to take the applications without details of the full costs it would incur.

5. To provide an opportunity for technology and business evaluation, ‘thin client’ versions of the two applications were implemented earlier this year in a single Borough Operational Command Unit, Newham.

6. The Case Preparation application has been in pilot in their Criminal Justice Unit since 15 June 2004. This includes an interface to the Magistrates Courts’ system. The Custody application has been in pilot in the Forest Gate Custody suite since 15 July 2004 and in the Plaistow Custody Suite since 2 August 2004, the latter having been deferred to enable completion of building works. The Custody – Case Preparation interface has been in pilot since 19 July 2004 and the initial MIS element of the system has been in pilot since 15 July 2004. Evaluation of the pilots is due to take place during the late August/early September 2004.

7. Work is underway to develop the business case for an MPS wide roll out. The supplier, with MPS and PITO input, has carried out a number of business and technical scoping studies. The outcome of these studies is a set of proposals for provision of implementation services, trainers and business consultancy. These are currently under review. High-level technical and network designs have also been produced and these have been used to inform a PITO led procurement exercise for data centre hardware and associated system software.

Home Office letter of 22 July 2004

8. The Home Office has written to Chief Officers of Police and Chairs of Police Authorities raising a numbers of issues about the national Custody and Case Preparation Programme for their consideration. The MPS position with respect to each of these issues is detailed below.

Current MPS IT system as an alternative to the NSPIS products

9. The MPS does not wish to continue using its current Criminal Justice applications as they are not corporate solutions and do not enforce a common method of working neither do they have the capability to provide seamless interfaces to external Criminal Justice Systems. If the MPS were to continue to employ these applications, it would not be able to meet the mandatory requirement for data sharing electronically through the software interface that allows for CJOs to exchange data (EXISSR1).

Commitment to adopt the national products

10. The MPS has already indicated its intention to ask the MPA to commit to adopting the national products once a viable business case can be put together. To do this requires PITO to identify implementation, system and support costs and confirm where these will be met nationally and where local funding is required. The MPS is working with PITO to assist them in this process.

Commitment to undertake a Scoping Study by 30 September 2004

11. This has already been achieved. Scoping studies were carried out for the pilot implementation some months ago. A further set of scoping studies has been undertaken by the supplier with MPS and PITO involvement. These have determined the technical and network design of the data centre solution and its interface to the MPS infrastructure, together with the requirement for implementation services, business consultancy and training resources. These have informed the production of a number of proposals for implementation products and services that are currently under review.

Ready for service by 30 September 2005

12. This will not be the case for the MPS because of the way Ready for Service is defined. Ready for Service is the point where the installation of equipment, the delivery of business consultancy modules, the provision of Train the Trainers courses and the loading of day 1 data is complete. The next step is then force-wide rollout. The scale of the MPS is such that such that this is not feasible. A borough-by-borough rollout is required. Equipment installation will be complete once the PITO provided data centre is confirmed as being ready for service. The delivery of business change consultancy and the loading of day 1 data will, however, be done borough by borough. Additionally, the approach to training may be different in that the MPS will be seeking provision of training resources rather than the provision of courses for trainers.

Full roll out of NSPIS custody and case preparation by 31 March 2006

13. This cannot be achieved in the MPS. To make best use of these sophisticated systems a considerable degree of business change is required as is significant end user training. A generic plan has been produced that indicates that for each OCU the implementation will take an average 11 weeks to complete from initial contact through go-live and completion of end user training.

14. As well as 32 Borough Operational Command Units, Case Preparation has to be implemented in at least three specialist units including the centralised Traffic Criminal Justice Unit.

15. Given the level of staff abstractions at any one time and the heavy and continuous demand for training facilities, these 35-plus implementations cannot be run in parallel beyond that requiring 15 months elapsed time. For the MPS to achieve full roll out by the stipulated date of 31 March 2006, it would need to start this programme no later than January 2005.

16. Roll out cannot, however, start until the PITO-provided data centre is in place. PITO believe that the earliest this can be made available is March 2005. This means that roll out will now extend beyond the specified Home Office target time by at least 3 months.

PITO provision of hardware

17. It is part of the standard approach that PITO acquire the necessary hardware and associated system software on which to load the NSPIS applications. This was the arrangement for the MPS pilot and will be for the force wide delivery. Due to the amount of hardware required by the MPS it has been decided that it should be located in a secure off-site data centre. This data centre service will be delivered to the MPS by PITO. Until the costs of this service and the extent to which these will require to be locally funded is clear a business case for roll-out cannot be put to the MPA for their approval. PITO have said they will not order the hardware until that MPA approval is forthcoming. It will not be clear until the ‘form of agreement’ and ‘memorandum of understanding’ are received whether this condition is now being waived.

Availability of project resources

18. The project team that has supported the implementation of the pilots will be retained and augmented to undertake the full roll out exercise. A case has already been made internally for additional business resources to supplement the core team and allow the formation of a number of implementation teams that will engage at an Operational Unit level to support local implementation. Additionally, PITO and the supplier will be pursuing an increase in their resources necessary to support the MPS roll out. The supplier’s bid for resources will include those necessary both to build and install the data centre solution an also to undertake training delivery and business consultancy. The scale and source of funding of these has yet to be resolved with PITO.

Requirement to provide business benefits information to PITO

19. The MPS is implementing a number of initiatives for improving performance in the Criminal Justice area with reference to Narrowing the Justice Gap and providing improvements in victim and witness care. Defining a set of benefits that can be measured, tracked and realised, including links with other business change initiatives, is part of this programme.

20. PITO has defined a Benefits Framework that forces are encouraged to adopt in order to demonstrate the return on investment made by the Home Office. It will be difficult to attribute and measure the changes that the NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation implementation alone will have on that environment. The business case will include consideration of whether meeting PITO’s requirement to measure the improvements brought about by the implementation of the NSPIS applications alone can be met without excessive use of resources. This is an ongoing debate between the MPS and PITO.

C. Race and equality impact

There are no equality or diversity implications arising directly from this report. Those relevant to the programme will be included in the request for approval of the business case when it is put before the MPA.

D. Financial implications

The full financial implications of the MPS wide roll out will be set out in a business case to be presented to the MPA in the near future. However, the MPA should note:

• PITO funding for the MPS force wide implementation is in the region of £15 million, this excludes additional costs for trainers and business consultants but does include data centre costs.
• The outcome of PITO’s SR2004 bid for the national NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation Programme will determine whether there will be further funding to forces to cover support costs beyond the 2005/06 financial year. If such funding is not forthcoming, the MPS would need to find £3 - £5 million per annum to cover these costs.
• Hosting the MPS NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation Data Centre outside of the MPS Estate could incur an annual rental charge of about £500K per annum
• If PITO is unable to fund the costs of the additional business consultants and trainers necessary to achieve an effective and timely MPS implementation, the MPS would need to find additional funds to over these costs. This could be in the order of £3 million, most of which would fall in financial year 2006/07.
• If Home Office funding ceases at the end of the 2005/06 financial year, the MPS would need to find the funds to cover the cost of implementing the final Operational Units. These costs would include the cost of the business consultants and trainers and could be in the region of £1 million.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Richard Earland, Directorate of Information

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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