£140m towards new 999 system ‘welcome news' for Londoners

53/02
14 May 2002

Toby Harris, Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and Ian Blair, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, have warmly welcomed the Home Office announcement today that it is awarding up to £140 million in capital funding for the delivery of the Met’s C3i ‘999’ project over the next five years. 

C3i is set to reshape the Met’s command and control, communications and information infrastructure and technology. It is designed to cope effectively with the increased demand placed on the 999 emergency call system. 

The C3i project has examined all aspects of how the MPS responds to and deals with both emergency and non emergency calls from the public and will be delivering improved structures and systems with the capacity for meeting ever increasing demands on police resources.

Toby Harris said:

“This announcement shows that the Home Secretary really understands the need to invest in systems that allow police officers to do their jobs effectively. It goes a long way towards meeting the total capital funding requirement of £162 million set out in the business case submitted to the Home Office in September 2001.

“C3i is essential to revolutionise a system that has been under increasing pressure as ever higher demands are placed on our police.

“I also welcome agreement of a joint protocol between the Home Secretary, the MPA and the Met that calls for the deployment to front line duties of around 800 officers who will be gradually replaced with civilians as the C3i project is phased in.” 

Ian Blair congratulated the project team on their success and hard work so far and said:

“This is excellent news for the people of London. Delivery of C3i is vitally important to our ability to continue to deliver a world class police response in the capital. In the last 10 years demand for the police to attend incidents and crimes has increased dramatically and C3i will provide us with the capacity and the flexibility we will need as demand increases further.

“C3i is a real investment for the future. It will provide many benefits – more flexibility around deployment and tasking of officers, improved access to information to assist with deployment - and a clearer picture of where the demands are at any one time and where our resources are to meet those demands. It will also provide us with improved resilience for dealing with major incidents. We will be in a better position to use the resources that we have in the most efficient way possible, even as demand for police assistance increases further, as it inevitably will.”

The £140m, ring fenced for C3i, will be used to implement the project over a five year period and to ensure a seamless transition to new ways of working and new technology. Further funding for the project is being provided for the existing MPA budget.

The funding has been awarded by the Home Office following a successful bid by the C3i project board, endorsed by the MPA. In preparing the bid the project team worked closely with Partnerships UK and consulted the Office for Government Commerce about all procurement matters.

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