News Release

Immediate release: Monday, 16 June 2003

Contact:Jack Gocher, JGC Ltd

Phone: +44 1494 724113

email:

CHESHIRE CONSTABULARY BECOMES FIRST POLICE FORCE

TO GO LIVE WITH NSPIS HR

On Wednesday 9th April 2003, one day ahead of schedule, Cheshire Constabulary became the first UK Police force to go live with the PITO-approved NSPIS HR V1.1 system, developed by Cedar HR.

To mark the occasion, Cheshire Constabulary’s Deputy Chief Constable and also Chairman of the NSPIS HR implementation project board, Ian Holding, commented, “The implementation of NSPIS HR is a significant step forward for Cheshire Constabulary. We are always striving to support staff in the best possible way and find the right roles for people. However, our ability to gather the necessary personnel information to do this has been limited by slow and cumbersome processes. NSPIS HR gives us this information quickly and with certainty.”

He continued, “Delivering the system inside schedule is a credit to everyone involved with the project. It is now important that we raise the awareness of what the system can do because the basic principles of the project are to help and support the staff of our force.”

Christine Barton, Cheshire Constabulary’s HR Director and senior user of NSPIS HR, commented, “We are expecting significant and measurable benefits from NSPIS HR. The system will enable our users to work more efficiently and productively by providing information that is more relevant and useful.”

Successful implementation of NSPIS HR has been achieved within aggressive timescales. Frances Hall, Project Manager for Cheshire Constabulary, explained, “We are moving to new premises later this year and it was vital that we had the system up and running as soon as possible. We set an optimistic target for going live and we are all delighted that this has been achieved. It is an excellent achievement that could not have happened without the unswerving commitment of the whole project team. In addition, the staff at all levels from Cedar could not have worked harder to help achieve our objectives.”

The project to install NSPIS HR commenced in the summer of 2002. A number of stages were then required, including the procurement of two V880 SunFire servers and 70 new PCs, user acceptance training and data migration testing.

As the live date approached, staff from both Cheshire Constabulary and Cedar formed a close partnership that was dedicated to the success of the project. “This project was a real team effort and the partnership between us and Cedar was the key to its success,” said Ian Charlesworth, Cheshire Constabulary’s Technical Programme Manager. He added, “The entire process with Cedar has been conducive to success. Cedar was clearly up for the challenge set by aggressive timescales and the constant visibility of Cedar’s project manager instilled great confidence throughout the project. The sales pitch was realistic and professional and, most importantly, Cedar delivered on what it promised. The entire experience has been a very positive one. There are not many IT projects that one can say this about.”

A key element of the project was the on-going testing process. “We stuck firmly to the testing plan and this was important in achieving timely completion of the project. One of the most positive aspects was the way in which the Cedar and Cheshire teams integrated and operated in a unified manner,” said Colin Simpson, the project’s Technical Leader. Cheshire’s testing team was Pauline Connolly, Katrina Turner, Lynn Rimmer and Kristy Allison.

Prior to going live on NSPIS HR, the Cedar project team predicted that there would be at least a five week period of downtime as the force went from its previous system to the new version. When the system was switched on, it had actually been down for a total of just five days! Christine Barton, “We are all absolutely delighted with the speed with which the team managed to get up and running with the new system. We were expecting a much longer downtime period and knew that this would create a major backlog of work. To achieve this in the time they did was a magnificent effort by all concerned and one for which the HR department is particularly grateful.”

With the system now up and running, Cheshire can appreciate the functionality and resilience of NSPIS HR. “The quality of the product is testimony to the level of testing carried out by us, Cedar and PITO. This high standard of testing throughout enabled us to go live with minimal problems,” said Frances Hall.

Kevin Gordon, Cedar’s General Manager, summed up, “This is clearly a significant achievement for Cheshire and Cedar. The foundation for this success is the partnership that the teams have formed, which enabled them to work through the challenges that arose. There will always be lessons learnt during a project that we can all benefit from and we will continually strive to improve our processes. With both Nottinghamshire and Surrey Police Forces due to go live over the next two months, and a healthy list of new forces contracted to implement NSPIS HR, we are going to have plenty of opportunities to apply these.

Reader’s ContactEditor’s Contact

Kevin GordonJack Gocher

General ManagerJGC Ltd

Cedar HR

01480 35599901494 724113