National Initiatives Appendix A
Introduction / The aim of this paper is to give a summary of the current status of national initiatives together with an assessment of their impact on Hampshire Constabulary. Section 1 summarises national projects, whilst Section 2 lists systems already in service.A glossary of terms is given in Appendix 1.
Previous versions of this paper have built up incrementally over the last year with additions each time being highlighted in yellow. This version has now been re-baselined as of September 2005 and will be the new starting point for incremental versions over the next 12 months.
1ssues /
- Political pressure to take up some systems – e.g. NSPIS Case and Custody.
- National systems which do not match current level of functionality in Force (e.g. Case & Custody) or requirements (e.g. national HR).
- Some national systems still being developed as “silos” from which data for local use can not be extracted – e.g. ViSOR, NFLMS.
- Long implementation time-scales of some national systems – e.g. NMIS
- Timing – local needs and national availability do not always match (e.g. IMPACT)
- Continuation of funding for existing national systems
- Single Non-Emergency Number
Prepared by: Neil Howell24 March 2006Page 1 of 1
Director IT & Communication Services
1. National Projects Summary Appendix A
PROJECT / CURRENT STATUSActivity Based Costing / A User workshop was held in May 2005 to consider high level requirements. Discussions are still ongoing with ACPO Finance and Resources Business Area regarding the approach proposed by Central Customer for the development of an Outline Business Case (OBC) for the ABC capability. This is now to be considered by the new ACPO Chair of the F & R BA, CC Tim Brain. Although it had been proposed to develop an OBC by September 2005, this will now slip, potentially to early 2006.
24/03/06 This has now stalled because agreement can not be reached on requirements.
Airwave / NO UPDATE
ANPR / The Back-Office system (BOF2), which had been experiencing severe problems, has now been rectified and tested.
24/03/06 TheNational data centre is on track for operation by mid-year. It is sized at 5 million reads per day initially & up to 35m by next year. The BOF2 interface and support from the supplier is still proving problematic and representation has been made about these to the central project. BOF2 should run on existing hardware though the supplier may try to propose more. An invitation to an ANPR open day has been issued and forces have been recommended to attend because technology is advancing rapidly.
Hampshire: The ANPR project is now moving into a new phase. This is defined by two key pieces of work:
Firstly, the acceptance and installation in Hampshire of BOF2 which has now passed full acceptance through the National Project. Hampshire, as one of the four pilot forces, will be included in the first round of installations commencing in September 2005. A meeting was held with Anite on 8th September to plan the installation and we are hopeful that BOF2 will be installed and operational by the end of September.
Secondly, the Project is now ready to move into the rollout of fixed ANPR sites on the strategic road network. The Project is looking for approval from the Board to place orders for as many sites as are possible with the SR2004 funding (probably 4 or 5), subject to final quotes being received.
Other financial issues which also require consideration are the expansion of hypothecation, which can contribute towards annual running costs and the identification of other funding sources. The Project is now in a position to commit to spend the Home Office money currently available but there is no certainty on what, if anything will be given to the force beyond this.
Case Preparation and Custody (NSPIS) / Custody is now installed in 12 Forces and Case in 13 forces. 25 forces have signed up altogether and V4 has been implemented in 10 forces. It is expected that 12 forces will be fully rolled out by March 2006 but that only 4 will be linked to the CPS through the Criminal Justice Exchange. The remaining forces, excluding the Met, are due for rollout by March 2007. A major risk at present is the agreement by forces to base-lined implementation plans required to be able to demonstrate to HO the need for continued funding.
Following the Venton review of NSPIS Custody and Case Preparation a PITO project has been initiated to meet the 28 recommendations made. Meanwhile Central Customer has been mandated by Chief Constable John Burbeck to work with ACPO and other agencies to produce high level requirements for a future ‘system’, which was one of the Venton recommendations. Central customer is working with CJIT to collate all existing business processes on a common tool to validate, identify gaps and produce a true end-to-end process. Cross agency user workshops proposed for Autumn 2005 dependent upon securing buy-in to the revised approach from CJ partners.
24/03/06 – v4 has been deployed to 17 forces and v5 will be deployed to 20 forces by the end of March. The product is claimed to be stable, with interface & non-functional issues being addressed over the next 3 months. The Libra link goes live in Warwickshire in April. A major development is the uncertainty about future funding – currently no funding is available for future product enhancements or implementations after 31/3/06; benefits previously attributed to the Custody/Case Prep business case are now being re-attributed to CJ Exchange so the business case no longer stands. Support costs are very high and only funded through to 2008. A major concern is Disaster Recovery – forces are holding back on roll-out until a proven DR solution is available. This is supposed to be aligned with release 5.1 in April
Meanwhile work has already started on what the next generation Case/Custody system would look like. There is a broader vision for Criminal Justice systems in general by 2010 in which “gateway” processes at the police level will integrate with core criminal justice processes and CJO processes with intelligence management & management information aligned to all of these. John Burbeck is to take this back to ACPO as a concept (CJIT haven’t yet seen it). Which fits with other bits of work (e.g. the HOLMES 20/20 replacement.
CRASH / CRASH includes the establishment of a standard national police collision report form, requiring a reduced set of data, to improve consistency of reporting. Drivers, for ‘self-completion’. The introduction of standard forms could be mirrored by the development of a solution which would allow accident details to be entered at the scene, for example onto hand held devices, or at police stations onto a fixed computer terminal. This would increase the scope for improving accuracy since the system could ‘steer’ an officer through the task of gathering the information required (including the STATS19 data).
The DFT have secured funds to deliver this project and formally requested that the project be progressed. At the beginning of March a meeting with representatives from DFT established the extent of what could be delivered and the benefits for both organisations. PITO Communications Directorate has formally accepted responsibility to deliver this project and work is ongoing to elaborate the user requirement. Central Customer continues to act as the interface between DfT and PITO in the ongoing discussions to define scope and funding arrangements, which it is hoped will be agreed in early September. (Meeting arranged for 20th).
24/03/06 The PITO Communications Directorate has formally accepted responsibility to deliver this project and are currently working closely with the DfT sponsors to establish deliverables within the timescales (April 2007). Central Customer continues to act as the interface between DfT and PITO and is facilitating contact with Forces in England and Scotland, who are currently doing independent work in the area of accident recording, thereby reducing any duplication of effort.
Hampshire: As an interim measure to replace our earlier system, provided by HCC, we have acquired an alternative, “Key Accident”.
CRISP / CRISP is a technical solution for cross-regional sharing of information (see also IMPACT below). It aims to:
- 1. Extract data to a standard repository
- 2. Search data securely via a browser query tool
- 3. Link force repositories to enable searching
- 4. Export data.
24/03/06 The Service’s implementation of CRISP has been suspended and handed over to the IMPACT team to carry forward. IMPACT is now recommending forces to take CRISP if they do not already have an alternative operational data store and have sanctioned its use only for local purposes – i.e. not for cross-boundary sharing of information.
Hampshire: Would probably look to get involved with national implementation in 2006/7. By this time we would have completed implementation of major parts of Project Oberon and would, therefore, be in a stronger position for sharing of information between forces. Also, the position of the IMPACT initiative (see below) would be much clearer.
FIND. / Facial Image National Database
FIND aims to provide a storage and retrieval capability for images, on a national basis.
An outline business case has been completed and is being progressed by PITO Identification Directorate.
24/03/06 Imaging standards have now been agreed. A pilot phase is due between June/August 2006 and PITO is close to finalising a contract with Anite to deliver the system based on re-engineering of the ViSOR application. NB Forces are being advised to start capturing images now according to national standards.
Hampshire: We will need to determine how we will fit in with this. We have committed to the PROMAT system for ID parades; have already implemented a prisoner imaging system as part of the existing Custody system; and have been piloting a facial recognition system.
ID Cards / The Home Office ID Card Programme has produced a business case for each organisation likely to be affected. The Police Benefits Case has been approved by DCC Roger Baker, ACPO lead on the National Identity Card Scheme.
IMAST / 24/03/06 iMAST is the Information Management and Supporting Technologies 10 year strategy to support counter terrorism through Special Branch. Since information in this area is classified as secret or higher it can not be handled across the CJX which can not be accredited to above confidential. Therefore there is a need for a separate high-speed, high-bandwidth communication network to connect SB systems.
Phase 1, with a common network architecture, common user interface, common security model, 64 nodes in UK only in a centre-regional hub-satellite configuration with 2 desktops at each location was originally planned for completion by April 2007. However, there are insufficient funds to deliver this – costs are coming out at about 3x available funds – mainly because of the complexity of the security requirements to be able to handle both secret and top secret information on the same architecture. The strategy will deliver functions such as secure e-mail, directory services (+skills matrix), intranet, office applications and hosted applications (such as NSBIS-N).
There may be a need for local IT departments to work with the IMAST team for this implementation, so there will need to be adequate numbers of staff cleared to the appropriate security level. There may also be costs at Force SB level – a bid for the programme of work has been submitted which, if accepted, would cover these.
IMPACT / This work has been made a priority by the findings of the Bichard Inquiry into the police intelligence failings that contributed to the Soham murders. As a result, PITO has been given the green light to take forward the Programme and an indication has been given that £140 million of additional funding will be made available from central government to achieve it.
A full-time ACPO lead is now chairing the programme whose team now has 84 staff available to it. It also includes the IM Programme (from NCPE) which is about to release the Code of Practice for Management of Police Information (MOPI).
Business cases for the programme & IMPACT 2005 are about to be released to the Home Office.
By December 2005 there is expected to be limited access in forces – 2 users & one work-station – to the Impact Nominal Index (INI) and concern has been raised about the knock-on effect of follow-up manual phone enquiries as a result of hits on the INI. Phase 2 of the programme - “People Search” (IMPACT Intelligence - People) is intended to extension to INI to remove need for manual follow-up of enquiries – so links to CRISP automatically for example
By March 2006 forces are expected to be providing limited data extracts in CRISP/ CorDM format from 6 business areas to feed the INI and PLX. Implementation plans should also be in place for for extracting data & making it accessible in a common format (which could be CRISP) by Dec 2006.NFLMS – paper for project board on 12/9 to authorize collaboration between that project & IMPACT to define how data would be extracted
The team is also currently undertaking an in-depth analysis of CRISP to assess whether this is the appropriate mechanism for future sharing and is defining the longer term direction. This must address ownership & governance of police information; expect MOPI & NIM updates; provide for extensive training & culture change programmes; continue data cleansing etc to 17 business areas; and investigate several technology options – virtual information network, national intelligence system, police national database.
24/03/06 The total number of records available on the INI (Impact Nominal Index) now stands at 33 million. Not only has this given forces visibility of a much larger information base, but it has also significantly enhanced the capability of the Criminal Records Bureau. Meanwhile, the Project Delivery Board has agreed to sponsor a three month pilot to extend the use of the INI. Four force units/agencies have been successful in applying to take part in this pilot, which will give INI access to the East Midlands Regional Intelligence Unit and Thames Valley Police Force Intelligence Bureau, to assess the INI’s application in the local and regional intelligence environment. Access will also be given to Child Exploitation On-line Protection within the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Anti Terrorist Branch in the Metropolitan Police Service, to assess how INI will support serious and organised crime investigations on a national level.
Responsibility for the CRISP system will transfer to IMPACT by 1/4/06. The IMPACT team plan to deliver this as a shrink-wrapped product, standardised around the .NET version. A database evaluation is also underway to determine which of Oracle or SQL Server is the more appropriate database platform; this evaluation will include aspects such as license costs and skills available. The guidance is that this should be delivered as a confidential system but with not as onerous requirements as ViSOR
Phase 1 is the national roll-out which is planned to start in Q406, with Beta testing starting in May. The primary goal is to provide local force searching capability; inter-force searching is now being seen as a secondary goal. CRISP is not being seen as the long-term option; there is no plan for the life-cycle of the existing product and has a probable life-time of up to 2010 at the latest.
The biggest risk is that funding is stopped once the Bichard requirements have been met; from a technical and functional point of view this could mean a lower scope solution. Other issues include alignment with the Corporate Data Model, alignment with the Unified Police Security Architecture (which does not yet exist).
Phase 2 is presently intended to be a central data warehouse with a web browser search tool as a managed service. Interestingly there is an alternative proposal from CJIT to use services within the CJ Exchange.
Hampshire: We need to keep abreast of developments in this project – there appears to be a lot of synergy with Project Oberon.
IDENT 1 / This is PITO Identification Directorate’s biggest project to develop identification capabilities for the police service. The project aims to develop existing functionality provided in the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS) as well providing a strategic platform to provide future biometric capabilities including palm print searching. The existing NAFIS contract is due for renewal and careful selection of the IDENT1 supplier is essential to ensure full delivery of the IDENT1 objectives and benefits. The IDENT1 project team is currently evaluating proposals from prospective IDENT1 suppliers. Evaluation panels have been organised to reflect a broad-based expert opinion.
24/03/06 National Palm Search capability was deployed in Feb 06 and the Scottish fingerprint bureaus transition will complete by October.
The Lantern pilot is underway; this allows remote devices to be connected via GPRS across the internet, via the CJX to the IDENT1 network. Transmission times are around 45 seconds with a further 4-5 minutes required for matching. Operational costs (SIM cards & time contracts) will be the responsibility of forces)