The National Policing
Improvement Agency

Background

The National Policing Improvement Agency, NPIA, is a Non-departmental Public Body within the Home Office. The NPIA’s purpose is to sustain, support and develop local and national policing. As well as bringing improvements into the police service, the NPIA is responsible for managing critical national services, building capability and providing professional expertise to forces and authorities across the UK.
www.npia.police.uk

The Situation

The ICT landscape for the 43 police forces in England and Wales is a mix of a few national systems and a multitude of locally provisioned systems; in effect there can be 43 different systems to perform a common business process. It has long been recognised that this is neither efficient nor effective.

The programme

In 2008 the NPIA, at the request of the National Policing Board chaired by the Home Secretary, was asked to conduct a review of police ICT. As a result the Information Systems Improvement Strategy (ISIS) was created. The development of ISIS resulted in the Government publishing a White Paper on policing in December 2009 “Protecting the Public - Supporting the Police to Succeed”. This White Paper sets the framework for driving police improvement with ISIS delivering efficiency savings from 2014 of £200m per year.

Why Exception?

Exception was chosen by the NPIA because we had both the capability and experience having provided Programme Management and Consultancy on the vesting of the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA). Also our significant experience in integration programmes from the private sector was considered as highly valuable for the ISIS Programme.

What Exception Delivered

As part of the ISIS Programme, Exception provided the lead in the development of the National Infrastructure Strategy and the tools to promote convergence of the police force’s ICT, namely the Convergence Code of Practice and the Champion Challenger process. These Convergence tools are being exercised by the NPIA and the forces on the road to delivering a converged ICT landscape. This work was referenced in the Government’s White Paper on Policing.

“Their practical experience in creating strategy and service delivery made a very positive difference to our Programme. I would have no hesitation in using Exception again.”