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A multi-agency network for Gwent: exclusive interview
The largest multi-agency, multi-sector group on a next generation public sector network in the UK has been launched in Gwent. We talk to Gwent Police’s Chief Constable, Carmel Napier and the Director of Resources, Nigel Stephens about the benefits the new network is bringing both to cost efficiencies and to front line policing.
Eight public sector bodies across police forces, councils, health services and education in Gwent, Wales, have become part of the Gwent Neighbourhood Network Design (GNND). The network, which will sit on a PSBA (Public Sector Broadband Aggregation), is capable of delivering a full suite of voice, video and data services and will provide the GNND members with high-capacity and scalable network connections across a range of connectivity options.
One of the key benefits of the new network is the opportunity that it provides for public sector bodies to collaborate there are a number of initiatives under way between the police and Council leaders to turn that opportunity into tangible deliverables.
As an example, one of these initiatives is addressing call handling in which seven organisations are engaged. Nigel Stephens says the objective is to integrate a call handling and call management system. Given that everyone in the group is starting from different bases this is potentially quite challenging but he says the PSBA network presents a way of exchanging data and voice communications across organisations in a way that wasn’t possible before. ‘It opens a door for us, removes a barrier that had to be overcome before moving forward on a collaboration on call handling.’
Joining up call centre management will enable one police force to pick up calls on behalf of others and pass them on. And because calls to the police often involve ambulance and fire as well, the PSBA technology can provide immediate access to other services.
In a spin off to the PSBA network, the Welsh Assembly has just signed up with Siemens to install a VOIP solution. This is rolling out to other Welsh police forces outside the Gwent community and is already installed in Dyfed Powys Police meaning that the two forces can start to join up with other emergency services.
Chief Constable Carmel Napier says that having access to other services means that the police can respond at speed. Discussions are already taking place between South Wales and Gwent and their Police Authorities on how to use the network to integrate their service delivery model. ‘We need to respond in the right way and deploy our resources efficiently. Integration means that we don’t have to replicate resources and only need resource in the most appropriate location to respond on behalf of two forces instead of one.’
This integration will be supported by the ability to transfer data about incidents between organisations. ‘You don’t have to pick up the phone and dial, you can call the organisation immediately and have the call responding from your own force control room. The spin off which will come out of this is the joint emergency services group in Wales.’
Integration will bring with it significant cost savings. Just through the VOIP network alone, savings in the order of £100,000 are anticipated compared to the existing architecture which is very old and has been added to piecemeal over the years. Further cost recovery will be achieved through the sale of old equipment.
The Chief Constable believes that because all public services are moving to a common infrastructure there is a major opportunity to cut bureaucracy by developing a multi-agency response. ‘We are starting to move towards a standardisation of business processes which means that organisations will be able to go from start to finish on incidents, whether they be domestic abuse, fire arms incidents or problems in the community linked with neighbourhood policing. Because it is possible to access the data that is available from other organisations involved, management teams will understand the context of the problem when they discuss concerns.’
Whereas previously documents had to be emailed or faxed separately to every organisation involved, now all agencies can access all the background information they need ahead of meetings or telephone conference calls.
Integration, she insists, is about doing the right thing for the public. ‘Getting a common framework of operating and business processes, which will improve services to the public, and drive out huge efficiency savings, through doing activities once. It means that in future the public will hopefully have one point of entry for all services. Currently, depending on where you are in Wales or what agency you are dealing with you may have to go through several doors of entry to find an answer to what may be a fairly straightforward problem.
‘It is in the public interest for us to streamline our back offices, maximise the PSBA network which acts as a key enabler, and actually show people what can be done. Where other people thought joined-up working wasn’t possible, PSBA shows joined-up working really does work well and sharing resources has been a key step in demonstrating what can be achieved fairly quickly as well as delivering huge financial savings which go into the pot in terms of maintaining front line services.’
The Welsh Assembly and UK Government have made reducing bureaucracy and a joined-up approach to public sector organisations part of the political agenda over the last few years. Integral to this is a reduction of bureaucracy relating to policing. Chief Constable Carmel Napier says that this policy will go hand in hand with a significant reduction in resource over the next few years. ‘Every public sector organisation has to be ready to meet this challenge. We are looking for innovative ways of working and technology has a large part to play. Instead of one process managed by one group of people, the PSBA network is helping us move to a situation where two or more processes are managed by many. This enables us to look at reducing our resources and it will lead to saving money somewhere along the line.’
Gwent Network Neighbourhood Design
The eight organisations that make up the GNND are Aneurin Bevan Health Board, Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, Caerphilly County Borough Council, Coleg Gwent, Gwent Police Authority, Monmouthshire County Council, Newport City Council and Torfaen County Borough Council. The PSBA is delivered as a managed service by Logicalis UK as part of a seven-year contract with the Welsh Assembly Government. Public sector employees at more than 2000 public service sites across Wales are already connected to PSBA and the figure is expect to rise to over 10,000 over the next few years as more organisations join Eventually all 350,000 public sector workers in Wales – including home-based staff – will be able to access the network.
