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Funding for new technology
Beat Systems, has been offered a £388k SPURplus grant from the Scottish Executive, to pioneer mobile technology development for UK police forces and government departments.
Roy Hawes, Commercial Director of Beat Systems, explains, “The award of SPURplus is critical to the successful rapid development of this radical technology. With this funding the benefits that the mobile technology brings to the police forces and local authorities will increase tenfold in a shorter lead time. Vital, decisive information becomes available instantly and officers are able to make complex judgements and critical decisions based upon real-time information.”
The solution is a fully integrated hand-held and vehicle mobile system capable of securely searching and updating all police central systems from a single log-on and search. This allows officers on the beat to perform live searches and interrogate multiple systems to all national and local police systems with unparalleled security.All information is seamlessly updated into all central systems without the need for manual re-keying and collated data is used to complete police forms, tickets and reports whilst out on the beat.
Hawes continues, “The Scottish Executive award will support Beat Systems in developing a mobile solution to become the first voice activated solution capable of securely accessing multiple disparate systems by police officers on the beat. The developed technology has a huge global market and will continue to take the lead in delivering secure mobile solutions to the police.”
Early adopter of the technology and the first full police rollout of mobile data by a national force is the British Transport Police. Paul Robb, Assistant Chief Constable, British Transport Police said, “Mobile data has the potential to be the most significant advance since foot patrol officers were given radio communication. Fundamental to our strategy is the impressive technology that Beat Systems has developed. Over the last two years, we have been working closely with them to develop the concept into a meaningful operational tool that officers on the ground will be eager to use.”
The Deputy First Minister, Nicol Stephen concluded, “The SPURplus initiative supports projects that represent a significant technological advance for the UK sector or industry concerned and that have a global appeal. The Executive is working to further the development of the Scottish economy by promoting a culture of enterprise, innovation and competitiveness in Scotland.”
