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Mason network study underpins greater collaboration within the East Midlands policing region
Mason Communication’s recent Network Connectivity Design Study underpins greater collaborative working between the police forces in the East Midlands region, including Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire forces.
Mason was commissioned to work in partnership with the forces’ project sponsor, to undertake a Network Connectivity Design study to enable a greater sharing of intelligence information, while increasing collaborative working between forces in the East Midlands.
It was vital that the immediate, and future, business and operational requirements of all five forces was understood and captured, in order to aid the requirements of a collaborative solution. To inform the network options analysis, Mason undertook an information gathering exercise to provide a snapshot of each force’s current infrastructure, and ascertain the future connectivity drivers.
According to Lee Rawcliffe, consultant, with each force network operating autonomously, the requirement for design robustness, flexibility and scalability was paramount to ensure not only immediate and transparent success, but also to provide a solution that could support medium and longer-term sustainability. Mason presented an informed report to the East Midlands forces detailing the project findings, options appraisal, and presenting clear recommendations in meeting the intra-force connectivity requirements.
“The critical nature of police networks and the requirements for network scalability, connectivity, security, network addressing, resilience and disaster recovery was addressed within each option appraisal.” said Rawcliffe.
These high-level collaborative solution options were presented with associated budgetary costs. The benefits, constraints and risks of each option were additionally included to assist the forces’ in understanding and gauging the most appropriate way forward for achieving an East Midlands police region collaborative infrastructure.
Mason’s considerable experience within the Telecommunications and ICT marketplaces, in addition to the long established working relationship with the UK police services, ensured that all proposed options of this Network Connectivity Design study were appropriately aligned to the police market, and would meet the business and operational requirements of the forces.
Peter Aughton, project sponsor and then head of ICT Services for Northamptonshire
Police, commented, “I'm very happy with the work that Mason carried out and the report. It’s been given to the other IT Directors, and we are using it to progress further work with our regional network managers.”
