Essex police awards £32m crime management deal

Essex police authority has awarded a £32m deal for crime management systems to Northgate Information Solutions. The framework agreement contract will see Northgate supply, install and maintain an investigation management, intelligence and defendant management IT system for Essex and a number of other police authorities, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The 10-year agreement will be open to all police authorities and other law enforcement agencies within the UK, although eight police authorities are expected to be among the early adopters: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, City of London police and Kent police. The £32m value of the framework agreement is based upon seven authorities taking up the framework, but should more bodies become involved, it could increase to up to £400m. The eight would-be early adopters are now engaged in a collaborative project to procure systems covering crime management, intelligence and defendant management, including custody and case preparation. According to the notice, the deal will "set the scene" for the six eastern region police authorities' IT strategy over the coming years, and will involve the region working closely with the National Policing Improvement Agency on its information systems improvement strategy programme. This article is published by Guardian Professional. For updates on public sector IT, join the Government Computing Network here .