Kent Police

Download
(PDF, 281K)

Leading the way in intelligence-led policing

Background & change drivers

Kent Police has long been a pioneer of intelligence-led policing. More than a decade ago, it commissioned the development of a system called Genesis that has at its heart a consolidated intelligence view providing the force with integrated Crime, Custody, Case and Intelligence functionality. Successfully deployed in 1996 the system has been a major factor in helping Kent Police improve detection rates and reduce levels of crime in the county.

In 2005 Kent Police decided that the services being provided by the existing prime contractor to support and enhance the Genesis system were not sufficiently responsive and hence no longer met its needs. That prompted Kent Police to carry out an exercise to test the market for an alternative supplier. Given that the Genesis system is at the core of its operations, Kent Police mandated that any such change in supplier should not disrupt operations and should not introduce an unacceptable level of risk.

Transformation

Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Sparks of Kent Police described how the search for improved service and value-for-money led to the partnership with IPL: “We carried out an exhaustive search for a supplier that could take over the support of Genesis without introducing an unacceptable level of risk. The chosen supplier would also have to be capable of providing a responsive and high-quality development service to deliver the enhancements that are necessary to meet our needs as they evolve in today's ever-changing policing environment. The organisation that met those criteria most closely was IPL.”

Accordingly the responsibility for the support and future enhancement of Genesis was successfully transferred to IPL under a new 7-year contract.

Services and benefits delivered

The extensive preparatory work carried out by IPL and Kent Police ahead of the handover of responsibility for support enabled the transfer to occur without any degradation to the level of service provided to the system users.

Indeed, within a few weeks of taking over Genesis support responsibility, IPL was able to develop a system upgrade that resolved a problem introduced in a software update carried out by the previous supplier. That upgrade resulted in a performance improvement of as much as an order of magnitude for some operations. This notable achievement was possible due to the excellent working relationships that have been built-up between all of the parties now involved in supporting the Genesis system.

Going forward

A comprehensive programme of enhancements has been operating in parallel with the support activity to provide significant benefit to users over a number of phases, with the first enhancements going live in early 2007. These enhancements include:

• A complete overhaul of the server infrastructure, including full business continuity support.
• Additional functionality necessary to ensure that the Genesis continues to meet regulatory requirements.