Database key to Met’s information management

In order to deliver high quality policing in the UK’s largest force, the Met will begin to migrate its hardware running live applications to the new data centres next year.

This is part of an existing data warehouse that is being developed by Capgemini under a £350m, seven-year outsourcing contract.

Steve Farquharson, group director, information management, told vnunet.com: “The Met uses information for all the planning and decision-making processes you would expect in a public sector organisation of our size. Our remit is to reduce crime and the fear of crime in London, so we use information to drive investigations, plan for public order events, plan responses to critical incidents, and manage our resources and the services we deliver.

“We need to be able to share the information effectively and use it to support our decision-making. Our fundamental challenge, as with many other organisations, is to convince employees that information is a critical resource, and that managing information effectively is not bureaucracy, but an essential business activity to the delivery of effective policing.”

To deliver their new data management systems a set of information management policies were developed that including compliance and monitoring strategy.

The Met isn’t new to developing and implementing large IT-based projects as it lead the development of the National Police File Plan, which handled the migration of emails and documents into a new structure.

“Introducing the File Plan helps ensure the necessary information management rules and procedures are applied to protect our information according to its worth, supports consistency and standardisation across our information in all formats, helps minimise duplications of information and assists compliance with business needs, policy and legislation,” said Mr Farquharson.