ERP contract agreed by forces

KPM has been confirmed as the preferred supplier for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system across Surrey Police, Sussex Police and Thames Valley Police.

The new ERP platform will replace the various systems that exist across the three forces and will greatly improve how each deals with staff administration online, including expenses, overtime, duties and annual leave.

It will enable the forces to run their organisations more efficiently by giving improved access to business and management information, enabling greater collaboration, allowing improved flexibility through mobile working, due to the cloud based solution.

The ERP solution, on a Microsoft Dynamics platform, covers finance, fleet, procurement, human resources, learning and development and payroll, together with duty management and rostering activity, which will be delivered by third party, Crown Duty Management System.

It will support more than 18,000 self-service users across the three forces.

The forces said the contract award, understood to be worth £16 million, followed a “thorough and robust procurement process, which analysed a number of suppliers and products as well as assessing value for money”.

The solution will be separate for each force but procuring it as three forces means that the cost will be shared.

Jane Harwood, senior responsible officer for Surrey Police representing the three forces, said: “Through using this technology, Surrey, Sussex and Thames Valley police forces will reduce the administrative burden on officers and staff, enabling the forces to deliver even better policing for their communities.

“We will undoubtedly continue to see more shared service platforms being delivered within UK policing as forces strive to work together to drive greater efficiency, and indeed in the wider public sector as devolution continues.”

The tender, which closed last September, specified an “advanced user interface to enable operational staff to access key functionality easily”, “mobile access for users to support self-service, including clock-in and clock-out”, and access to legacy data from existing systems.

Go-live date is expected to be by the end of 2017. During the tender process, other organisations could also sign up to the tender framework and some 34 have done so, enabling them to access the solution at a later date without having to go through a further lengthy procurement process.

According to KPMG, its team delivering the solution to the forces will use its “experience within the policing sector” to deliver the Microsoft Dynamics ERP platform to the three forces.

Matthew Payne, UK director of KPMG’s business transformation arm and Microsoft Gold Partner KPMG Crimsonwing, said: “With organisations in both the public and private sector looking to simplify their systems even as their operations become more complex, there’s a greater call for effective, efficient ERP solutions such as this. By improving back-end systems, organisations can deliver better to evolving customer needs.”