IAM national framework saving forces millions

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has helped forces across the UK make combined savings of more than £6 million with its Identity Access Management (IAM) national framework.

The framework has helped forces to buy the hardware, software and maintenance support to set up IAM, a more efficient and centrally-managed electronic sign-on system. It enables authorised police officers and staff to access national police databases securely using one unique password or smartcard and pin.

The NPIA negotiated a deal with Siemens Enterprise Communications so that forces could buy equipment at a reduced cost. Using the framework to set up IAM saves each force on average around £150,000.

IAM also creates a common security platform for secure information sharing between forces, meaning they will be ready to make full use of the Police National Database (PND). In addition to this, plans are being made to use IAM for other national applications such as IDENT1 (the national fingerprint database) and development work is well underway with CRASH (a computerised accident recording system).

It also delivers:

•authentication of individuals accessing police systems;

•access for officers to police systems from any location saving officer time by reducing the need to travel; and

•single sign-on, avoiding multiple log-in processes for individual systems and password resetting.

NPIA programme manager for IAM, Graham Dunn, said: “Public safety and value for money are the overriding objectives for the NPIA and police forces.

“The IAM programme is providing the technology that will lead to better sharing of information for frontline policing with organisation-wide cost and procurement efficiencies.

“The IAM framework agreement provides a great example for how other public organisations and their partners may achieve national or regional-level agreements to deliver a step change in operational savings and collaboration.”

Andy Clark, head of public sector at Siemens Enterprise Communications, said the IAM programme and associated framework had delivered common, secure and streamlined information sharing processes accompanied by large scale cost savings.

The IAM framework was made available to forces in April 2009 and 43 forces now have an IAM managed service. PND is the first national application to be secured using IAM.

Because the IAM platform is provided as a managed service, subscriber organisations can scale up their information access systems through their monthly operational budgets and maintain cost controls.

The platform can be standardised across operations and enables wider collaboration with other criminal justice and public sector organisations in the future.