Intelligence on the front line

Crime prevention takes a big step forward with the rollout of a centralised address gazetteer for police services across Scotland that will improve intelligence for frontline officers.

Lothian and Borders Police – representing the eight Scottish police forces and the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) – is overseeing the implementation of of a definitive national location gazetteer, together with gazetteer management software and web services, throughout police services in Scotland.
Deputy Chief Constable, Tom Halpin, Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) national command and control project executive, said: “This contract is a key part of the wider ACPOS business change programme and represents groundbreaking improvements for the Scottish police service. The new system will help us to identify precise locations and allocate the best-equipped and nearest police patrol.’’ 
The project will see the creation of a national gazetteer detailing every property in addition to the location of police ‘incidents’ in Scotland.
It will involve data from each of the eight police forces, together with additional detail from Point X’s points of interest dataset and Experian’s QAS Names data being matched, cleansed and validated by data quality software and services company Infoshare against a primary dataset.
Infoshare will use its ClearCore Product suite to create this primary dataset from the One Scotland Gazetteer (OSG) which is made up of address data from the 32 Scottish councils, to provide an accurate up-to-date database of land, property and locations.
Once created, the data will be accessed using advanced spatially-enabled gazetteer management software from GGP Systems. Every force will be able to search the gazetteer from the desktop system or remotely using web-enabled devices.
By providing real-time access to the centralised data, the project aims to improve intelligence for frontline service provision via integration to the new national control and command system. This enables back office analysts to have access to accurate incident records, enabling detailed analysis leading to successful resource allocation.
ACPOS believes that this is key in crime prevention, tackling crime and in emergency planning. By using GGP Systems’ web-enabled solution, officers will also be able to provide feedback to the centralised gazetteer; adding locations, noting exceptions and validating the data with real-world observations.
The project is being rolled out by a partnership of IT service companies, led by Buying Solutions’ prime contractor Infotech Enterprises, an IT services company, and consortium partners GGP Systems and Infoshare. Buying Solutions is an executive agency of the Office of Government Commerce in the Treasury and the national procurement partner for UK public services.
Infotech Enterprises will deliver programme management and project support office services, working with GGP Systems and Infoshare to deliver the contract over a three-year term. The contract was completed via the Buying Solutions GISS framework.

GGP Systems Limited specialises in geographic information systems (GIS) and gazetteer management software (GMS) specifically designed for the UK public sector. The South London-based company provides easy-to-use solutions for the creation and management of corporate property databases, the ability to add and use a spatial element to all location-based information and a range of solutions to meet transformational government directives.
nwww.ggpsystems.co.uk
 
Infotech Enterprises Europe Limited, founded in 1991, is a global IT services company specialising in engineering services, geographic information systems (GIS) and IT services, providing services to a wide range of industries. It is a leading provider of geospatial technology solutions and data management services and is a Buying Solutions accredited supplier.
nwww.infotech-enterprises.com

Infoshare Limited is a data quality software and