West Midlands Police case study
Taking policing out into the community
To serve communities more effectively,
West Midlands Police adopted a neighbourhood policing strategy. But
local officers still needed access to the same information
resources as their headquarters-based colleagues.
However, with small community sites
across the region served by a variety of low bandwidth connections,
accessing critical briefing systems and intelligence databases was
either slow – or impossible.
Our fully-managed Metro Ethernet VPN
service provides a scalable and flexible way to deliver the
high-speed connectivity needed by neighbourhood police officers –
while reducing costs.
Meeting changing requirements with
flexible, scalable communications
As well as being one of the second
largest police forces in the country, West Midlands is also one of
the best performing. Covering the three major centres of
Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, it serves a population of
almost 2.63 million in an area of 348 square miles. Our
Metro Ethernet VPN solution is supporting a neighbourhood
policing strategy by incorporating community-based police sites
into the flexible, high-speed central network.
A local approach
By introducing neighbourhood policing
teams, West Midlands Police aims to reach out to local residents –
connecting with communities and making them feel safer. Officers
work from small local sites ranging from a room at a school or
hospital, to a semi-detached house. This presented IT staff with a
challenge. “We needed to make sure that the neighbourhood teams
have access to all the same facilities they’d have if they were
sitting at headquarters – so they can pick up emails, search
national crime databases or access briefing systems,” explains Max
Corney, Communications Manager at West Midlands Police.
However, officers based at smaller
community sites found accessing central resources slow and
inefficient. “The existing connections didn’t provide enough
bandwidth and officers were complaining they couldn’t do their jobs
properly as a result,” says Max.
Best-value solution
West Midlands Police looked for a
supplier who could help. ”We needed a cost-effective solution that
would fit with our existing network, and would allow us to increase
bandwidth quickly and easily when required,” comments Max. “The
Metro Ethernet VPN network offered by ntl:Telewest Business was
very attractive both in terms of the costs and the technology.”
Now officers based at the
neighbourhood sites have all the bandwidth they need. And because
capacity can be scaled up incrementally to meet requirements, the
solution is also cost-effective – West Midlands Police only pays
for the bandwidth it uses.
New sites can also be added into the
network easily and quickly. “The main contract included around 100
sites but we’ve already added more,” comments Max. “And because
ntl:Telewest Business manages the network, it makes the necessary
changes – freeing up our IT staff.”
Keeping the project on track
Regular meetings between ntl:Telewest
Business consultants and West Midlands Police ensured that the
project stayed on track. Max believes that the strong relationship
between his team and ours was key. “We worked very closely
together,”says Max. “The ntl:Telewest Business project manager even
had a desk here so that he could sit with our IT staff.” The
transition went smoothly, and the faster, more reliable
connectivity provided by the network is helping users to work more
effectively – and efficiently. “We’ve had good feedback from the
users – they’ve really noticed a difference,” says Max.
Jenny Dunn, Account Manager at
ntl:Telewest Business adds: “Being an emergency service, it’s
important that the network’s up and running 24/7. We’ve proven that
we can deliver the high level of service that’s required, as well
as providing technology that works efficiently.”
Max believes that the project has been
critical to the success of the neighbourhood policing strategy.
“The Metro Ethernet VPN network makes it possible for officers to
be based locally,” he confirms. “Without it, they couldn’t do their
job.” The high-speed network will also allow West Midlands Police
to adopt new applications that will help improve efficiency in
future. “We’re looking into running videoconferencing and CCTV over
the network. In addition, we’re currently rolling out IP telephony
across all our sites, reducing operating costs,” concludes Max. “As
new technologies are developed, we know our network can support
them.”
True resilience is therefore critical to delivering today’s
citizen-centric services.
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