Met Police faces Olympic deadline for IT spending
Framework deal will cover up to £214m contracts
By Tash Shifrin | Published 15:03, 24 April 07
The Metropolitan Police is set to make a series of key IT spending decisions over the next three years, before a “lockdown” to prevent disruption close to the 2012 Olympics, analysts have predicted.
The forecast follows a framework agreement worth up to £214m, signed by they Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) with 18 IT services and consultancy firms – including Accenture, Fujitsu, Capgemini, Unisys, BT and LogicaCMG – last week.
The framework will allow the authority to procure IT development lifecycle services, business change services and application development for London’s police force over the next four years.
Ovum analyst Georgina O’Toole said contracts under the framework deal would be signed soon. “We expect to see most of the MPA's major spending decisions to be made sooner rather than later,” she said.
“The 2012 Olympic games are a major concern for the Metropolitan Police Service and, as such, there will be a lockdown on major IT implementations from 2010 onwards to prevent unnecessary disruption close to the event.”
She added that Met Police commander Bob Broadhurst had recently spoken “about how he wanted IT suppliers to have a better understanding of the MPS' needs and, in particular, to eliminate the information lag experienced by officers dealing with major incidents, including the Olympics”.
But O’Toole said tackling the information time-lag would “have to make best use of existing technologies” if development and implementation timescales were to beat the 2010 deadline.
The London police force also has a seven-year contract signed in June last year with a Capgemini-led consortium, covering desktop IT networks, telephony and mobile devices.
