Met Police to slash hundreds of IT jobs, hands £216m outsourcing gig to Steria Hundreds of back office IT jobs at the Metropolitan Police Service are to be made redundant under a ten-year £216m outsourcing deal with Steria, which will see service delivery moved out of the capital. The contract was approved this week by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, with the force estimating savings of £100m …
Better off with one police force/service (delete as you see fit) . Which makes 42 to many command and control systems, 42, too many call handling and crime reporting systems, 42 too many purchasing systems, 42 too many ... not including British Nuclear Police, British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police, and possibly Royal Parks Police if they're still around.
A very bad idea. One force means one ossified organisational culture with no cross-fertilisation of best practice, knowledge, etc, and no meaningful local accountability.
The concept is not playing out well in Scotland:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34072703
The goodspeak 'savings' annoys me. It's a cut and that how it should be framed. The Met can no longer afford to do it's IT in house so has farmed it out to a company that can use commercial confidentially to block FOI requests. It might work out but how often do you hear about deals like that?
I wonder if it runs over budget (like lots of other public sector outsourcing contracts) who picks up the tab?
"The Met can no longer afford to do it's IT in house"
The Met hasn't shown overwhelming competence in doing its IT inhouse.
Outsourcing can be used as a way of getting rid of entrenched deadwood when all else fails (giving breathing space whilst the systems are rebuilt internally), however they're seldom used for this purpose.
Think it runs along the lines of:
1) MPA (Metropolitan Police Authority): "You gave HOW MUCH to Capita last year?"
2) Stephen Deakin: "Err, We wanted to really push hard on virtualization"
3) MPA: "What the hell are you talking about?"
4) Stephen Deakin: "Ok, so we didn't exactly work to either the Cabinet Office or Home Office guidelines we were given on using amber or red alert contractors and employed companies that in hindsight we should not have engaged".
Anyone who can replace Capita AND has a record of on-time contract delivery, as SS seem to have, gets my vote
This is a very short-sighted move by the Met, no doubt fuelled by someone's bonus target. Firstly, predicted savings are always guesstimates at best, and even then, they always specify the best case scenario so dont expect anywhere near this amount of savings.
Secondly, contracting to anything IT related for more than 3 years is massively risky given the rate of change in IT let alone any business change. The Met (and its IT needs) will be a very different place in 10 years, just like its very different now to how it was 10 years ago. However, expect any desire to keep pace with that change to be met with a change to the contract. Kerching! Those savings dont look so rosy anymore.
Finally, even if the outsourcer accepted changes, it will never deliver at the same pace as would happen with an internal team. There are so many more hurdles to jump through and red tape to cut when trying to effect change via an outsourcer than an in-house resource.
Still, at least the director responsible for pushing this through will still get his bonus and move onto a new juicy position well before this dodgy contract falls to pieces.
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...but, shifting back office public sector roles from London and the south east, where wages are high, to locations like the North East or Wales where they are not makes a lot of sense. That shouldn't have to mean outsourcing though, just shared resources.
Why, for instance, do we need so many police forces, with very little internal mobility, when we could merge them and they could share back office functions?
Why do we allow every tin pot council to have its own bespoke processes and systems when they all do essentially the same thing? It would make more sense to move their back office functions to locations where the tax payer can get the most bang for their buck.
Diversity gives some resistance to centralised mistakes, and by talking to each other the forces can find what works best and implement that?
I expect if there was a centralised super IT team for all government departments it wouldn't save much, as the people with more responsibility would want more cash, and would be more irreplaceable. As it is with different forces there must be a market of people who do police IT work, and if you want to get rid of the chief IT fellow from the MET, then you have a pool of experience from the other bits.
I think consolidating this stuff and council stuff is a bad idea. Getting them to work smart and work together though - that seems like a brilliant plan.
@DanX
Diversity gives some resistance to centralised mistakes
Only as much as it gives to centralised success.
I expect if there was a centralised super IT team for all government departments it wouldn't save much, as the people with more responsibility would want more cash, and would be more irreplaceable.
Average IT wage in London must be well north of £50k. It'll be half of that for the same skills and experience in Carlisle or Gateshead.
I think consolidating this stuff and council stuff is a bad idea. Getting them to work smart and work together though - that seems like a brilliant plan.
What is the point of having 52 CTOs where 1 will do? And that's just the London councils. Its just duplication of effort and mistakes - 1 team will learn from its mistakes, 52 teams will each learn only from their mistakes. Its one reason why "Lessons will be learned" is such an oft used and equally hollow public sector pronouncement.
>What is the point of having 52 CTOs where 1 will do?
So you don't want a promotion?
In any case, anticipate that if say all the London boroughs did get together, you would end up with 1 Director CTO/CIO and 52 'VP' CTO/CIO's each responsible for a borough, which given people have largely forgotten about the "span of co-operation" and remain focused on the "span of control" means that we need a bunch of middle managers...
"Why, for instance, do we need so many police forces, with very little internal mobility, when we could merge them and they could share back office functions?"
This criticism isn't just valid for police.
Schools face the issue in spades. The current county-by-county funding system is fundamentally broken and needs a complete overhaul.
Trying to exploit low-income areas to keep wages low has usually the disadvantage you won't be able to hire skilled people who know they can earn much more elsewhere, especially since those low-income areas offer often lower quality services also. It works for low-skill industries, never for hi-tech ones.
I live in a country where the government stubbornly thinks disadvantaged areas could be improved planting high-tech districts. Of course doing that in mafia-owned regions with a very low quality of services (hospitals, schools, etc.) means only locals apply for a job, because they're already used to live there. But because of the low level of local education system, and the failure of attracting very skilled people from elsewhere because of the non-existent appeal of the areas, the results are a disaster, of course but for the companies getting subsidies to install there...
Trying to exploit low-income areas to keep wages low has usually the disadvantage you won't be able to hire skilled people who know they can earn much more elsewhere, especially since those low-income areas offer often lower quality services also. It works for low-skill industries, never for hi-tech ones.
Allocating quality jobs to where they can be done cost effectively is not exploitation, it is efficiency.
There are no skills required to design, build, maintain, and run complex software systems that you cannot find available in the North East. I cannot speak for Wales as I've never lived there, but would assume the Welsh just as capable. That backoffice public sector work can only be done in the south east of England is a self evident fallacy.
There's a great many reasons skilled people don't gravitate to London, though obviously some do (me, for instance).
The biggest problem with that plan is that it only works short term. The funny thing about throwing a bunch of money at poor people is that the areas they live end up becoming nice areas with skilled laborers that now require much higher wages (Sometimes higher than what you were paying the in-house people)
Oi you! After many years in IT (well paid and ty very much), I retired and then found myself working in these "very low quality of services (hospitals, schools, etc.) ".
The people I work with are caring, committed and determined to give both comfort and treatment to patients under their ward. Perhaps less vitriol directed to the people who work on the front line and a little more criticism aimed at the people who are pissed off that their 'mates' are not making enough profit from other peoples misery might give you some support from me.
This would greatly simplify things if they did this in the US since you end up with crazy crap where if a passenger assaulted the crew member of taxi traveling between New Jersey and NYC, it would be under the jurisdiction of 9 agencies:
-NYPD - happened in NYC
-New York County Sheriff - not technically in the city
-NY State Patrol - Occurred on infrastructure operated by the state Department of Transit
-City, county, and state police departments from New Jersey
-The US Coast Guard - happened on a boat
-FBI - Interstate crime
-Homeland security - could be declared terrorism
You seem to have no idea what you are taking about. Why would the FBI field office be involved? Where are the navigable waters for the USCG to exert jurisdiction? At least all those agencies you mentioned have IT in far better shape that the MPS green screen CRIS system.
Not in line with the general govt drive to save money through build over buy. Watching as DWP, MoJ and others start to recruit diginobs to recruit the shoreditch set in to run their IT. Maybe the Met Police is being sensible and keeping their infrastructure out of the hands of the web developers with delusions of being an IT professional community that is building in Govt?
It sounds like another It Delivers Shit scheme.
Bung in 'computers as per the movies, they will analyise all daat, instantly, and promptly pinpoint the perps.
Then it's just a case of sending a car round and the villains will meekly agreee to a trip to the nearest mega-nick (see under 'North London' and 'how the fuck do I get to Colindale') for processing.
As the 'computers' do all the work there is no longer any need for investigative policing, just send out a plastic.
Bung in 'computers as per the movies, they will analyise all data, instantly, and promptly pinpoint the perps.
Criminals are generally speaking not very bright. Fingerprinting has been known about for more than 100 years (Harry Jackson was the last man with an excuse), and yet they frequently forego the use of gloves, despite the sure & certain knowledge that their fingerprints are already on file the last time they were nicked.
Gloves (leather, wool etc.) are difficult to work in and could be deemed 'suspicious' in summer, latex ones will certainly get you questioned for 'going equiped'.
Vaseline is the thing, doesn't interfere with your work, only leaves smeared prints, easily wiped off onto your jeans (or stripey top) and nobody wants to know the answer to the question 'What's this tub of vaseline for ?'.
And there is no job locally for the other half, and when you are made redundant in the next round of savings - what is there locally ?
Nobody lives in London, or New York, because they like it - it's because you can walk out of one job and into another without the whole family having to move across the country
The stories will soon begin to appear. The MPS struggles to find a CIO that wants to take the job. The Command and Control Futures works to avoid a courtroom. The case and record management system becomes a cots purchase which buys 1990s technology. The big tablet projects become tiny anchors for little boats.
Wasn't the portly Steve Deakin supposed to revolutionise policing IT and sell this to all the other forces?
The best IT staff will naturally gravitate to London and the SE (if not there already). With the possible exception of Scotland, I can't see regional staff being hot shots.
Savings may be hard to realise if there is much change required. These outsourcers back-end load their profits as time passes. How can something involving a profit margin possibly be cheaper?
Much better to consolidate locally somewhere on the edge of London keeping the best of existing staff.
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