Tassie Police overhaul IT systems

Tasmania Police will embark on an agency-wide modernisation and consolidation project for its IT systems.

The project, dubbed IT15, will involve development of what the Police Minister Jim Cox called a "flexible and highly-secure IT foundation".

It is envisioned Police will use this technical infrastructure foundation to "develop, deploy and manage agency applications during the next six years".

"This is an agency-wide business systems modernisation, rationalisation and consolidation project aimed at developing an industry-standard technology architecture designed to support future policing applications," Cox said.

Although development of the foundation will occur in the 2009-10 financial year, it is unclear how much funding has been allocated to it.

But Cox said the foundation would support ongoing activities in Project Meridian as well as new projects announced in yesterday's state budget, including a $1.1 million automatic vehicle location (AVL) system.

Project Meridian builds on an earlier project that looked at the business alignment of technology to the Police operations network.

The AVL is a new project designed to boost officer safety and improve incident response times, according to the Minister.

The technology will be fitted to patrol vehicles, allowing them to be monitored using global positioning systems (GPS).

"It is a fact that police are sometimes confronted with dangerous situations," Cox said.

"Having this technology keeping tabs on their location can give them even more confidence that their safety is being maximised."

The Minister also said the Police radio dispatch services unit would benefit from the 2009-10 state budget, with an automatic call distributor (ACD) to assist them in managing emergency calls and dispatch resources.