NSW Police restarts core system overhaul

NSW Police has restarted its overhaul of the state’s 24-year old core policing system after pausing the long-running project earlier this year.

The force has unveiled plans for a proposed integrated policing operating system (IPOS) to deliver – “at a minimum” – core policing functions.

The new system is expected to “transform operational policing” and allow “data driven contemporary policing services to be delivered to the NSW community within [its] new Prevention, Disruption, Response policing approach”.

The plans follow NSW Police's decision earlier this year to pause the core policing system (COPS) overhaul to review its approach and consider options for the new platform.

The review was sought despite the delivery of a proof-of-concept solution from Accenture, dubbed NewCOPS, last year, just prior to a restructure of the force’s business technology team and the appointment of a single chief information and technology officer.

The force had previously tendered for a COPS modernisation build partner in mid-2015.

But in an apparent about-face, the force will now conduct another market approach to find a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) “integrated single modularised system” that is “provided as a suite of packages that supports operation policing”.

“The suite of packages must integrate with one another but must also be separable and be able to integrated with existing and other packages which may not be part of the COTS solutions, if required by NSWPF,” tender documents state.

It will support 5,000 concurrent users at a minimum and be capable of processing, recording, reporting and analysing operational policing information for core police functions.

Core functionality includes: call taking and dispatch, event data management, investigation management, evidence and forensic data management, forensic investigation, legal process (charge) management, custody management and intelligence management.

The system is intended to allow officers to spend more time policing by “reducing time for data entry and navigating multiple systems and screens” and allowing “real-time in-field monitoring and in-time information”.

This is quite unlike the legacy ADABAS/Natural/IBM system, which does not offer easy access to real-time operation reports.

NSW Police is looking for a project partner with “the appropriate capacity, skills and experience”, and a track record of deploying a similar system “successfully ... in at least one major policing jurisdiction around the world”.

However it has a preference “that the licensor of the product suite for IPOS will be the prime vendor” and responsible for engaging any subcontractors like an implementation partner to assist with the implementation.

Three cost models for the new system are also being considered: as a service, hybrid and capex, with suppliers expected to address these it their submissions.

A request for proposal is expected to be released in parts over the next two weeks, with interactive sessions with vendors to discuss requirements and ideas on the proposed solution to be held later this month.

A number of supplier are expected to be shortlisted to continue the procurement process, and will be invited to “sessions to dive deeper into product suitability”.

“NSWPF is anticipating that at this point that it would participate in a cost recovery model with the down selected suppliers as part of this offsite engagement.”