Ground breaking partnership launched

ON FRIDAY, May 11, Cheshire Constabulary celebrated the official launch of a ground breaking approach to dealing with the vital "back office" end of their business.

When talking about police work, it′s usually the front line people think of − the uniformed bobbies and PCSOs on the beat, the detectives investigating incidents, or the crime scene investigators checking the scene of a crime (among many others).

However, without the back office resources, such as finance, estates and logistics, all this would grind to a halt.

But all police forces face making cuts to all levels of their work, and realising this, Cheshire joined with their colleagues in Northamptonshire to pool their resources.

The result was Multi Force Shared Service, a completely new way of working, which links the two police Forces through a new computer system, despite being hundreds of miles apart.

The Shared Service was made possible by a new integrated technology system supplied and configured by external contractors CapGemini.

The launch on Friday saw the full integration of phase one of the process, which sees finance and purchasing services shared between the two forces, the introduction of new technology to support finance and purchasing, and estates and logistics functions.

Phase two will arrive in the autumn, and covers Human Resources services shared between the two forces, with new technology to support HR and a duty management that is linked to HR, payroll and command and control systems.

Due to the huge amount of work that went into planning for the new system, its launch went without a hitch and the system is already a part of the way Cheshire and Northants work.

Chief Constable of Cheshire, Dave Whatton said: "When this idea was first talked about back in 2007, it wasn′t just about saving money, in fact it has always been about improving the quality of service provided to the front line, reducing time officers spend on admin and delivering business services at reduced cost.

"The Multi-Force Shared Service is innovative in its approach and we have worked hard with our colleagues in Northamptonshire to develop a system and a service to our officers and staff which is easy to use, accessible and yet significantly more efficient."

Chairman of Cheshire Police Authority Margaret Ollerenshaw said: "Multi-Force Shared Service is part of our strategy to achieve the savings required by the government in the coming year, but importantly we have taken this decision, as we have other decisions regarding our internal structures and regional collaboration, knowing that this is the right thing to do in running an efficient and effective Force which delivers value for money to local people."