More Time Out On The Streets

Off-topic
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Police receive £50m for 10,000 hand held computers

Policing Minister Tony McNulty, in conjunction with the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Police Authorities and the National Policing Improvement Agency, has today announced the distribution of funding to 27 police forces for a total of 10,000 handheld computers to help them increase police officer time on the beat.

The allocation will help change the way forces operate, enabling them to reduce bureaucracy and work more efficiently increasing the time they spend on front lines duties.

Keith Gough, Thames Valley Police Mobile Information Project Manager said: “We will provide 1,100 BlackBerrys to police officers and police community support officers which will combine their phones, email and calendar. The devices will also give them access to the police national computer (PNC) system.

“This will allow officers to stay out longer on their beat and cut down on travelling time as they won’t need to go back to their station every time they need to access information from a computer.

Tony McNulty, Minister for Policing, said, “We are investing in new technology to make crime fighting more effective and to save officers’ time. This £50m capital fund will deliver 10,000 mobile data devices to forces. It is just one element of a range of improvements we are delivering to cut unnecessary bureaucracy, exploit new technologies and enable police officers to spend more time on front line policing.”

Richard Earland, Chief Information Officer at the NPIA said, “Officers who have access to databases, such as the Police National Computer, command and control and intelligence systems while out on patrol, will spend less time returning to the station and more time on the frontline – therefore increasing visibility and reassuring the public. This builds on previous work carried out on a small scale and will streamline access to information at the point of operational decision making.”

Forces were asked to apply for a portion of the £50 million funding to the National Policing Improvement Agency, detailing how they would manage procurement, staff training and ensuring that the technology and infrastructure were in place and in operation by either September 2008 or March 2009. The applications were evaluated against set criteria and the ACPO led Programme Board made the decision on which bids were supported.

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I can see that working…Can’t get enough radios, ESDs*, can’t get vehicles that work, can’t get Mobile Data Terminals in vehicles to work… can’t get computer systems to talk to each other…

I only have 12 years left. I can’t see me getting one before then:)* Roadside breath test machines for the uninitiated

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:smiley: +1 there!.

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Not that I’m a cynical old f@rt !
John, you’ve got me beaten, I’ve got 14 years hard labour left !! :blink:

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Yeah, but I won’t be going at 30…I’ve got young kids and I’ll need the money, so I’ll still be there 'till I’m 55:(

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do i need to show my badge to read this post? :smiley:

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no it’s ok, just swipe yourself in.
:slight_smile:

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You poor sods,3 years 11 months and a few days for me,could’nt care less about all this new technology,won’t understand it anyway:w00t:I know I don’t look that old,joined when I was 11:D

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Must be good kit at 5 grand a hit !!:w00t:

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No, probably not. You would probably buy something similar in the shops for about £80. But it seems that anyone supplying to the public sector thinks of an inflated priced, quadruples it and that’s what they charge…

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does that mean you guys can check your facebook or PM’s when on duty!! :w00t::wink:

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The devices will probably be a few hundred pounds but there’s software to write to go on them, softwware maintenance, infrastructure to enable them to communicate with a core system or synchroniser, firmware updates, people to train and re-train the users, all sorts of additional system and on costs which need to be paid for to make them effective. £5k per user per year isn’t too bad for a fully maintained, outsourced system which needs comms, software, updates and training etc, bit pricey but I’d guess that’s partly down to the 24/7 nature of the job and the fact the users are spread all over London, one of the most expensive cities to support.As an example I used to work for a large utility company and we paid IBM £4k per year for laptops, that was a single cost per year, included the laptop, support, training, e-mail system, data storage, all software etc as well as the network infrastructure.I guess it all depends what they want you to do with them ! :stuck_out_tongue:

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support the parking attendants, double the money?

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  • 1 …you cant even get probationers to work these days:w00t:
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I thought that was just me being grumpy and old:)

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No, I’m not in the job. Having a father-in-law who was a “senior officer” was enough thank you. I’m down to 5 months before I’m on license.

Back to the hand helds. My local sergeant, a fairly good copper, can’t cope with text on a mobile or quite get to grips with emails.

Any idea how the delivery of a palm 'puter is going to help him?

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Go on, cheer us up why don’t you !! :stuck_out_tongue:

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If I ever grow up and have sprogs then I’ll be in the same boat mate. My 30 yrs will be up when I’m 48 and a half !!

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If it is anything like the new mobile device that we got for work to make life easier on the road, then it will be a waste of money and resources.

We got these new devices that would allow use to make calls, check emails, browse the web, access corporate databases, integrated barcode scanner for asset auditing and inventory/warehouse maintenance. It also allows access to incident system and technical request system.

These were hailed as the greatest tool to be introduced to the field engineers.

The reality is far far worse, today I haven’t able to use it as the battery is 100% discharged. It was fully charged when I let the office on Friday evening, and it hasn’t been used. By Sunday afternoon it wouldn’t switch on. It is useless today as it has been on charge since 08:00 and it is still charging. It should be fully charged by the time I leave the office at 17:00.

It is a **** poor mobile phone, because there is security system on the device, that you have to enter a password before you use it, and the answer phone cuts in before you can unlock it.

All this for a princely sum of $800 USD (work for an American company). For no increased in productivity.

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The police do get some nice toys to play with. My sister works for the police (will not say which force) and is reviewing a number of video capture devices which can be worn on the vest. Being the family ‘techie’, she brought them around so I could show her how they worked. Me and my sons had great fun running around the house, woods and neighbourhood playing cops and robbers. The playback was hilarious.

The lens on all of the models was about the size of a shirt button, the sound quality pretty good and the video playback pretty decent.

Can feel another police themed reality tv show in the making.