ISIS Procurement

The ISIS procurement work stream will take a strategic approach to delivering IT procurement which best uses the police services' combined market power.

 
 
Savings for the police service
Recent government publications such as Reducing Bureaucracy in Policing Report (December 2009) and the white paper Protecting the Public: Supporting the police to succeed (December 2009) sets out requirements for the police forces and police authorities to purchase prescribed goods and services from nationally procured frameworks.  National Framework agreements will provide potential savings opportunities within the police service and criminal justice partners.     
The policing white paper also states that savings will be made of at least £400 million on police procurement and IT within the next five years.    
 
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and i2 Limited signed a national framework agreement in July 2009 for the supply and support of analysis software and services.  Under this agreement police forces and criminal justice partners can request the most up to date products directly from i2. This deal can create significant savings of up to 17.5 per cent based on a new discounted pricing structure agreed between the NPIA and i2.    
 
The new national software licensing agreement between the UK government and Microsoft is anticipated to save £75 million over the next five years.  The agreement is open to all public sector organisations including the police service.  This means that software licences can be purchased individually at the best prices rather than buying them as part of a standard package.  The NPIA have been working with the Office of Government Commerce's (OGC) executive agency Buying Solutions throughout the negotiation phase to represent the requirements of the police service.    
 
IT category management

Category management is an IT industry standard for procuring technology and drives benefits in terms of costs.  An IT category management strategy will be introduced which will align with best practice across the UK government on the procurement of IT. The strategy will provide recommended procurement routes for each major category.  The work stream will also establish a 'plan on a page' giving a simple visible reference of all IT products and services.       
 
IT police procurement 'Centre of Excellence'

This is a central base for expert IT procurement knowledge and skills as well as for sharing best practice IT procurement tools, techniques and guidance. This will contribute to the following ISIS strategic aims: 

  • To further increase the expertise, professionalism and reputation of police IT procurement.
  • To increase the opportunity for collaboration in police procurement by raising awareness of collaborative activity and encouraging force participation. 

E-business/procurement

A strategy to champion e-business is being developed.  This aims to increase integration of systems across forces and allow for more consistent data capture, contract tracking and supplier performance management. It will generate options for a coordinated approach to e-procurement for IT projects, covering e-sourcing (tendering and evaluation), transactional e-procurement and electronic contract management.

Supplier relationship management strategy (SRM)

Taking a more strategic approach to the IT supplier community will ensure that the associated benefits both in terms of efficiency and performance are realised.    

Next Steps

The procurement work stream will work with the business and police procurement community to deliver the ISIS procurement model. This model will provide a means of realising greater efficiency savings while supporting the key principles of the ISIS champion/challenger process. This will aid system selection and procurement for forces by establishing re-usable 'Champion' solutions.

The ISIS Procurement work stream will continue to lead on the development of national framework agreements on behalf of the police service.

Aims and objectives

ISIS drives improvements in efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of policing and one of the key mechanisms for achieving these benefits is improved procurement at national and local level. 


The aim is to ensure that procurement of police technology is undertaken in a more coordinated and efficient way ensuring that new capabilities are delivered to the frontline policing for less.

For more information, please contact the ISIS Programme Team