Lincolnshire cops to chuck £200m at G4S in ICT deal

Company beats off competition to grab preferred bidder status

Lincolnshire police authority has made security specialist G4S its preferred bidder in an outsourcing deal that will include ICT, back office and command and control and could be developed into a shared service for other police forces in the country.

The company is on course to land a 10-year, strategic partnership contract valued at more than £200m. It beat off competition from a partnership between Steria and Reliance Security to win the deal.

In the business support sector G4S will deliver services for ICT, HR, learning and development, assets and facilities management, finance and procurement and support. Operational services will include managing the force control room, the custody and identification unit, town enquiry officers, the crime management bureau, the central ticket office and collisions unit, the criminal justice unit, firearms licensing and the resource management unit.

In a joint statement, the police authority chairman Barry Young and Chief Constable Richard Crompton said the move is intended to support a transformation in the force aimed at providing savings that can be invested in areas such as IT infrastructure.

"The subsequent streamlining of processes will free up officer time to concentrate on operational policing," they said.

"The partnership deal has the widest scope of any for policing in the country and is now open to other authorities. The Lincolnshire model is the new benchmark; underpinning the future of local policing and investing in new technologies and services.

"If additional authorities decide to obtain services through the contract, they could be provided from Lincolnshire – potentially giving a boost to local employment." Ten other police authorities attached their names to the original tender document in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This article was originally published at Guardian Government Computing.

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