New police computer system will speed up fight against crime

Not only will Project Athena improve front-line policing, it will save the seven police forces time and money, helping to improve the service they provide to the public. Project Athena is the largest-ever collaborative police IT project and will be delivered by Northgate Public Services.

The seven ‘early adopters’ – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk – will be paying a total of £32million during the lifetime of the agreement but the costs to each force will drop as and when more forces come on board.

Beds Police Chief Constable Alf Hitchcock said: “The collaboration and the technology that underpins this initiative will significantly improve the lives of people in the communities we serve and we will be even more able to achieve our aim of fighting crime and protecting the public. This is a cost effective way of delivering IT support as opposed to individual forces paying separately.”

Peter Conniff, Chair of Bedfordshire’s Police Authority, added: “The increasing use of technology to effectively tackle crime highlights the importance of this agreement. The financial savings and efficiency improvements it will deliver will help us protect the local policing service that communities value so highly.”

Until now, police forces have largely managed data on offenders, suspects, victims and incidents on different systems at a local level. This made it a challenge to share information quickly with other forces.