Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation
Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation
Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation
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THE POLICE REFORM PROGRAMME<br />
An outsourcing<br />
journey<br />
Neil Rhodes describes his force’s early<br />
experience of strategic partnership<br />
Neil Rhodes is Chief Constable<br />
of Lincolnshire <strong>Police</strong><br />
On 1 April 2012 Lincolnshire<br />
<strong>Police</strong> commenced a 10-year<br />
strategic partnership contract<br />
with G4S. This £228 million, multiservice<br />
contract is larger than any seen<br />
in the policing sector and paves the way<br />
for how British policing services could be<br />
delivered in the future.<br />
The contract is for 10 years, extendable<br />
to 15, which is of sufficient length to<br />
enable other forces to take advantage of it<br />
in the future and still have enough time to<br />
realise several years of value.<br />
Already one of the leanest forces in the<br />
country, the Comprehensive Spending<br />
Review (CSR) meant Lincolnshire <strong>Police</strong><br />
needed to lose £19.7 million from its<br />
£120 million budget over four years.<br />
Among the ways it sought to do this<br />
was stripping out basic command unit<br />
boundaries and adopting a whole force<br />
model, allowing economies of scale to<br />
be realised, and engaging in regional<br />
collaboration with other forces in the<br />
East Midlands with the creation of a<br />
joint major crime capability, an organised<br />
crime function and a multiple force<br />
forensic capability.<br />
However, this alone would not close<br />
the gap, nor prevent the need for the<br />
cutting of officer numbers and the<br />
probability of significant police staff<br />
redundancies, and so, in early 2011<br />
Lincolnshire <strong>Police</strong> embarked on its<br />
procurement of a partner from the<br />
private sector to help achieve the<br />
necessary savings.<br />
An additional factor for the force was<br />
that savings from any such partnership<br />
needed to be realised within 12 months,<br />
requiring an expedited procurement<br />
process delivering a viable future-proof<br />
contract with a private sector company<br />
within 12 months; a process that<br />
normally takes two to three years from<br />
gun to tape.<br />
Procurement process<br />
In March 2011 Lincolnshire <strong>Police</strong><br />
published its contract notice in the<br />
Official ournal of the European Union<br />
(OEU). At that time it represented the<br />
widest scope ever placed by a police<br />
organisation and covered not just support<br />
services, but operationally focused ones<br />
too, such as custody services, the force<br />
control room and criminal justice<br />
Other forces were invited to sign up<br />
to the OEU notice, meaning they could<br />
access the contract directly, without the<br />
need for a lengthy procurement process,<br />
and 10 forces did so. Other forces<br />
and organisations may also access the<br />
contract through one of the signatories.<br />
Over the months that followed the<br />
initial interest of some 130 companies led<br />
to 12 outline submissions from interested<br />
parties that were swiftly narrowed<br />
34 | POLICING <strong>UK</strong>