PCD 1393 Enterprise Voice

PCD 1393 Enterprise Voice

This decision seeks approval to replace the MPS non-emergency desktop phone system, principally with Microsoft Teams based telephony and leveraging its already commissioned Mission Critical Voice Platform (MCVP) in areas where a physical phone or call-centre capability is required. 

Outside of its 999/101 systems the MPS also has legacy phone systems which provide personal, role, fixed and contact centre telephony. The MPS would like to consolidate its non-mobile telephony onto Microsoft Teams for general use and the new MCVP where physical phones or call-centre capability is required. This programme will decommission legacy non 999/101 phone systems providing improved capability by taking advantage of the investments already made in Microsoft Teams (for personal only) and MCVP (for role, fixed, contact centre and 999/101).  The project will deliver: 

• Migration of all current business contact centres to MCVP 

• A Microsoft Teams extended capability, with inbound and outbound telephony services 

• Migration of all current business telephony (Cisco and Mitel) to future voice services (MCVP and Teams phone systems) 

• Removal of all legacy voice platforms 

• All voice services delivered from modern supported infrastructure. 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to approve:   

• The delivery of Microsoft Teams for personal telephony: 

• The commencement of further competition under Lot 3 of Crown Commercial Services ‘Network Services 2’ to expand MPS existing Microsoft Teams service to include Direct Dial Inbound (DDI) and outbound telephony services, to allow selected Teams users to make and receive phone calls 

• Delegation to the Director of Commercial Services on the condition that the proposed costs are within the budget specified, for the approval of the award of the Teams DDI contract to the preferred bidder up to a contract value of £1,725,000. 

• Consolidation to Mission Critical Voice Platform for role, fixed, contact centre telephony: 

• The commencement of a works order under the Call Routing Agreement Two (CRA2) with a value up to £4,759,000 capital. 

• The capital expenditure for the above works order of up to £4,759,000 (£1,443,000 in 22/23 and £3,316,000 in 23/24) from the MOPAC approved Digital Policing capital plan. 

• Project revenue expenditure of up to £2,051,000 combined for the whole programme, (£470,000 in 22/23 and £1,581,000 in 23/24) to cover the first 12 months operation of the new systems and legacy system extended technical support funded from the MOPAC Approved Digital Policing budget. 

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background  

1. This proposal, combined with the in-flight smartphone and 101/999 project, will make the MPS workforce more mobile and enable working arrangements to be more flexible. The vast majority of MPS officers and staff will not need a desk phone, with a combination of the new smartphones and where needed, a direct dial number as part of their Teams setup. Where more complex requirements arise like call centre type services or a desk phone this will still be provided via the MPS’ MCVP/Avaya service that is being built for 101/999 services. 

2. The existing MPS Cisco and Mitel fixed line telephony systems have reached end of manufacturer’s mainstream support and as a result now require upgrading before manufacture support is provided. Further, they may have as yet undocumented technical vulnerabilities for which security patches cannot be obtained due to their end of support status.  

3. Upgrading the current platforms has been discounted based on: 

• Being non-strategic 

• Cost 

• Complexity. 

4. This paper covers design and migration approaches for both critical/complex (to the Mission Critical Voice Platform) and simple/basic (to Microsoft Teams) requirements. 

5. Due to the investments in Smartphones and Microsoft’s improvements in its Teams platform capability, it is anticipated that the quantity of physical phone extensions can be significantly reduced (from c20,000 to c5,000). The project will bring the MPS telephony solutions up to date and into a fully supported modern voice service by: 

• Implementing Microsoft Teams Direct Dial Inbound/Outbound service capable of supporting up to 15,000 users. 

• Upgrading the Mission Critical Voice Platform (MCVP) to support the addition of: 

• 5000 extra user licences in the enabling Avaya product 

• A new 5000 DDI number range.  (DDI is Direct Dial Inbound: 11 digit 020 xxxx xxxx phone numbers.) 

• Resilient telephony trunks and Media gateways for non-999 calls 

• Voice recording (ad-hoc) of phones 

• Call logging of phones. 

• Completing integration of MCVP platform with the following third party telephone systems, currently connected to Cisco: 

• Airwave  

• Vodafone 

• ICCS 

• Home Office National Casualty Bureau 

• Windsor Castle. 

• Completing integration of the MCVP platform with Teams to allow dialling from Teams to fixed unit numbers. 

• Offering officers and staff that have a legacy Cisco or Mitel extension numbers a Teams DDI number, via a free catalogue request on My IT Service Desk in return for surrendering their current Cisco/Mitel extension number and DDI. 

• Removing the legacy physical phones on hot desks in New Peel House, New Scotland Yard, ESB, and Newlands Park etc. Most hot desk users to use mobile phones.  Where fixed line telephony is essential, hot desk users will be issued a Teams DDI phone number. 

• Remove all meeting room legacy conferencing telephones, as Teams is now the preferred conferencing solution and already supports meeting call-in phones numbers. 

• Replace important fixed number legacy Cisco and Mitel phones with MCVP fixed phones e.g. Police station front counter, custody suites, building receptions, phones used to control room access etc.   

• Swapping out legacy Push to Talk (PTT) Cisco and Mitel phones in CT Ops rooms for MCVP/Avaya PPT phones. 

• Issuing MPS wide communications to alert staff and officers that all legacy Cisco and Mitel phones will be ceased on 31 May 2024 and any department or user that needs a hardware phone or soft phone should apply for an Avaya hard/soft phone before 31 December 2023 via catalogue.   

• Decommission and removal of all legacy platforms including Cisco/Mitel and associated lines, circuits and network equipment. 

6. This project aligns to ‘The Met’s Direction: Our Strategy 2018-2025’ by ensuring continued availability of telephony services to all MPS buildings across Greater London and all staff working remotely. 

7. The expected life of the replacement solution is five years. The architecture proposed was approved by Architecture Service Design Board (ASDB) and Technical Design Authority (TDA). 

2. Issues for consideration  

1. The solutions proposed in this paper have been approved by Digital Police (DP) Architecture Service Design Board and DP Technical Design Authority. 

2. The programme will deliver a revenue saving of up to £882k pa from 24/25 onwards to the MOPAC Approved Digital Policing Budget. 

3. The existing legacy telephony systems (Cisco and Mitel) have reached end of manufacturer’s mainstream support so currently require additional processes to maintain them and keep them secure. By migrating to supported telephony platforms and continually applying latest patches MPS telephony will be more secure and resilient. Part of this investment is for technical support from Cisco to support migration away from legacy systems. 

4. MOPAC decision PCD 1186 (12 Apr 2022) approved award of CRA2 contract that will support delivery of this project including the decommissioning of legacy Cisco and Mitel platforms.  

5. An IT Health check will be required, as not all components of the proposed solution hold Authority to Operate (AtO) approval.  

6. Any operational impact from making these changes will be minimised and carefully managed through engagement with the business. 

3. Financial Comments  

1. The project requires: capital expenditure of £4,759k of capital (£1,443k in 22/23 and £3,316k in 23/24) fully funded from the MOPAC approved DP capital plan, project revenue of £2,051k (£470k in 2022/23 and £1,581k in 23/24) fully funded from the MOPAC approved DP budget, and delivers a revenue saving of £882k per year from 2024/25 onwards. 

4. Legal Comments  

1. MOPAC is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the Regulations).  All awards of public contracts for goods and/or services valued at £213,477.00 (inclusive of VAT) or above must be procured in accordance with the Regulations.  This report confirms the proposed contract exceeds this value.  Accordingly, the Regulations will be engaged. 

2. This report confirms the MOPAC’s routes to market are compliant with the Regulations.  

3. The MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (“DMPC”) has delegated authority to approve:  

Business cases for revenue or capital expenditure of £500,000 and above (paragraph 4.8); and 

All requests to go out to tender for contracts of £500,000 or above, or where there is a particular public interest (paragraph 4.13).  

4. Paragraph 7.23 of the Scheme provides that the Director of Commercial Services has consent for the approval of the award of all contracts, with the exception of those called in through the agreed call in procedure.  Paragraph 4.14 of the Scheme provides the DMPC reserves the right to call in any MPS proposal to award a contract for £500,000 or above. 

5. Commercial Issues  

1. The services required to deliver this project will be procured in two parts: 

1. Additions to Mission Critical Voice Platform will be procured through the existing Call Routing Agreement Two (CRA2) contract, which commenced 1 June 2022 (PCD 1186). 

2. Teams Direct Dial Inbound and Outbound (Teams DDI) will be procured through a new five year (3 +1 +1) call-of contract competed through the Crown Commercial Services Network Services 2 Agreement, Lot 3. 

2. Commercial Principles 

1. MPS confirm that the proposed works order to BT is within the technical and financial scope of CRA2.  

2. MPS confirm that the proposed new Lot 3 Network Services 2 call-off contract is within the technical and financial scope of Network Services 2 Framework Agreement. 

3. The CRA2 terms & conditions and the Network Services 2 Framework Agreement terms and conditions include all the key contractual clauses & payment mechanisms and allows for changes/projects to the contract through a prescribed change process. 

4. The MOPAC has approved a total contract value of £27.3m for CRA2. This paper does not impact the total contract value. 

5. The technical and financial scope of this BJP is within the scope of the original CRA2 contract as approved by MOPAC. The initial proposal was reviewed by the Core Infrastructure team and architecture who are recommending that this paper progresses. 

6. There is no impact on the workforce as this request is about an existing service i.e. there are no TUPE implications or staff changes. 

3. Alignment with London’s Anchor Institutions’ Charter: This Charter is a Mayoral commitment to help London recover from the Pandemic. The provision of the services within this proposal contribute to the London Anchor Institutions’ Charter through enabling modern methods of managing contact centres, continuing employment in London and the wider area for those involved in delivering the services and providing a range of technology to support the Met in keeping the people of London safe. Both Capgemini and BT have made commitments to delivering social value, inequality and sustainability across the country: 

• https://www.capgemini.com/gb-en/commitment-to-social-value/   

• https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/digital-impact-and-sustainability/bt-manifesto.pdf 

6. GDPR and Data Privacy  

1. The MPS is subject to the requirements and conditions placed on it as a 'State' body to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. Both legislative requirements place an obligation on the MPS to process personal data fairly and lawfully in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals. Under Article 35 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Sections 57 and 64 of the DPA 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) become mandatory for organisations with technologies and processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects. The Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS will be consulted at all stages to ensure the project meets its compliance requirements. The Enterprise Voice project does not include any technologies or processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects. 

2. Under Article 35 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Section 57 of the DPA 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) become mandatory for organisations with technologies and processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects. 

3. The project does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered. 

7. Equality Comments  

1. As this is an extension of an existing service this work does not change any aspects relating to equality or diversity. Microsoft Teams supports a wider range of reasonable adjustments than the legacy Cisco phone system including speech-to-text voicemail, real-time text transcriptions for meetings, large format monitors and full Bluetooth and USB support for wireless and wired specialist headsets.  Where physical phones are still required, they can be provided, supported by the MCVP/Avaya platform. 

8. Background/supporting papers 

1. Report