PCD 1577 Enterprise Data Platform

PCD 1577 Enterprise Data Platform

This Business Justification requests funding and approval to build and to fund the continuous development of the new MPS Enterprise Data Platform. 

The new platform is at the core of improving the way the MPS accesses, stores and analyses its data. Its delivery is fundamental to the way the MPS wants to change its approach and become more of a data-driven organisation. 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, via the Investment Advisory and Monitoring meeting (IAM), is asked to: 

• Approve the total cost of £16,431k over the next 5 years to implement the MPS Enterprise Data Platform at a capital cost of £10,565k and BAU revenue spend of £5,866k spread over the next 5 financial years. Total costs are comprised of: 

• Capital funding of £10,565k covering FY 23/24 to 27/28 to build/develop the initial Data Platform and to continuously change the platform to onboard new data service. 

• Business as Usual (BAU) revenue spend of £5,866k across five years (FY 25/26 to 27/28) for the ongoing service, cloud hosting and support from the 3rd Parties for the data platform 

• Approve the initiation and direct award of a contract for building the MPS Enterprise Data Platform, supporting the range of use cases and capability in Azure to i15 via a value-added reseller Softcat with a total contract value of £273,000 (£227,500 plus 20% contract headroom) and a term of 1 year. There is no approved funding for the contract headroom and additional funding approvals will be required should this need to be spent. 

• Approve the use of the Pegasus ‘infrastructure’ and ‘application services’ contracts with Capgemini and Eviden to manage the deployment of applications (and services) and manage the ‘day-to-day’ operations of the MPS Azure environment. 

• Approve the use of the existing Information Systems Architecture Managed Services contract with Actica Consulting Ltd to procure their resources to support the ‘Future Targeting Operating Model Design’, up to the value of £140,000. 

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

1. Introduction and background 

1. The Commissioner has articulated his ambition for the MPS to become a truly data-driven organisation and data is a key enabler to meet the MPS’s goals of high standards, less crime and more trust. To deliver on this vision, the ‘Relentless Data Driven programme’ has been created under the ‘New Met for London’ and the Enterprise Data platform is at the core of the approach, to truly transform the way technology is utilised in order to better manage, analyse and present data to the organisation.   

2. Over recent years, the MPS have developed multiple solutions for delivering individual data services. While each solution has brought its own benefit to the organisation, they have also introduced their own arrangements for integration, data management, compliance, quality and insight. With these have come duplications, inefficiencies and extra costs.  This has made data oversight complex, and made delivery in line with legal and regulatory obligations more complex (e.g. MOPI RRD complication, compliance with the Data Protection Act amongst others).   

3. While these systems were fit for purpose at the time of original implementation, they now struggle to deliver urgent new innovation requirements and flex to meet changes in data strategy and legal obligations. This has resulted in platforms where it is difficult to on-board new Datasets and Users due to various technical and organisational limitations. 

4. To address historic data issues and to provide a modern approach to meet future data challenges, an ‘Enterprise Data Platform’ is being proposed for the organisation.  This is a new approach to the delivery of Core Data Services within the MPS – the aim of which is to use a central platform of modern, Cloud-based services to provide secure and managed access to MPS data and tooling to officers and staff. The platform will launch with a minimum viable set of technologies that can be developed and expanded over time. 

5. Issues for consideration 

6. A decision is required from the Deputy Mayor by 21/12/2023. The MPS would like to start the project work in January 2024 to ensure the first use case (for Data Science)  is available to use by the Summer 2024.  An early decision will allow us to notify our suppliers to prepare to start in January.   

7. In order to meet the immediate data challenges of the organisation, and enable to deliver initial business benefit as early as possible, a move away from the traditional linear approach to development to a new, iterative methodology is proposed.  The aim is to develop the technology by following the Agile methodology - focusing on creating and delivering individual work packages and running multiple iterative development ‘sprints’, rather than delivering in a “waterfall” manner.  Each work package will have a Product Owner who will lead the work, with a team of dedicated specialists with complementary skills, specifically tasked to deliver capability on the Data Platform.  Specialist resources will work alongside MPS Digital, Data and Technology (DDAT) teams and business leads to test each iteration of the product through the ‘sprint’ process. 

8. The Agile development will offer flexibility of approach to accommodate a changing requirement set but will also require close management to ensure the final outcome for each use case is still achieved within timescales and budget. 

9. Each new use case will have the appropriate data governance applied ro ensure DPIA are completed for each new data set brought on to the platform. 

10. The MPS have built a ‘proof of concept’ area in advance of this project to validate the technical design and take lessons learnt into the production (Live) Build phase. 

11. The proposal contributes to the MOPAC Police & Crime Plan 2022-25 as the Enterprise Data Platform will be at the heart of the ‘New MET for London plan’. It will directly support the Community crime fighting agenda by analysing MPS crime data so resources and tactics around reducing neighbour crime, anti-social behaviour and serious violence can be more precisely used. 

12. Fixing our foundations by providing officer with the right data tools to reduce disproportionality in how London is policed.   

13. Providing the core data services across various business areas, embedding data into decision-making at all levels. 

14. Financial Comments  

15. Funding will be met via the new budget for New MET for London.   

16. For reasons of commercial sensitivity the full cost breakdown is contained in the restricted section of the report. 

17. Costs cover: 

18. The delivery of cloud-based data platform providing services that include data science/engineering, data warehouse capability and support the new performance framework. The project will include the build/implementation and run costs (hosting and ongoing support) of the platform. 

19. Internal MPS project costs incurred by DDaT and the MPS suppliers to support delivery of a new IT solution. 

20. Legal Comments 

21. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (“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 (inc. VAT) or above shall be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the value of the proposed contract exceeds this threshold.   

22. The Commercial Case confirms the proposed procurement activities are a combination of utilising existing contracts in a compliant manner and the award of a new contract via a compliant route to market.   

23. Paragraph 7.23 of the Scheme provides that the Director of Strategic Procurement 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 paper requests approval for budget to allow extension and further award of contracts to 2 suppliers.  The approval to award itself is within delegated authority levels. 

2. MPS are using a combination of existing contracts and a new agreement to procure the appropriate suppliers with cloud skills to deliver and support the Enterprise Data Platform.  

3. There will be a total of 4 suppliers working on different aspects of the platform -  3 Suppliers will be contracted via existing MPS contracts with the 4th being sourced via a compliant Public Sector Framework Agreement for the initial build. 

4. MPS will contract with Capgemini and Eviden via the Pegasus ‘Infrastructure and applications’ contracts to manage the deployment of applications (and services) and manage the ‘day-to-day’ operations of the MPS Azure environment. The requirements are within the technical and financial scope of the contract. 

5. MPS will use the existing Information Systems Architecture Managed Services contract with Actica Consulting Ltd which was established via direct award through the Crown Commercial Service RM3804 Technology Services 2 Lot 1 – Technology Strategy and Service Design, to deliver the target operating model.  The requirements are within the technical and financial scope of the contract. 

6. The MPS will contract with i15 for the initial build phase via  the Health Trust Europe (HTE) Framework. The HTE Framework provides scope for software services. In compliance with the terms of the HTE Framework and Public Contract Regulations (2015), the MPS can direct award a new Contract, worth £277.5k to a single VAR.  The MOPAC is an edible user of the framework agreement, the requirements are within the technical and financial scope for compliant call-off contracts to be made and the call-off processes set out in the framework agreement shall be followed. 

7. To ensure that value for money has been achieved for the MPS, the project team support by commercial services will review the supplier performance at the end of each use case sprint before commissioning the next phase.    

8. Further information is contained in the restricted sections of the report.  

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. 

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 Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS will be consulted at all stages to ensure the project meets its compliance requirements. 

4. An overarching DPIA will be completed for the data platform and will be reviewed/updated as each use case is delivered  The project will ensure a privacy by design approach, which will allow the MPS to find and fix problems at the early stages of any project, ensuring compliance with GDPR. DPIAs support the accountability principle, as they will ensure the MPS complies with the requirements of GDPR and they demonstrate that appropriate measures have been taken to ensure compliance. 

7. Equality Comments   

1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. 

2. This business case has undergone an initial Equality screening. Due regard has been taken to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 in particular the Public Sector Equality Duty. Consideration has been taken to assess equality impact caused by the proposals within this document. As a result, a full Equality Impact Assessment will be completed on the platform as each use case is delivered. 

8. Background/supporting papers 

None. 

Part 2 - This section refers to the details of the Part 2 business case which is NOT SUITABLE for MOPAC Publication.   

The Government Security Classification marking for Part 2 is: 

OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE [COMMERCIAL]  

Part 2 of the Implementation of the MPS Enterprise Data Platform proposal is exempt from publication for the following reasons:  

• Exempt under Article 2(2)(a) of the Elected Local Policing Bodies (Specified Information) Order 2011 (Data Protection Section 43 - Trade Secrets and Prejudice to Commercial Interests).  

The paper will cease to be exempt upon completion of the contract. This is because the information is commercially sensitive and could compromise future procurement activity.