PCD 1814 Additional Funding for MetCC Voice Replacement Platform

Executive Summary:   

This Business Justification seeks additional funding to replace the MetCC Voice Platforms with a supportable and resilient alternative. 

Recommendation: 

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

• Approve additional funding of £1.658m of capital expenditure to complete the replacement of MPS Command and Control (MetCC) Avaya voice platform from the MOPAC Approved Digital Policing Capital Budget 2025/26. 

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

1. Introduction and background 

1. This project contributes to delivering the Police and Crime Plan for London 2022-25 by ensuring continued availability of 999 and 101 services, supporting officers and staff across Greater London to keep London safe. 

2. The existing contact centre infrastructure, whilst proven reliable, is at end-of-life. In addition, it will become unsupported by the current provider on 31 May 2025. 

3. The new solution will be provisioned by BT and be an Avaya system.  Implementing an Avaya replacement will reduce transition time and enable existing software licenses to be re-used where possible, reducing cost. This will also provide a robust and modern voice platform to meet future MetCC requirements. 

4. The MetCC Voice Platform service receives and directs 200,000 999 and 150,000 101 calls per month and supports c1800 police officers and staff 24x7x365 days of the year, providing first line response to the public.  It is arguably the most critical MPS system. 

5. The current MetCC Avaya Voice Platform is at end of manufacturer support. Current support is provided by the incumbent Call Routing provider under special arrangement but this will cease at the end of the current Call Routing Agreement Two (CRA2) 31 May 2025. Without full support the system is exposed to significant risk, meaning the business could be without this critical system for periods of time, and there will be significant cost to the MPS to restore. 

6. The replacement system, known as the Mission Critical Voice Platform (MCVP) has been built, tested and is already routing calls for several key MPS contact centres including: 

• Telephone Digital Investigation Unit 

• Victim Focus Desk 

• Vehicle Recovery and Examination (planned for Dec 2024) 

• Fleet Services 

2. Issues for consideration 

1. PCD 860 approved £11.789m of Capital to fund completion of MetCC replacement voice platform from the MOPAC Approved Digital Policing Capital Budget.  The above request represents an additional 14.06% capital with a total funding of £13.447m. 

2. Additional funding is required for the additional scope detailed below: 

1. MCVP Voice Recording Storage – in order to store 999 and 101 call recording, additional storage is required in Condor and Hawk data centres. 

2. Early Life Support – MetCC require BT on-site presence 24x7 for the initial two weeks following each of the three migrations: HendonCC, LambethCC and BowCC.  This was not anticipated in the original business case. 

3. Operational growth – The number of 999 calls to MetCC has grown considerably since the original budget was approved by PCD 860 on 21 Oct 2020 - 2.0m calls in 20/21 compared with 2.4m 999 calls in 23/24 i.e. 20% growth. This has resulted in the need for additional phones, licences, cabling etc.  

3. Work to cut 999 and 101 calls over to the new platform is at an advanced stage and will compete by 31 March 2025. 

4. Parallel projects, such as the Call Handling System (CHS) replacement and Contact and Resolution Services (CRS) have been consulted and will continue to be throughout the delivery lifecycle of this project. 

5. There will be no adverse operational impact from completing this project. All changes will be managed to the DDaT Change Approval Board (CAB) process. 

6. Contributes to the New Met for London (NMfL) Plan and / or MOPAC Police & Crime Plan 2022-25 

7. This contributes to delivering the Police & Crime Plan by ensuring MPS technology infrastructure supports a prompt response to 999 emergency calls.  

3. Financial Comments  

1. This paper requests additional funding of £1.658m of capital expenditure to complete the replacement of MPS Command and Control (MetCC) Avaya Voice Platform from the MOPAC Approved Digital Policing Capital Budget 2025/26.  The replacement of the out-of-support MetCC Avaya Voice Platform will cost in total £13.447m, funded from the MOPAC Approved Digital Data & Technology (DDaT) Capital Budget.   

4. Legal Comments 

7. The Mayor’s Officer 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 (inclusive of VAT) or above will be procured in accordance with the Regulations. 

8. Purchasing through a compliant contract will comply with the Regulations where the proposed award is within the scope of the contract. The report confirms that the existing CRA2, Pegasus Infrastructure Tower and CHS contracts will be utilised and that it is within scope. Therefore the proposed procurement approach will be lawful.  

9. 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);  

• The procurement strategy for all revenue and capital contracts of a total value of £500,000 or above, such determination to include decisions on the criteria and methodology to be adopted in the tendering process, any exemptions from procurement requirements, and any necessary contract extensions. (4.13); 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). 

10. 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 project will issue Project Work Orders under existing contracts with BT, Capgemini and Unisys. These contracts are respectively: the Call Routing Agreement 2 (CRA2), the Pegasus Infrastructure Tower and the Call Handling System (CHS).  

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 have been consulted at all stages to ensure the project meets its compliance requirements.  A data review form has been completed for this project (DAPIAN case 469). The new MCVP includes data processing with some low-priority risks. These have been assessed by the data office with a review date of March 2025, with a view to risks being signed off by an SRO in 2025. 

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 project will not impact Equality and Diversity. All work will be let through the exiting CRA2, Pegasus Infrastructure Tower and CHS contracts which are fully compliant with legal requirements, including Equality Law, and MPS legal advisors confirmed this during framework review prior to competing. 

8. Background/supporting papers 

None.