Forensic Case Management System Final Business Case

This project proposes the procurement of an End-to End Forensic Case Management System (CMS) solution to manage forensic evidence across all forensic disciplines. The CMS will replace fragile legacy systems; currently managed on unsupported databases. Additionally, for the first time since its establishment the Forensic Directorate will have complete visibility of all physical and digital forensic evidence across a range of disciplines; building a holistic evidential picture, which can be used by Police Investigators when engaging with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Finally, the CMS will deliver the Forensic Directorate an integrated Quality Management System (QMS) which will facilitate compliance with the legislative and regulatory requirements of Forensic Science provision and allow the admissibility of forensic evidence in the criminal justice system.

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

a. In retrospect, the procurement process via ‘The Digital Marketplace Framework’ through a GCloud Down-select for a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Forensic Case Manmagement System (CMS);

b. Contract award for three years with the option to extend for a further year (total value over 4 years of £3,880,000) to Black Rainbow Ltd’s NIMBUS Application End-to-End Forensic CMS in the Forensic Directorate for all disciplines;

c. The total project expenditure of £6,675,000:

(1) Capital expenditure of £2,205,000, which is included in the current Transformation Directorate (TD) capital programme.

(2) Revenue expenditure of £4,470,000 in years 2 and 3 (and inclusive of year 4 if extended), funded from the sources indicated in the Financial Comments.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. Forensic Services plays a critical role in the investigation of crime and the administration of justice. With advances in science and technology such as automated fingerprint searching, DNA profiling and extraction of data from digital devices, there are a significant number of crimes committed in London in which the perpetrator would not be identified or the innocent eliminated if forensic services were not utilised.

1.2. Forensic Services in the MPS has been undergoing transformational change over the last over fifteen (15) years, to maximise the benefits from advances in science and technology to crime investigation in order to meet the requirements of the Forensic Science Regulator and to reduce overall operating costs and ensure value for money.

1.3. The objective of this project is to procure and implement an End-to-End CoTS Case Management System which will enable the digital submission of forensic examination requests into a single system via a portal and allow forensic practitioners to effectively prioritise their workloads to meet the needs of investigations and the criminal justice system. It will provide visibility of submissions and forensic outcomes to investigating officers and enable more effective use of resources.

1.4. The data captured will drive continuous improvement, providing the evidence base for future decision making, truly ‘seizing the opportunities of data and digital tech to become a world leader in policing’. CMS will provide a single scalable forensic evidence workflow repository through which accurate information can be retrieved quickly to improve data-driven decision-making by Police Investigators.

1.5. This data will then be accessible within the system for Investigating Officers to use in their casework but also in the form of reports for Forensic SLT. This will ensure the digital management of forensic case work from case creation and submission of exhibits, through any required examinations and to reporting of results both internal to the MPS with investigative colleagues and also externally for the preparation of court documentation etc.

1.6. CMS will replace an in-house Quality Management System (QMS), which is an amalgam of insular databases and spreadsheets. The need for a CMS has intensified with the introduction of legislative requirements on forensic science providers (within policing and the commercial sector) to have systems in place to demonstrate robust scientific and data integrity. The chosen CMS has an integrated QMS which will facilitate compliance with the legislative and regulatory requirements.

1.7. Black Rainbow offers a process mapping tools within the solution which form the routes for processing of exhibits. These can be easily customized by suitably competent end users, which is strength of this product.

1.8. Other Forces have already adopted this product and have developed both physical and digital forensic modules which they are willing to share with MPS. This will strengthen the product and assist the MPS in its implementation; enabling knowledge transfer between Forces.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. Single System Oversight of Forensic cases and exhibits – Currently, Forensic case and exhibit management is spread across a number of unsustainable legacy databases and a plethora of spreadsheets with no visibility via a single portal. An End-to-End CoTS Case Management System will enable the digital submission of forensic exhibits, thereby simplifying the forensic submission process for police officers, allow forensic practitioners to record the results of examinations conducted whilst granting access to this data to Investigating Officers who through adopting a self-serve approach will be able to track the progress of their forensic submissions at all times (as opposed to physically contacting the laboratory, currently).

2.2. Benefits of preferred option – Increased effectiveness and efficiency of the management of forensic cases. This will be achieved through time savings by streamlining of processes, removal of double keying and cost savings through decommissioning current systems. Enabling more cost effective compliance with regulatory and legislative requirements, improving data quality, availability of performance and management information and the potential for paperless case management are additional benefits.

2.3. De-confliction with other MPS IT Initiatives – Forensic Services CMS is independent from other new MPS Information Systems being introduced over the same timescale. These include Command and Control and CONNECT. MO4 will continue to engage with these programmes to ensure there remains no conflicting activities.

2.4. Resources – The Forensics Service Leadership Team (SLT) has been restructured with two new Director roles established and aligned to Operations and Continuous Improvement and Innovation. The new structure provides the environment and capacity to deliver work that directly supports and enhances operational delivery including project oversight. The overall Project resource requirements have been planned and agreed by Forensics Services, Transformation (Business Change) and Digital Policing. This planning considered the impact on Front Line Policing (minimal disruption) and factored in the draw on resource required for both CONNECT and Command and Control.

2.5. IT Infrastructure – Digital Policing (DP) has scoped the scale of the Black Rainbow Ltd product and assures that the current MPS infrastructure has the capacity to deal with this. The Black Rainbow product will be hosted in the MPS Microsoft Azure cloud hosting tenancy providing significant scalability and resilience. This environment is integrated on the MPS estate providing a seamless end user experience. DP commissioned a high level technical design (HLD) to provide assurance that the overall solution is fit for purpose. The HLD was assured by the MPS Technical Design Authority (TDA) in March 2021. Hosting within the MPS Microsoft Azure environment is a tried and tested approach. The MPS currently host our CRIS application in the same environment, the most complex system the MPS holds and one which is accessed by tens of thousands of users every day.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The Revenue planned budget total spend of £4,470,000 will be secured from the following MO4 funding streams:

a. £1,200K – The avoidance of maintenance fees for the legacy systems, which will be switched off when the Black Rainbow Ltd CMS system, is implemented. This is forecast at £400K per annum in 23/24, 24/25 and 25/26 respectively.

b. £1,035K - The permanent deletion of MO4 identified posts in Year 2. This is forecast at £345k per annum in 23/24, 24/25 and 25/26. These posts are to be taken from current vacancies, so removal does not represent any reduction in current service levels. The choice to invest vacant posts funding into infrastructure means all staff will experience the benefits and efficiencies the system brings, which in turn will improve overall service delivery.

c. £745K – In 2023/24 from wider MO Budgets that will be set aside in 2021/22 in a ring fenced reserve.

d. £745K – MO4 will fund the revenue shortfall of £745K from year 3 (from 2024/25) (and into year 4 if the contract is extended) from posts in physical forensics and not digital forensics. Forensic Services are committed to identify the posts to the value of £745k at the end of year 2 and the identification will be based on the assessment of the benefits of the CMS in terms of the efficiency savings (time savings) it brings to a range of roles in forensics. Whilst this cannot be accurately measured at this stage the totality of posts deleted to finance the CMS from year 3 represents less than 2% of the MO4 workforce. The system is expected to deliver significant time savings by removal of duplication of activity across a number of roles. Only a small increase in efficiency across all existing posts is required to deliver quantitative benefits, which in addition to the qualitative benefits will deliver overall improvements to services. Given a 3% attrition of staff per annum this will also be met by vacancies. It is anticipated that the posts will be administrative posts.

e. This will be subject to an assessment of the benefits of the CMS in terms of the efficiency savings it brings to a range of roles in forensics.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. 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 or above shall be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the value of the proposed contract exceeds this threshold. Section 5.3 of this report confirms the MOPAC’s route to market is compliant with the Regulations.

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

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

b) 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).

4.3. 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

5.1. The current MPS procurement strategy is to use COTS where possible, which this product is. The procurement of CMS has gone through the G-Cloud framework by way of a down select on the Digital Marketplace. This is a recognised and compliant route to market. This procurement is compliant with the Public Contract Regulations 2015.

5.2. The impact of how this project will contribute to the London Anchor Institution Charter continues to be assessed. Currently, no circumstances resulting from the project have been identified that would impact the London Anchor Institution Charter’s five key objectives.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. 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.

6.2. 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.

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

6.4. The Forensics CMS will hold personally identifiable data of members of the public. Therefore, GDPR regulations will be considered throughout and the management of that data will be described in the DPIA, which will be updated to reflect the agreed implementation approach.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. 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.

7.2. The Strategic Diversity and Inclusion business unit were consulted. A full Equality Impact Assessment continues to be developed. Currently, no circumstances resulting from the project changes have been identified that would negatively impact the protected groups. The impact to individuals and communities outside the MPS continues to be assessed.

8. Background/supporting papers

8.1. MPS report.