The National Police Chief's Council (NPCC) Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme supports the ongoing operation and development of Single Online Home (SOH), a national capability providing websites and other digital public services for 41 police forces.
The roundtable allowed the DPC team to explore options and gather industry advice ahead of the end of their current key contracts ending in Autumn 2025. With the reliance on the DPC to deliver a consistent and seamless service, the programme is looking at how to ensure that they have a platform that can meet both policing's and the public's increasing needs. In doing so, the DPC hosted a summary presentation of the SOH along with an interactive discussion to gain market insight.
Understanding the landscape
The SOH began rolling out to forces in 2018, following the MPS's procurement and use of the platform in 2015. The current platform has 90% coverage across the country and is considered part of national policing infrastructure. The platform has grown over time to offer a wide range of services to forces, including local news and information, reporting services, live chat, social media framework, integration platform, analytics and more. However, with the requirements from the public and forces for the DPC Programme continuously expanding, there is a need for DPC to deliver services which support a seamless citizen journey through the contact lifecycle, as is public expectation due to this being common and widespread across other industries, whilst also driving productivity in Policing. Projects such as the exploration for a two-way communication portal with the public are underway to meet the changing landscape that influences the public expectations. The DPC intends the portal to be a complete end-to-end customer experience, serving as a ‘front counter' to the available solutions for users, in which its success will be measured by the level of integration it achieves. Similarly, all aspects of the SOH have experience incorporated into the design, but going forward this needs to be flexible to be able to adapt to changing public needs.
Summary of discussion
The conversation focused on the strategic initiatives and challenges in improving the DPC platform. Key topics discussed were the integration of modern technologies, the importance of a clear vision and the need for flexible and standardised solutions. The discussion also touched on AI and the complexities of managing data models and procurement. As with the strive to improve the current SOH service, the DPC must ensure they have the right toolset to enable its new features and adapt accordingly in terms of technology and upskilling if necessary.
Main points discussed:
- Proof of concept and cloud providers
- Need for a clear vision and standardisation (balancing standardisation with the need for flexibility in system integration)
- Architecture and future planning
- Procurement and data management
You can access the slides here.
Following the event, some suppliers requested a high-level overview of the current technology landscape. This can be found below.
Key current technology
The current SOH website service uses Optimizely v11 as its Content Management System, hosted on Azure Public Cloud, implemented in an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) pattern. Significant bespoke code has been developed using the .NET Framework, particularly the forms building and data modelling functionality, which also utilizes Optimizely components.
Websites are protected through a Cloudflare Web Application Firewall and Content Delivery Network solution, which includes Distributed Denial of Service protection. Splunk is used to analyse and report on various aspects of the service. Microsoft Power BI is used to provide business analytics to forces and other stakeholders.
The National Management Centre (NMC) run by the Police Digital Service (PDS) provides an overarching security monitoring service.
The platform has an integration platform, the ‘iHub', designed to to orchestrate and facilitate the exchange of data between the SOH and police force systems. This is an implementation of MuleSoft Anypoint, provided as an Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS), with supporting services hosted on AWS Public Cloud.
There is a Live Chat offering using Cisco Webex Engage. This is a standalone SaaS solution and forces have the option to utilize other products if they wish.
The platform does not provide social media functionality, but the DPC has developed a framework to support forces with social media, which many use in conjunction with Orlo or Sprinklr software.
Azure DevOps is used to support the development of new platform services and integrations. Service management is undertaken using the Met Police ServiceNow platform.
DPC views the iHub as a fundamental element in achieving an integrated future state for the business capabilities. However, beyond the iHub, DPC is adaptable and open to exploring new or alternative technology solutions to deliver the business capabilities.
We would now like to invite the market, regardless of whether they attended, to answer some questions on the delivery of the business capabilities.
Fill out the survey here. Deadline is Friday 23 August 2024.
If you have any questions, please email cinzia.miatto@techuk.org