Cleveland extends shared services deal

Cleveland Police Authority (CPA) is extending its shared services partnership with IT services group Steria, as it looks to deliver more savings and decrease the administration overhead for frontline officers.

CPA originally signed a £175m, 10-year support deal with Steria in October 2010. This has resulted in the IT services firm creating a new shared services centre to oversee the force’s finance, HR, procurement, fleet and facilities functions.

That deal was intended to save CPA £50m over the next decade.

Steria will now also include providing a central crime management unit, covering the force’s four districts and merging their control rooms – a move expected to save an additional £9m.

As part of the shared services plan, CPA would be migrating legacy finance and HR systems to a new Oracle E-business suite R12 system, Simon Miller, head of shared services for Cleveland Police, told Computing.

He said that the system would give far greater insight into day-to-day business operations, as well as providing the foundations to introduce an employee self-service scheme.

This would allow the force's 2,200 staff to access administration systems securely via the web at any time they chose; for example, enabling them to alter their home address or bank details.

"We are trying to ensure that offices have the maximum time available for frontline work," said Millar.