A national framework agreement has been signed for a new ‘one-stop’ IT system which will help police to identify criminals more quickly and cut crime.

Not only will Project Athena improve front-line policing, it will save police forces time and money, helping to improve the service they provide to the public.

Project Athena is the largest-ever collaborative police IT project and will be delivered by Northgate Public Services.

The seven ‘early adopters’ – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk – will be paying a total of £32million during the lifetime of the agreement but the costs to each force will drop as and when more forces come on board.

David Lloyd, Chairman of Hertfordshire Police Authority said: “This collaboration and the technology that supports this initiative will mean that Hertfordshire Constabulary is better able to investigate crime, support victims and reduce threat and harm to the public. This is a fine example of how police forces can work together to save money and also improve their efforts to fight crime.”

Hertfordshire Constabulary’s Chief Constable, Andy Bliss, commented: “Athena is a key tool in the fight against crime, ensuring that we see the complete picture relating to our offenders. Information will be linked as soon as records are created, so that a full picture of a person or location will rapidly be built up and can be viewed across all forces using the system."

Until now, police forces have largely managed data on offenders, suspects, victims and incidents on different systems at a local level. This made it a challenge to share information quickly with other forces.

Athena, however, will be a single IT system managing police investigations, intelligence, suspects and defendants (both custody and case preparation) across all member forces, giving front-line police officers and staff in those forces access to more detailed and up-to-date information, while reducing bureaucracy. This will help them to build comprehensive ‘pictures’, both of suspects and of crime and incident patterns, more swiftly.

Officers and staff at each phase of the criminal justice process – from report to court – will be able to view all records for the suspect from each member force and from all other stages of the process. This will mean that a suspect arrested for crimes committed in any of the Athena force areas can be dealt with for all offences in one custody suite without the need for the suspect to be transferred between each force and processed for crimes committed exclusively in that force area.

Time will be saved after a suspect is arrested, as those officers working in custody and preparing cases will automatically have access to all the intelligence already held about a suspect.

And, in line with recommendations of the 2004 Bichard Inquiry, the new system will let each force share a much wider set of operational police data with officers and staff in other forces. Historically, such day-to-day police information has been shared between local forces upon request, which is both time-consuming and results in delays.

Ian Blackhurst, Executive Director of Northgate Public Services, commented: “This project is a huge step forward in policing and is a signal that forces are embracing collaboration in order to work more effectively together and in doing so reduce administrative costs.

“We will use our understanding of UK policing to deliver a safe and secure system that transforms police operations. It will result in vastly improved services to the public, at a significantly lower overall cost, which is great news in these times of austerity.”

Athena is due to be fully implemented towards the end of 2012, with Essex Police being the first to go ‘online’ and Hertfordshire Constabulary due to implement in the summer of 2013. The system will be managed centrally, helping to save forces money by reducing the need for ongoing management of multiple IT systems.

Athena is supported by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) as part of the national strategy for police IT (ISIS). NPIA chief executive Chief Constable Nick Gargan said: "The NPIA has been very happy to support the collaborative work undertaken by the forces involved in Project Athena as part of the Information Systems Improvement Strategy.

"When Athena comes to fruition, we will see front-line officers who are able to make better use of better information. The 'Athena forces' have done exactly what everyone agrees needs to happen but which is sometimes stubbornly difficult to achieve."

Athena will replace up to ten existing police IT systems in each force, all of which cost money to maintain and upgrade and will eventually require replacing. The money the ‘early adopters’ are spending will be significantly less than that they would have to spend on replacing each individual existing IT system.

The agreement can be used by any other police authority or law enforcement agency in the UK – several others have already expressed an interest, further reducing opportunities for criminals to operate across geographic boundaries.