PCD 1654 Changes to the National Policing programme grant agreement for Digital Public Contract (Grant 685)

PCD 1654 Changes to the National Policing programme grant agreement for Digital Public Contract (Grant 685)

This decision seeks approval to accept additional Home Office funding of £1,400,000 to support the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Single Online Home contribution to the Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme this Financial Year (2023-24). 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:   

1. Approve receipt of additional Home Office grant funding of £1,400,000 to support the MPS Single Online Home contribution to the Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme. 

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

1. Introduction and background. 

1. Digital Public Contact (DPC) is a Tier 1 NPCC National Policing Programme hosted within the MPS with MOPAC as the contracting authority. 

2. The decision to accept the Grant of £11,900,000 from the Home Office for the running of the Digital Public Contact (DPC) programme for 2023-24 was approved in July 2023 (PCD 1444). However, after deducting a total of £441,000 for the accommodation costs that were paid directly to the Police Digital Service via a separate grant agreement, the final grant allocation was £11,459,000. 

3. The total Grant Agreement of £11.459m included the following deliverables: 

• Continued onboarding of forces onto the Single Online Home.  

• Continued development of services. 

• Continued delivery of a Strategic Integration Hub (i-Hub) to integrate Single Online Home services with back office functionality in individual forces.  

• Strategic development of the police.uk website.   

• Supporting the adoption of a digital desk by the forces will enable control rooms, communications, and neighbourhood policing to collaborate more closely on how the public contacts the police via social media. 

4. A previous grant variation was approved in December 2023 (PCD 1562) for the extension of the  Single Online Home front-end to provide a portal capability with integration to Humberside Police’s crime management system a total of, £1,000,000, as well as, £200,0000 for deliverables of continued development of the DPC Analysis & Insights reporting dashboard to include benefits and enhancements to the StreetSafe tool, to include reporting of public transport locations for a richer dataset to inform community activities. 

2. Issues for consideration. 

1. The Home Office is making available additional funding of £1,400,000 to cover the MPS Single Online Home contribution to the Digital Public Contact Programme this year on the understanding that the MPS will match DPC to the equivalent of £1,400,000 in 2024-25. 

2. The funding will support DPC’s continued delivery of an ambitious programme which includes the further development and roll out to forces of the Strategic Integration Hub, as well as the ongoing onboarding of forces to, and development of new and existing services, on Single Online Home. 

3. There have been some delays to achieving Grant Milestones this financial year that have been reported in the monthly SCIB returns as moving into next year. These will now form part of the delivery roadmap for 2024-25. The milestones are listed in the Grant Variation Letter along with any replacement deliveries achieved. 

4. The Grant Agreement shall remain effective and unaltered, including variations agreed in PCD 1562, except as amended by this decision. 

3. Financial Comments. 

1. The total value of the additional funding to be provided by the Home Office to support to support the MPS Single Online Home contribution to the DPC Programme this Financial Year (2023-24) is £1,400,000 on the understanding that the MPS will match fund DPC to the equivalent in 2024-25.   There is no impact on the MPS Capital Plan. All costs related to DPC are recovered through Home Office grant funding. 

4. Legal Comments.  

1. MOPAC is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 ("the Regulations"). 

2. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding. 

3. MOPAC has an obligation to publish a grant agreement pursuant to Schedule 1, Paragraph 3(g) of the Elected Local Policing Bodies (Specified Information) (Amendment) Order 2012. 

4. The legal powers applicable to the acceptance of the Grant will be under Schedule 3, Paragraph 7 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which provides that:  
   7(1) The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime may do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office. 
   (2) That includes— 
      (a) entering into contracts and other agreements (whether legally binding or not). 

5. The Grant is subject to number of reasonable requirements by the Home Office including the management of the Grant, maintaining records, provision of information, and adequate data protection controls in place. 

5. GDPR and Data Privacy  

1. All privacy issue considerations were considered when the MPS took on responsibility and became the Host Organisation for SOH and the National Digital Team. Nothing has changed since this original commitment, but appropriate assessments will be undertaken as part of the design of new services.  

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 will be consulted at all stages to ensure the programme continues to meet its compliance requirements. 

4. A DPIA has been completed for the Single Online Home (SOH). The SOH DPIA will be updated to reflect changes driven by DPC deliveries. As with the SOH, the DPC Programme will ensure a privacy by design approach, which will allow the MPS to find and fix problems at an early stage, ensuring compliance with GDPR. DPIAs support the accountability principle, as they will ensure the MPS complies with the requirements of GDPR, and they demonstrate that appropriate measures have been taken to ensure compliance. 

6. Equality Comments  

1. Equalities assessments were carried out when the MPS took on responsibility and became the Host Organisation for SOH and the National Digital Team. Nothing has changed since this assessment was conducted but appropriate assessments will be undertaken as part of the design of new services. 

7. Background/supporting papers 

1. 685 Digital Public Contact Grant Variation Letter.  

2. PCD’s 1444 July 2023 & 1562 December 2023.