Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service Gets ACTIVE

08 April 2008, 2:35pm

ACTIVE Solutions Europe Ltd, the Basingstoke-based leader in public sector service planning won an open tender competition to license its Total Solution Mapping and Phoenix software systems, together with cartographic and demographic data, as well as Experian's Mosaic Scotland to Strathclyde Fire & Rescue (SFR) in a three year deal worth over £100,000.

Strathclyde's ACO David Goodhew said “Integrated Risk Management Planning (IRMP) is the fundamental platform for shaping the delivery of services in the future by SFR and it underpins our overall approach towards strategy development and service planning. To assist with IRMP and the modernisation of SFR, it is vitally important to have a comprehensive database of accurate information to inform decision-making at the strategic level and this is the requirement that formed the basis of our tender.”

SFR uses a suite of planning tools that are either supplied by Government or licensed commercially. But a thorough review of the performance of these tools established the need for a combined approach, with rapid data mining capabilities and extensive data-linkage potential. Moreover, a workload-based approach to risk and resource modelling was deemed essential going forward.

Jackie Dawson, SFR's FSEC Manager said “Detailed analysis of many relevant data sets is now urgently required to support service planning. Our investigations showed that the workload involved to achieve this analysis would take several members of staff several months to complete with our existing systems, and this workload will have to be repeated for each individual strategy in turn. This labour intensive process was considered to be a restriction in our ability to complete our IRMP Annual Actions Plans within the specified time scales.” Jackie went on to say “In addition, there is an urgent requirement to analyse proposals for a major change to resource deployment. The deadline for this is such that the software systems currently being used are unlikely to facilitate this work on time.”

ACTIVE's suite of software and data was selected for the speed with which it can generate meaningful information and reports (designed specifically to support fire service planning), its robustness, and its proven track record of success in UK fire services. The systems went fully live with no outstanding issues within 15 working days of SFR selecting ACTIVE.

Jackie Dawson summed up by saying “ACTIVE's systems have had an immediate impact on our abilities to produce relevant, meaningful information to support our decisions. We expect a significant return on our investment in the short term.”

www.activesol.co.uk

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