Organisation confirmed as fourth police force to join agreement, while partner organisation Cheshire Constabulary approves separate back office fire service deal
The Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) is expected to become the fourth police organisation to join the Multi Force Shared Service (MFSS) back office collaboration agreement from April next year.
CNC will join Cheshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire police forces under the agreement that provides a number of shared functions including HR services, finance, payroll and pensions, as well as purchasing, sourcing and delivery.
Cheshire Constabulary has allocated a number of its staff to MFSS, with Capgemini appointed as a supplier to ensure the system implementation of the Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and collaborate on its configuration to support MFSS' work.
The addition of CNC to MFSS has been confirmed in board papers published by Cheshire Fire Authority as part of a full governance strategy for single back-office support functions with Cheshire Constabulary that was approved last week.
Under the approved plans, the constabulary and fire and rescue bodies will bring together the majority of their back office and professional services from a single shared headquarters by April 2018 as part of efforts to introduce combined annual operational savings of £1.5m.
Approval was given in principle to the agreement, though both parties have said no merger of frontline services is expected to take place.
“This is an ambitious and challenging programme but it is one which we all believe offers us the best chance of continuing to protect and improve the safety of the communities we serve,” said fire authority chairman Cllr. John Joyce.
“Working together like this means we can minimise the impact of the cuts all public services are facing. We will be working closely with staff and trade unions to manage the process of bringing teams together as sensitively as we can between now and April 2018, when it is expected that our back office and the majority of professional services are entirely shared.”
From an IT perspective, both CFRS and CC intend to use the same IT platform belonging to the force. MFSS currently uses an Oracle ERP solution that replaces dedicated finance, HR and asset management systems.
“Cheshire Constabulary and Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service would use [the foces's] fleet management system. The constabulary and fire service would retain their respective current staff rostering systems,” said an earlier proposal document.
