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Background With government initiatives around Safer Communities now in full swing the emphasis is shifting from cure to prevention, and with this comes the need for timely and accurate information the likes of which have never been required before. This brings a challenge: namley to interrogate many disparate sources of data and present a consolidated view of key metrics, speedily and accurately.
Project Overview The Community Intelligence Hub (CIH) is a portal built for local authorities on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, delivering document management and collaboration, along with advanced reporting and analysis facilities including reports, analytical views, dashboards and geo-spatial statistics represented via Bing maps.
Customer Profile Cherwell District Council (Cherwell) is the local authority responsible for an area of Northern Oxfordshire including the towns of Banbury and Bicester. Within Cherwell, Safer Communities is the department responsible for improving quality of life of residents by working to reduce crime and disorder, and associated problems. Business Situation Cherwell recognised a need for a co-ordinated, consolidated approach to data collection and presentation of information to internal and external audiences: the CIH. Whilst this is applicable across a broad range of council services, a decision was taken to commence with 'Safer Communities' as the information required presented the greatest challenge for manual collation and offered the highest benefit in terms of improvement of service delivery. The CIH project was driven by the following goals: Reducing repeat incidences of domestic violence Reducing the rate of proven re-offending by young offenders Reducing the assault with injury crime rate Reducing the drug related offending rate / increase the numbers of drug users in treatment Increasing the number of people who feel positive about how concerns over Antisocial Behaviour and crime are dealt with by the police and council The portal had to be extensible and suitable for integration with applications
inside Cherwell and also with local, regional and national partners.
The Solution Cherwell employees have fast access to powerful information and each has the flexibility to display it in a format that suits their requirements such as spreadsheets, graph/chart dashboards and even geospatial dashboards containing heat maps, push pins, etc via mapping solutions such as Bing Maps (formally - Virtual Earth). The following represents a typical use of the CIH portal mapping facilities: Dashboard shows concentration of violent crime in a particular area via heat map representation Zoom in to show street view with individual incidents mapped Show licensing information to assess correlation with certain public houses Show CCTV camera locations to assess best positioning In response to Cherwell’s requirements, Ridgian recommended a solution built on the Microsoft platform. Benefits of this technical solution included: Microsoft are seen as a clear market leader in data warehousing and business intelligence Flexibility to deliver a solution tailored to exact business requirements Affordability and on going cost of ownership Good fit with existing IT infrastructure on both servers and desktops Aligned with in-house skills geared up to support and develop Microsoft-based platforms Existing relationship with Microsoft for support and licences Based on standard tools such as Internet Explorer and Office Business Benefits
The CIH solutions provides the following business benefits:
More efficient use of resources by focussing on key areas More informed decision making at both operational and strategic levels via Dashboards, KPIs, Mapping and Operational Reports Central repository with Search facilities boosts productivity by reducing wasted time searching various sources for information Control over content ensures only the right people have access to sensitive information Drives improvements in data entry practices on operational systems |