Norfolk police consolidate data

Norfolk Constabulary is consolidating 4,500 data repositories into one integrated database - with an initial infrastructure investment of £295,000 - to help it better predict crime patterns.

The Fujitsu system allows the force to set up standard formats for data and enables information sharing with local councils and other emergency services in the area.

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It also allows the force to side-step a third-party service, called the National Information Management System, which formats reports to be sent to the Home Office - saving it tens of thousands of pounds a year, according to Norfolk Constabulary information management business manager Christine Thompson.

She said: "I think many forces would like to do the same, but the only ones who can are those that have data warehouses."

Thompson told silicon.com that by allowing the force to analyse performance data, the data warehouse will allow it to more effectively allocate police resources to combat crime by predicting areas of demand.

She said: "The information we get through the data warehouse should help us be there before crime is committed."

The data warehouse infrastructure is built around a number of datamarts, which filter information from the data repository, dividing it into subsets of information to support particular groups of users and help with load-balancing. Thompson said the initial infrastructure phase should be completed by November, and the data warehouse should be on line by spring 2008.