Ref: PCC/D/2024/17
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
West Mercia Police’s ‘Greenfield’ data storage (HPE Nimble), both within the force’s onsite and offsite facilities are reaching safe capacity storage limits.
It is anticipated that the offsite facility will reach capacity by November 2024 and onsite by Hindlip July 2025, based on current predictions. This storage is used by all greenfield applications.
The proposal is to procure an HPE Alletra array to allow the expansion of this storage, sufficient to cope with the next 3 years anticipated storage. This represents an increase from the current 351tb to 934tb.
The total costs of this solution is £712,000.
PROPOSAL
That the PCC approves the funding of £712,000 from this year’s capital programme for the purchase of an HPE Alletra array to increase storage capacity across the West Mercia digital infrastructure.
£225,000 of funding approvals have already been included in the existing capital programme for 2024/25 that are allocated for storage as listed below.
The balance of £487,000 requires additional funding which will be from borrowing.
APPROVAL OF
West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner
I hereby approve the above proposal.
PART 1 – NON-CONFIDENTIAL/EXEMPT FACTS AND FIGURES
SUPPORTING REPORT
West Mercia Police’s Digital Services requires a significant amount of storage capacity within its physical infrastructure.
Whilst there is a move towards cloud based solutions, there will continue to be a demand for hosting systems on local servers. The storage requirements are for local critical application databases.
Following issues in recent years a decision was made to review how the infrastructure is provided. As part of the that review it was decided to move to provision of an external data centre. The initial set up of this external facility in 2022 included 209.9TB of storage capacity to host initial applications, with the intention to increase this as additional applications migrated to greenfield.
The expected storage capacity of West Mercia digital infrastructure is
| Current | Proposed | ||
| External | Greenfield | 109.9TB | 472TB |
| Brownfield | 100TB | 116TB | |
| Internal | Greenfield | 42.1TB | 221TB |
| Brownfield | 302TB | 125TB | |
| Total | 554TB | 934TB |
It has always been recognised that additional storage capabilities would be required over time, with more focus on systems and apps as the future ways of working for recording and processing information. The 2024/25 capital programme has included plan to increase storage capability by including the following planned spend:
• £125K from Digital Services Transition App migration project budget
• £100K from Data and Integration project
There would also be proposals in the 2025/26 capital programme to increase capabilities by an addition £300k. This would have taken total spend to £525k over the two years. Digital Services have been attempting to managing the storage capacity to avoid significant additional spend, recognising the current pressures on finances overall. However the App Migration, Data integration and SAAB Safe greenfield projects all require expanded storage.
The current storage requirement is heightened by the need to include storage in both Brownfield and Greenfield. This will reduce over time and some Brownfield storage will be re-purposed into the Greenfield however this additional storage will still be required as the overall need for storage has been on a rising trajectory for many years.
The proposal is to purchase HPE Alletra arrays for both the external and internal facilities, which will increase the performance and capacity of the current storage utilised in Greenfield. This will meet force database storage capacity for the next 3 years. Other alternatives were considered however this option provided best value to the public.
The additional cost in 2024/25 (£487,000) will be significantly offset by removal of the evergreen request for storage in 2025/26. This is being addressed by the decommissioning process.
Purchasing all the storage now also enables a significant discount on the list price (77%), achieving better further efficiency and value. Given that spending plans were already in place for additional storage, this does not represent a new cost. It is recognised that it will represent cost earlier than had been planned and that will be managed within the overall affordability of capital spend.
STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS
This decision supports the following element(s) of the Safer West Mercia Plan:
☐ Putting Victims and Survivors First ☒ Building a More Secure West Mercia
☒ Reforming West Mercia ☒ Reassuring West Mercia’s Communities
- Enabling ongoing core police activity and service to the public
- Realising best value for public money
- Supporting ongoing reform and transition activity within the police force
BENEFITS AND THEIR REALISATION
The benefit of procuring a single strategic solution at this time provides a significant financial benefit in respect of costs, as well as enabling the storage required for the immediate future & project delivery roadmap for projects.
AUTHOR
Tim Higgins – Acting head of DS
22.10.24
FINANCIAL AND TREASURER COMMENTS
The total cost of increasing storage capability for Digital services is £712k
Plans were already in place to spend £225k in 24/25, meaning that this is an increase of £487k in year. With a potentially £300k spend on increasing storage in 25/26 capital budget which will not be required if the proposal is accepted.
The proposal will increase annual revenue costs by circa £50k for the next 10 years.
The recommendation from digital services that it would not be able to deliver app migration and digital change process without the additional capacity, restricting the organisational ability to implement service improvement and efficiencies through greater use of technology, combined with the financial risk associated with leaving the CITRIX platform.
Treasurer
05/11/2024
LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS
By virtue of schedule 11, paragraph 14 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 the Police and Crime Commissioner may do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of commissioner. That includes: entering into contracts and other agreements (whether legally binding or not) and acquiring and disposing of property (including land).
PUBLIC ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Information in this form is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI Act) and other legislation. Part 1 of this form will be made available on the West Mercia Commissioner’s website. Any facts and advice that should not be made automatically available on request are not included in Part 1 but instead in a separate Part 2 report.
OFFICER APPROVAL
Chief Executive Officer
5th November 2024
