Capita plc has secured a £700,000 three-year contract renewal, with East Coast and Hertfordshire Control Room Consortium to manage their shared wide area network (WAN) that supports Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Humberside and Norfolk fire and rescue services.
Capita’s WAN enables all four fire services to share a common network infrastructure, helping to facilitate greater operational efficiency across the consortium. The network connectivity enables the fire services to take emergency calls and mobilise resources to manage incidents, supporting communities within the consortium’s service areas.
The WAN is built to the government’s public sector network (PSN) compliance standards, enabling the consortium to work better with the respective local authorities.
The network connects fire and rescue services sites, including HQ and control rooms for the four areas as well as the shared datacentres located on the Hertfordshire and Humberside sites, to support critical service management and delivery.
As part of the contract, Capita will provide an upgrade to the consortium’s local area network (LAN) and routers that enable network connections within each site. The service also includes digital ‘perimeter security’ services which includes firewalls to protect and segregate the LAN at each control room and the WAN that connects them.
In addition to network services, Capita already provides control room software solutions to East Coast and Hertfordshire Control Room Consortium.
Mark Cook, executive officer of Capita’s Technology Solutions division, said: “This renewal is secured on the strength of our longstanding partnership with the East Coast and Hertfordshire Control Room Consortium. It is also based on our ability to ensure that our technology continuously supports mission-critical services now and in the future.”
Matt Canterford, head of digital services, Hertfordshire County Council, said: “We have an important responsibility to provide the best services we can to our communities. Capita’s network technology provides the resilient platform we need to ensure that our operations across the consortium are running efficiently.”
