Leicestershire Constabulary provides a policing service to the people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland in the UK, an area of more than 965 square miles and a population of nearly one million. Fifteen local policing units are supported by specialist departments, including the dog section, the scientific support department and the air support unit.

The challenge: freeing up officers from paperwork

An internal work study undertaken in 2007 identified significant opportunities to save time and increase the productivity of police officers through mobile access to data. In fact, allowing administration tasks to be handled while out of the office was shown to hold the potential to increase officers’ time on the streets by 30 percent. Mobile access would not only ensure greater productivity, but would also provide a boost in public confidence, according to James Pearce, Information Systems Analyst at Leicestershire Constabulary.

“It’s important that our officers maintain a visible presence in the community – which isn’t something they can achieve if they have to spend considerable time back in the office processing paperwork,” said Pearce.

At the same time, officers’ ability to report information about crime quickly was hampered by the need for the teams to return to an office to complete the paperwork. In fact, the standard practice was to use pen and paper at the scene of the crime, return to the office and fax the information to the input bureau, which then filed the report.

“Due to the time it took to file their reports and conduct the subsequent analysis, officers were delayed in spotting links between cases,” Pearce added.

During the research into a possible solution, Pearce’s team found that officers would sometimes need to access up to 70 separate internal IT systems – from crime & offender databases to command & control systems – while out on patrol. But the amount of data held in legacy applications made the task of improvement extremely difficult.

Implementing Citrix XenDesktop

In conjunction with the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), a national police-owned organization dedicated to fostering best practice in policing, Leicestershire Constabulary worked with Platinum Citrix Solution Advisor Point to Point. The team worked on ways to allow officers to access applications and data while on patrol to file reports and make connections between crimes in real time.

A virtualised desktop environment was chosen as it could incorporate the force’s legacy systems and give officers an experience similar to working from their desk. It could also be delivered within time and budget constraints.

Having compared various products on the market, Pearce’s team selected Citrix® XenDesktop™ Platinum Edition as it most closely matched the demands of the force. XenDesktop dynamically assembles virtual desktops on-demand, providing users a new and pristine desktop each time they log on. In addition, XenDesktop’s high-speed delivery protocol provides unparalleled responsiveness over any network.

The solution was installed onto Panasonic CF19 ToughBook laptops, which were fitted into patrol cars across the region. The vehicle-mounted rugged notebooks – consisting of tablet screen and external keyboard – connect via an onboard 3G wireless network card. The notebooks can be removed as necessary by the officers for data entry right at the scene of a crime.

XenDesktop delivers a 30% productivity boost

With 100 cars fitted with the notebook computers – and plans for 300 in total –XenDesktop immediately proved its value thanks to its fast learning curve. At the same time, Citrix has enabled Leicestershire Constabulary to become the first and only UK police force with the capability to input a full crime report directly from the scene.

“The ability of XenDesktop to deliver a virtualized desktop to the mobile units meant officers were able to interact with the same core systems and software they were used to back in the office,” Pearce said. “The only difference was that the computer was in the car. Overall, it meant we could roll out mobile units extremely quickly, and officers were comfortable using them immediately.”

As officers are often moving between strong and weak areas of wireless connectivity, the ability of XenDesktop to provide a consistent performance over GPRS was also vital to a satisfying user experience.

Another critical advantage of delivering a virtualized desktop is the fact that no data is held on the PC itself. Because much of the information stored in the police database includes crime or offender details and is extremely sensitive, the use of XenDesktop centralizes that information on the server, behind the firewall, and removes the security loss and theft risks of local data storage.

“One of the concerns of all stakeholders is ensuring the security of the data delivered to our officers while on the move,” Pearce commented. “The Citrix solution means we hold nothing on the notebooks, so that risk is not just mitigated, it’s removed altogether.”

The result – process change at the highest level

“There is a growing need for police forces to find ways for officers to spend more time in the community and less time in the back office processing paperwork,” said Pearce.

The ability of officers to quickly respond to multiple crimes – and then spot links between them far more easily – is set to have a dramatic effect, according to senior Leicestershire Constabulary officials. In fact, Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Mike Goodwin has praised the XenDesktop solution as “the most significant step forward in police communications since the introduction of the personal radio.”

“What we have provided is the complete office in the car,” concluded Pearce. “Officers are more visible and more available, and can switch to this system with minimal training or support. Mobile access not only enhances the way we work, but is set to ensure we are focused on the most important part of our job… protecting the citizens.”

About Citrix XenDesktop

Citrix® XenDesktop™, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, allows customers to virtualize Windows® desktops in the datacenter and deliver them on demand to office workers in any location. By dynamically assembling each user’s unique personal desktop from new, pristine components each time they log on, XenDesktop offers an unparalleled end-user experience, dramatically simplifies desktop management and reduces the cost of traditional desktop computing by up to 40 percent.

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