Cheshire Constabulary is to take its HR, payroll, finance and procurement systems back in-house having been part of a multi force shared services arrangement since 2012.

Currently on an Oracle Cloud platform, managed via the Multi-Force Shared Services (MFSS) with four other forces, Cheshire is now looking to integrate their existing IT estate, including Duty Management and Rostering. 

The immediate focus will be on delivering the requirements around Core HR, Payroll, Finance and Procurement for the entire force of 2,199 police officers, 204 PCSO’s, 201 Special Constables and 1,611 staff

Cheshire's PCC had procured resource planning software from Unit4 to achieve this.

Julie Gill, Assistant Chief Officer at Cheshire Constabulary said. “Selecting Unit4 will enable us to re-direct frontline services and give us the data and support services we need to enable our officers and staff to be their most effective. Achieving this will ensure that it does not distract but supports their primary role of real neighbourhood policing.”

The Multi-Force Shared Service (MFSS) is a back office shared service developed through a collaboration between Cheshire Constabulary,  Northamptonshire Police, Nottinghamshire Police and Civil Nuclear Constabulary.  The forces use a private sector System Integrator, Capgemini, to configure and integrate the shared service

The MFSS went live on April 1st 2012, through the two founding forces  - Cheshire and Northants  -  delivering a range of transactional back office services in HR, Accounts, Purchasing and Payroll to both organisations. Over the next two years, the MFSS developed with a transactional shared service centre team based at Cheshire Police Headquarters in Winsford with the MFSS Payroll bureau service based in Northampton.  The MFSS then welcomed their third force, Nottinghamshire Police, in April 2015 and now delivers transactional services across all three organisations and their respective PCCs plus the CNC.