South West Fire and Rescue Services wins Security Project of the Year
A collaborative programme involving five South West Fire and Rescue Services has won the prestigious European Information Security Project of the year award sponsored by SC Magazine.
The secure information interchange programme has been designed to raise Fire and Rescue Services’ (FRSs) policies, procedures, systems, governance and IT infrastructure up to the stringent requirements of UK HMG standards. This achievement would not have been possible without adopting a collaborative approach between Dorset, Avon, Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, and Wiltshire, and the advice of information security consultants, Aristi Limited.
Considerable savings have been made by the participating FRSs in collaborative procurements and the development of common policies and procedures.
Five organisations were short listed for the award including Barclaycard and KPMG, organisations with vastly more resources available to them than fire and rescue services. The judges thought that “the project was great” and described it as a “transformational security initiative that can deliver a real benefit to society: pragmatic; reusable and risk focused. This is the sort of project that deserves to win this award, for clear business and societal value from understanding and managing risks and being seen as a secure partner. Well envisioned and executed”.
Darran Gunter, Chief Fire Officer at Dorset Fire and Rescue Service and Programme Sponsor said: "The programme has provided us with a comprehensive set of tools and policies to ensure that all our sensitive information is appropriately safeguarded and staff are aware of their responsibilities for managing information. This, in turn will allow us to share information with our partners to enable us to provide a more effective service to vulnerable people in our communities. The increased level of security, provided through this South West collaboration project, will improve the Fire Service's operational response capabilities and may save lives in the long run."
Graham Saunders, Programme Manager, SW FRSs’ Secure Information Interchange Programme said ““The award is a great testimony of what can be achieved by through collaboration and a lot of hard work and enthusiasm by the FRS’ teams involved. The challenge for the FRSs is to use their improved information security and connections to the Public Service Network to improve community safety and efficiency through the secure sharing of information with their external partners. “
Harj Singh, Managing Director, Aristi Limited said: “We are extremely proud of this award and to be recognised as leaders in our field in such illustrious company. The FRSs have worked extremely hard over the last two years and have demonstrated what can be achieved when working collaboratively.”
The goals of the Secure Information Interchange Programme are to:-
- Improve the security culture of the FRSs from a fairly low level to one where all FRSs can comply with UK HMG standards for handling and processing personal and other sensitive information
- Enable the secure, timely and cost effective sharing of up to date information between SW FRSs and with their partners such as the Police, local authorities and NHS
- Connect the FRSs to the new Public Services Network (PSN) to take advantage of secure cloud computing
South West Councils provided £1.1m of capital funding towards the cost of the programme.
The Public Service Network is a UK government highly secure wide area network. Its main purpose is to enable connected organisations to communicate electronically and securely at a range of protective marking levels. The PSN will transform communications between central government, local government, the NHS and Police. It will play an important role in the modernisation of public services by enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day interactions with citizens and businesses, and will form part of the of networks
