About the Award
This award is presented to both the customer and their partner(s) – in this case, ourselves and Namos – for demonstrating the greatest impact and value from a transformation project. To be eligible for the award, the project can be either an end-to-end transformation for an enterprise or a smaller piece of work that delivered exceptional value (we always deliver exceptional value 😉). Our nomination for this award demonstrated how the project impacted the customer, Civil Nuclear Constabulary, its people, and the broader benefits from the use of enterprise technology.
The Customer
The Civil Nuclear Constabulary are the armed police force responsible for protecting civil nuclear facilities and materials in England and Scotland, whether on-site or in-transit. They employ over 1,600 police officers and members of staff at nuclear sites throughout the UK. They police each site in-line with Nuclear Industry Security Regulations, and work closely with local police services, nuclear regulators and the Home Office. They are governed by the Civil Nuclear Police Authority. Counter-terrorism is a major part of their policing.
The Project, Impact and Value It Delivered
CNC’s Vision: “For the purpose of business continuity for the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, and thereby seamless and reliable delivery of its operational commitment, the Business and People Support System (BPSS) will provide effective and efficient arrangements that secures the ability to deploy, pay and support its officers and staff. When fully established the BPSS will have the future ability to onboard to the BEIS [Policy] Cluster of Government Shared Services (GSS) and provide the opportunity to onboard third party public service partners to a shared service provision.”
Challenges: The CNC was part of the Multi-Force Shared Service (MFSS), set up in April 2012. In October 2021, the force took the decision for operational and strategic reasons to part ways. Quite Laterally and Namos were separately awarded the project and undertook the Programme Management and migration of Oracle ERP, EPM, HCM Cloud and associated integrations (e.g. to Crown DMS).
The CNC work in the most challenging and critical environments. There is no let-up in their duties, and no allowances for anything that could be to the detriment of front-line services. Accuracy and security of the data they hold cannot be compromised. This context coupled with an accelerated timeline for implementation, owing to internal and external pressures, meant that delivery in seven months was no mean feat!
The key challenge facing CNC and its supporting teams was ‘copying’ the build (from the Shared Service). This strategy meant it wasn’t always fit for purpose or it wasn’t the way we would do it from scratch, but the team needed to balance the changes with the time-scales that could not shift. This was overcome by the pragmatic way that the CNC approached new ideas and adopted their own new ways of working that sat well with Oracle Cloud.
Partnership: Quite Laterally, Namos Solutions and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary worked in partnership throughout. When inevitable challenges were faced, they were met with a determination not to dwell and a diligence to deliver the right outcomes. Some other key drivers of the success for this project were the strong Project Management and Change Management that was overlaid, both helped with the understanding and engagement of the stakeholders and end-users.
Data Security was Paramount: It was an unnecessary risk to have Training and Test environments with real data. To this end, Namos developed anonymisation routines that (in compliment to Oracle obfuscation) render data untraceable to source. This, coupled with the full raft of Oracle’s military grade security, dedicated data centres, and role and location-based access control, means that data protection is assured.
As this project was an initial move to a bespoke environment for the CNC, everything that was designed had a thought to the subsequent phases that would follow. Advice, guidance, and consulting skills were all utilised to ensure that every decision that was made had the second phases’ modules in mind. Some of the secondary modules were not in-use previously in the shared environment that the CNC were working in, so preparation and future planning was critical to ensure that every phase slotted into place and the CNC did not have any downtime, loss in efficiencies or impact on user experience.
Why were were commended for The ERP Today ‘Transformation Project of the Year’ Award:
Due to the successful delivery of the BPSS Programme, CNC have now bought their Finance, HR and Procurement activities back in-house. This includes multiple key integrations (into Payroll and DMS) Recruitment and Talent, as well as the first delivery of their EPM Solution. Additionally, Crown DMS was upgraded, Payroll was handed across to CGI Managed Services, and a new solution to the Travel Management was delivered using ApEx.
The fundamental success factor to projects is the “One Team” ethos when working with clients and third parties, and this was evident when delivering this project with Quite Laterally, Namos Solutions and the CNC. There were rightly challenges for all to ensure that the project was on time and in budget, but this was balanced with the right amount of humour, teamwork and focus. This implementation was driven to deliver against an aggressive timeline, with key dates to move to the new solution and way of working. The CNC supported their staff with communications, change management and readiness, and Quite Laterally and Namos supported the project team with the right consultants, delivering against a proven methodology to strive and reach success.
A raft of awards was personally presented to the CNC project team members and to the Quite Laterally Programme Manager, who also received exemplary feedback in the strategic report, submitted to the Chief Constable. This was truly a moment to be recognised and shows that the CNC team have been instrumental in building up their own in-house support and a strong BAU Target Operating Model.
Namos now provide Managed Services, working in partnership with the operational teams at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary to ensure that there is continuity from the fantastic achievements of the project, and continually into service improvement. As well as providing ‘fix on fail’ support, the teams work together to test and adopt new features from quarterly releases. The ethos of the service is to minimise risk whilst maximising return on investment.
And finally, these words from Duncan Worsall, former Chief Superintendent at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, really say just why this project was commended for ‘Transformation Project of the Year’: “The CNC has a no-fail critical mission in protecting UK security. As its underpinning business system, the implementation of BPSS was the largest, most complex and time-critical non-operational challenge that the Constabulary has ever faced. Initially, its realisation seemed unachievable and unlikely. Nonetheless, an effective partnership brought the required technical skills, a willingness to help us learn on our journey, and a blend of effort, passion and leadership. Together, we delivered a truly unique success. As a senior Police Officer, it is rewarding to discover that beyond public service, in the for-profit world of commerce and contracts, there is still a place for trust – the universally important ingredient that acts to bond the effort of partners.”
