Background

Essex Police Authority is an independent organisation whose job it is to support and oversee the work of the Essex Police. Essex Police Authority’s role is to be a link between the public and the police service. They aim to ensure that anyone who may visit, live or work in Essex receives an effective and efficient police service. Essex Police operates across 1,400 square miles, an area that houses five large towns, Stansted airport and one of the largest coastlines in the UK. Essex has a population of just over 1.6 million. However Stansted airport and the ports of Tilbury and Harwich within the Essex borders bring millions of visitors to the UK every year. The county is linked by a number of key roads including the M25, M11, A12 and A13. For policing purposes Essex is split into five territorial divisions plus Stansted Airport. These are supported by three centrally co-ordinated divisions: crime, mobile support and communications.

Problem

The old Essex Police web site was out dated and difficult to maintain.  They desperately needed a new digital strategy and website.  Looking for the best possible return on investment the Essex Police and the Essex Police Authority decided to completely redesign their websites and place digital at the centre of their communication strategy.

One of the key issues was to create a website which would appeal to a diverse audience, prove that it had helped raise awareness of crime and crime prevention and provide a platform to engage with the public and other stakeholders thus communicating more effectively with the community and the Essex police authority and staff.

Solution

Unified Solutions built the new Essex Police website on the Alterian CMC (formerly known as Immediacy)

The Alterian CMC is one of the easiest to use Web Content Management Software products, yet offers developers the scope, power and flexibility to extend the range of the product to accommodate any future needs.  It has a familiar Microsoft Office-like interface and intuitive operation, which makes it quick and easy for the Essex Police to develop, revise and manage the content. The software includes innovative accessibility features to help editors and contributors to create content to W3C accessibility standards and, crucially, to maintain these standards over time.

The Alterian CMC plug-in architecture made the software popular with the media team at Essex who can add or extend system functionality, as and when needed.  Unified Solutions used a wide range of standard and premium plug-ins to enhance the interactive and transactional web elements, such as the form builder, a clickable breadcrumb trail, a rotating headline banner and FAQ databases.

Alterian CMC websites are highly visible to search engines such as Google and Yahoo because the software creates the XHTML 1.0 strict-validated code that search engines prefer. Very effective organic search results can be achieved when this is combined with search engine marketing techniques such as keyword optimisation, friendly URLs and meta-rich page content. Unified also installed Google translate and the site can now be translated into 52 languages.

The Taxonomy and Categorisation Manager (TCM) module provides automated addition of “tags” and categorisation of content which has helped make the content much more ‘findable’. The Alterian CMC allows editors to add keywords, categories and descriptions to content, TCM makes this process far easier. Using a customised media interface the site features a wealth of audio and video content which allows visitors to hear and see crime prevention information.

The Essex Police have an in house video team and it was felt that information about crime prevention could be communicated with humour and in a light hearted fashion while’st at the same time conveying important messages. Visitors of the new website can now find information on Neighbourhood Policing and have the ability to personalise their visit by entering their postcode to easily find contact details to officers covering their local area. The Neighbourhood Police area of the website addresses and reflects people’s concerns within their local neighbourhood providing reassurances to the community through up to date content and access to vital information. This content is added by the local teams themselves however as it was felt this input would be kept to a minimum and the budget did not extend to the full Alterian enterprise licence.

Unified Solutions created a separate application for the NPT, essentially a separate extranet which enabled all 373 local areas to update their own pages outside of the Alterian CMS. This updated information is automatically fed into the National Policing Improvement Agency NIPA CrimeMapper database thus eliminating the need for additional updates to be submitted separately. RSS feeds embedded within the site change dynamically and keep visitors up to date with traffic and weather news.

The new design allows Essex Police to control imagery on the homepage and enables them to promote and reflect events in Essex such as festivals, activities and changes in the season e.g. snow, winter, autumn. Essex Police want to encourage members of the community to contribute content such as images, feedback onto the website. In order to capture public perception and give them the ability to comment on articles through a moderated process, polls and surveys are readily available, and can be created with ease.  In addition all new jobs can be advertised online and users can sign up for e-mail alerts for updates.

Claire Ziwa stated that  “Unified Solutions came highly recommended, their work with other Police Authorities and their expertise with large public sector websites convinced us that they were a safe pair of hands for the redevelopment of our website. The Unified team managed the project with impressive efficiency and the new site was launched on time, and within budget. Feedback from local residents, Essex Police employees and other website visitors has been overwhelmingly positive.”  

Results

By combining our expertise in creativity, interactivity and the Alterian technology, Unified Solutions have delivered a website that is visually striking, engaging and highly interactive. This is a digital experience which ensures that visitors to the site feel informed, inspired and encouraged by the work of Essex Police Authority.