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Facilitating opportunities for true interoperability
Well another BAPCO Exhibition and Conference has come and gone and the initial feedback from exhibitors and attendees is very positive both around the conference content and just as importantly, the ability to network. The event organisers are still collating the feedback and results will be communicated in the near future.
I feel that for public service providers, this coming year is going to be as challenging as any in the past due to the reconfiguration of some of the blue light services and also the new responsibilities that we all have under the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA). I know that we at BAPCO are keen to assist where possible to help individuals and organisations understand the needs of the CCA and develop generic strategies for the provision of integrated ICT solutions to facilitate organisations to deliver CCA compliance.
Whilst reading the newspapers lately, especially the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal, it brought to my mind how difficult we as professional public safety providers make interoperability and how this seems to be a world wide phenomenon.
It is, therefore, incumbent on us all to promote and move forward the requirement for an interoperability solution at a much faster pace than we currently do. The technical solutions, in the most part, are already in existence; it just requires us all to get together, put aside our perceived service culture differences and decide on the best solutions for each situation, whether they be technical or business process orientated.
I believe that we at BAPCO need to offer our services where possible to facilitate opportunities for different organisations to come together to determine common solutions. I regard this latest incident, where communications once again appear to be a problem, as an opportunity for us to move this agenda forward so that in another year’s time another example of poor information sharing does not result in a delayed, uncoordinated response to solving a future incident or problem such as this.
I am sure we will all offer our support and thoughts to the McCann family and hope that by the time you read this, Madeleine has been returned safe and sound to her family.
Ray Trotter
President
