GMP and BlackBerry® win Best Public Sector Project at National Tech Awards

                                   

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and BlackBerry® were winners of the Best Public Sector Project award at this year's National Technology Awards. The award recognised the enhancements in major incident response, accountability and efficiency of operational staff resources that GMP has achieved with the BlackBerry® AtHoc® critical event management (CEM) system.

The National Technology Awards - organised by National Technology News - celebrates the use of technology and its pioneers throughout the year.

GMP were winners of the award following the Force's use of BlackBerry® AtHoc® - a critical event management system that increases the speed, accuracy and accountability of communications between first responders and other agencies in an emergency situation. Messages can be sent securely and concurrently to staff’s mobile phones and to key partner control rooms to make them aware of events and important updates whilst automatically collating responses from recipients. Using AtHoc®, GMP has been able to notify, cascade vital information and log acknowledgements from all key partners and responders in less than 10 minutes.

This is the second consecutive year, that GMP and BlackBerry® have been announced as winners of a prestigious National Technology Award after taking home the Mobile Innovation of the Year award in September 2021, for the use of AtHoc® for resourcing and staff welfare communications during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since then, the Force has extended use of the application into its core purpose – major incident reporting and response – which has revolutionised GMP's ability to cascade critical information to multiple public and private sector partners to support a fast, accurate and coordinated response to incidents and events.

The award ceremony took place on Thursday 26 May 2022, at the London Marriott Grove hotel in London, where the winners of each category were announced. The complete list of winners is available to view here.

Inspector Darren Spurgeon, GMP’s Mobile Business Change Manager, said: “To be named as winners for a second-year running is an outstanding achievement. I'm extremely proud that our work alongside partners BlackBerry®, as well as the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, North West Ambulance Service, British Transport Police, Transport for Greater Manchester & HM Coroners has been recognised.

"AtHoc has become an integral part of daily business, enabling us to reach out to staff and local partners to cascade critical information at the click of a button. The Force has embraced the introduction of the new technology and receiving a second award is a testament to that."

Chris Ullah, Senior Enterprise Account Manager at BlackBerry®, added: “Speed and accuracy of response depend on an effective system for communications. For the police, that means within the Force itself but, equally, in co-ordination with the many organisations that form an effective emergency activation. We’re honoured to work alongside GMP in tackling this complex – yet critical – challenge and be recognised for the improvements in incident response, as well as day to day activity, that AtHoc® technology supports.”