Contract Awarded with Environment Agency

To help meet changing legislation and data security requirements, the Environment Agency has awarded a contract to QinetiQ (UK), a provider of cyber security solutions, and SynApps Solutions, the content management solutions company, to develop a new cloud based case management system. The new system will help Environment Agency employees to manage changes in dam safety regulations arising from the Flood and Water Management Act 2010.

QinetiQ will be project managing the delivery of the system, bringing together specialist implementation services of SynApps solutions, managed security services of QinetiQ and the infrastructure and software from Cloud Alliance Partner Skyscape, to deliver an overall solution for the Environment Agency. 

The new case management system will be based on the market-leading Documentum EDM/EDRM platform from EMC as provided under QinetiQ’s Case Management in the Cloud service. The core service will be configured and extended to meet the Agency’s requirements by SynApps Solution’s experts and will be security monitored by QinetiQ’s industry-leading Security Operations Centre, enabling the project to be the first pan-government accredited implementation of the core EMC product.

The system will help the Environment Agency to meet its obligations under the new legislation and manage information more efficiently, allowing the service to handle larger volumes of data. It is also anticipated that the new platform will be much more intuitive, bringing together all documentation and business processes relating to a target reservoir in one place.

Roger Lewis, the Environment Agency’s regulatory team leader and project executive, said, “We expect the system will be easy for staff to use, so that we can efficiently handle large volumes of information.  It will help us to perform our regulatory role more effectively and keep English dams safe.”

Kevin Lehane, Project Manager at the Environment Agency, explains, “It’s working very well; we have a very good relationship with QinetiQ and SynApps. There are small dedicated teams on both sides who are in contact two or three times a day to clarify requirements and keep each other updated and it’s all very positive.”

“QinetiQ are delighted to be pioneering with the Environment Agency on delivering secure Software as a Service (SaaS) to government. This project is one of the first examples under G-Cloud of an accredited SaaS provision and we hope it will act as an exemplar for future G-Cloud procurements” says Chris Johnson, Managing Director of Security at QinetiQ.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with the Environment Agency to help it take advantage of the twin innovations in government IT of Cloud and Agile,” says Jim Whitelaw, Managing Director of SynApps. “We are 100% committed to ensuring the benefits of the Environment Agency and thus the taxpayer’s investment are fully realised.”

The tendering process for the project was managed via the UK Government’s G-Cloud procurement framework and the final contract was awarded to QinetiQ in partnership with SynApps Solutions. The system is expected to go live in mid-December 2013, following deployment, testing and data migration from the old system.