BT Training Course

1. Whether, during the length of their career, any of your chief officer team (including police staff) have attended the BT (British Telecom) Vital Vision programme or any other course which is paid for, in total or in part, by BT.

2. If so - and they attended the course/courses while serving with your force - could you tell me how much it cost your force for the officer/police staff member to attend the course/courses. i.e. cost of flights/accommodation/meals etc

3. And on what date(s) the officer/police staff member attended the course/courses

Whether your force has any current contracts with BT, and if so:

4. What the contracts are for, i.e. IT etc

5. The value of each contract

6. When the contract(s) began

In accordance with section 1 (1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

Please note: for ease I have numbered your questions.

1, 2 & 3 No Chief Officers from Cheshire have attended such a course.

4. The bulk of Cheshire Police's telecoms service are provided by Affiniti, Cable & Wireless and O2 however there are some services still with BT. We have two contracts with BT managed by IT Services - one for Data Circuits (ISDN Lines etc) and one for general PSTN Services both under Buying Solutions.

5. The Data circuit contract is approx £40,000 per annum and is in the main decreasing as circuits are ceased and services placed across the Force's VOIP Network managed by Affiniti.
The PSTN Contract is usage based and mainly encompasses calls made by the Force's Call Management Department. Based on bills across the last 12 months the average per annum would be £30,000.

6. The services provided by BT have been in place for a number of years. The current contracts have been in place since April 2008.