Memorandum submitted by from Unisys
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
— Unisys' responses are made from the
perspective of Industry's involvement in the CONTEST process.
— The Home Office does not have access
to a range of System Integrators, as were created and supported
by the Ministry of Defence during the IRA's mainland bombing campaign.
— Such integrators are needed to utilise
and adapt the existing industrial base to meet the particular
needs of Counter-Terrorism, a task that cannot be achieved through
the Home Office's existing procurement process.
— The defence industrial base is not
entirely suited to meet the requirements of Counter-Terrorism,
which cannot be met simply by "dumbing down" defence
solutions.
— The Home Office should establish
a Strategic Supplier Group specifically for CONTEST, "owned"
by the OSCT.
— OSCT's recent designation of a full-time
Industry Liaison Officer is welcome, but progress to date has
been slow.
— The pace at which Industry manages
and changes the Critical National infrastructure is a challenge
to Government efforts to protect it. Government has to be able
to move as fast. This requires a more intimate relationship with
Industry, which must embrace the Government's own R&D base.
— Industry is in a position to tackle
vulnerabilities in the fields of, especially, Transportation and
Crowded Places, but Government needs to make it clear whether
the approach is to be Threat-driven, Capability-driven or Evidence-based.
— It would be a worthwhile contingency
for the Government to invest a modest amount through a Strategic
Supplier Group on demonstrating solutions to such problems.
PREPARE: THE
WORKING OF
THE OFFICE
FOR SECURITY
AND COUNTER-TERRORISM
1. Industry is a crucial stakeholder in
supporting and providing the Critical National Infrastructure,
very little of which is now directly owned by Government.
2. This fragility has been understood by
Government since the early 1990s and the IRA's mainland bombing
campaign when the Ministry of Defence was the focus for most of
the industry response to countering terrorism.
3. Rightly, since 9/11 and, more importantly,
the launch of CONTEST, the Home Office and, specifically OSCT,
have taken the lead. The difference between the MoD and Home Office
leading is quite stark, but the main and obvious difference is
that the Home Office-industry linkage for providing support and
assistance for national and critical responses to events is weak
in comparison to 10 years ago.
4. The MoD were fortunate in that they could
utilise an existing industrial base and adapt it to the asymmetry
of Counter-Terrorism. As such they created and supported a small
number of System Integrators—not too large that the UK Government
were just another client; not too small that the System Integrator
could not cope with the risk of short notice readiness—who
were capable, accredited and responsive to UK Government requirements.
These companies do not exist now.
5. Expecting traditional industries to support
CONTEST and Counter-Terrorism efforts would be wrong. Most of
these suppliers are large and come from the Defence Industrial
base. Counter-Terrorism is conducted under the rule of law. Solutions
for it need also to be based within a rule of law context—apprehend
and bring to justice—rather than a defence basis—locate
and kill. Dumbing down defence solutions will not necessarily
meet the requirement or provide good value for money.
6. The Home Office approach to procurement
is different to that of the MoD. The MoD had a well oiled machine
for Urgent Operational Requirement procurement and Operational
Emergency procurement, born out of necessity in-theatre, and they
still do. The Home Office has the restricted procurement process
through OJEU but little else. It also has a "gene pool"
of suppliers for Counter-Terrorism, but these are mostly small
to medium sized enterprises. Very few of these suppliers are System
Integrators with the breadth to take on sophisticated Counter-Terrorism
systems. There is a Strategic Supplier Relationship Group but
this is mostly equipped to provide IT, not to respond to the specific
needs of Counter-Terrorism.
7. OSCT has laudably initiated an engagement
with industry through RISC (Security and Resilience Industry Suppliers
Council) within which INTELLECT, the ICT trade body, has been
most active. However little of practical value is yet to be achieved
by RISC although INTELLECT has provided some very useful information
through its Resilience and Security website.
8. Unisys suggests a similar such body to
the Strategic Supplier Relationship Group be created by the Home
Office specifically for CONTEST and "owned" by OSCT.
This small group of System Integrators would be established through,
say, a Framework Agreement, and kept current and responsive by
providing the Home Office with Technology Demonstrators of solutions
to various challenges. The checks and balances of ensuring the
"gene pool" is also engaged is straight forward. The
NIS Strategic Supplier Group Framework is a good example of how
to set this up.
9. OSCT has also recently designated a full-time
Industry Liaison Officer to improve dialogue with Industry. Unisys
applauds this but is concerned at the time it took to take this
step after the publication of the Science and Technology Strategy.
The tempo of progress reinforces the view that, unless industry
has been prepared to respond, it will not be able to in the time
frames desired.
10. This greater "connection"
with Industry must also include the Government R&D base, in
this case DSTL, the Counter-Terrorism Centre and Home Office Scientific
Development Branch. Efforts are made by them all in the course
of normal business but the processes are either traditional (through
the CATALIST procurement mechanism) or ad hoc. It was hoped that
the Science and Technology Strategy for Counter-Terrorism would
sort this out, but so far it has not.
PROTECT: PREPARATION
OF THE
UK'S INFRASTRUCTURE
AGAINST TERRORIST
ATTACK, IN
PARTICULAR, TRANSPORT
SYSTEMS AND
CROWDED AND
VULNERABLE PLACES
11. Industry has an intimate and important
role in supporting the Preparation of the UK within CONTEST.
12. Industry owns much of the Critical National
infrastructure which may be targeted by terrorists and need to
be part of the exercise process.
13. Industry processes are more nimble and
flexible to changes in society and the markets than Government.
This means that the way they manage the Critical National Infrastructure
changes rapidly too. It will be too late to find out that fundamental
processes have changed at the time of an event—the September
2000 fuel protest is a good example of a non-terrorist catastrophic
event. The floods of 2007 would be another.
14. The Industry Panel announced under the
National Security Strategy that exhibited a desire to involve
industry more was a good step, but little has happened.
15. Industry has a number of solutions to
addressing the vulnerabilities in Transportation and Crowded Places,
two of the most recent areas of greatest concern, current still
with London 2012 looming. Unisys believes that these challenges
require Government to go back to the fundamentals of requirement
definition: is the approach to be Threat-driven, Evidence-based
or Capability-driven?
16. Threat-driven is where we are now in
engagement-with-Industry terms—waiting for something to
happen and then trying to respond in the shortest possible time
with a solution that solves the immediate problem. It is the most
costly approach.
17. CONTEST, by contrast, is very much Capability-driven:
this is what we can do, so create a system that brings coherence
to all the many efforts so that we have only one system to address
the myriad of threats. It is the least costly approach but looks
expensive to set up. However CONTEST does not extend to Industry
engagement for procurement.
18. Evidence-based is a compromise, used
when funds are short: we know we may have a threat (against Crowded
Places for instance) but where is the evidence to say this has
ever happened before? Hence how can you justify what may turn
out to be an expensive nugatory expenditure of funds on something
that evidence supports may never happen?
19. Creating a Strategic Suppliers Group
of System Integrators and providing them a small amount of work
to demonstrate solutions to these problems is a worthwhile contingency
that invests in solutions, improves knowledge of what is possible
between lab demonstrations in R&D and what Industry can practically
roll out and by when and acts to both PROTECT and PREPARE in terms
of CONTEST and Industry.
PURSUE: THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF
INTELLIGENCE FUSION
CENTRES OUTSIDE
LONDON
20. Unisys has no evidence to submit on
this.
As a System Integrator, Unisys has had an intimate
involvement with the UK Critical Infrastructure for some time.
As well as providing every police force in the UK with an investigative
case management application (HOLMES) for managing major crime,
it supports the Metropolitan Police command and control system
(999) and other applications. Unisys has, over the years, had
involvement with a number of UK Government Departments and underpins
many of the UK's financial management systems. In the United States,
Unisys has been the major System Integrator to the Department
of Homeland Security and the Transport Security Agency. Globally
we provide the application for the aviation supply chain and the
US Department of Defense with a global tracking system for their
container freight.
January 2009
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