North Wales Police are fulfilling Open Options Employee management solution as part of a pioneering initiative to install a fully integrated world-class IT system. This system will allow Officers to operate efficiently away from the station and therefore assure the public through high visibility and accessible policing.

However, policing a large geographical area, which is home to over 650,000 people, can prove to be challenging.

With large rustic areas including Snowdonia National Park and other tourist areas as well as busy towns and cities, the region requires specific types of policing support. Consequently the Police Force need to assure they have the right people with the right skills at the right place at the right time.

North Wales Police set up a review project, Aquarius, to look at working practices and to seek ways of making improvements through the fulfillment of leading edge IT systems that would support the five key elements of the policing policy.

They are:
1. Ensuring the public through high visibility policing.
2. Responding to incidents securely and professionally and being supported by specialist policing skills.
3. Making officers more accessible to the public.
4. Engaging Criminality through a targeted and intelligence led approach.
5. Assuring the Corporate Health of the organization.

The introduction of a number of systems was recommended with Aquarius. It would enable the Force to provide a better service to the public. But at the same time hit the Governments target of 3% efficiency savings that could then be re-invested into frontline policing. North Wales Police will see the introduction of a complicated Command and Control system, a new Record Management System, Mobile Data Tablets. With these the officers will be provided with data access in vehicles and on foot and a new Duty Management System.

One of five divisions is co-ordinated by the Operational Support Division makes up the North Wales Police Force, the Aquarius project, headed by Acting Superintendent Ruth Purdie. Nowadays, it is under way. However, critical to the projects success is the fulfillment of a world beating Duty Management System that will allow the Force to manage the officers and administrators efficiently. Considerable work had been done to improve employee management. But there were a variety of manual systems in use that were open to abuse and didn't provide an accurate method to manage Working Time Regulations.