From fixed contract to flexible foundation: a repeatable model for public sector resilience
Discussions of digital infrastructure as the backbone of Britain's economy often centre around data centres and AI compute. Less visible, but just as foundational, is the network and security layer that sits between a public organisation and the cloud services it depends on. For a police force, that layer is not a back-office concern. It is the foundation beneath every digital service officers and the public rely on, and it shapes what a force can do next.
Avon and Somerset Police faced a decision familiar across the public sector. Its wide area network ran through a single legacy MPLS supplier. All traffic was backhauled through central data centres, cloud access was slow and restricted, security visibility across the estate was low, leaving the team reactive to incidents rather than proactive, and the contract model made meaningful change slow and costly between renewal cycles. The straightforward option was a like-for-like replacement: swap one managed WAN for another and carry on.
The brief was clear: modernise the network and security to enable a cloud-first strategy, stay aligned to national policing strategy, and be secure, scalable and cost-effective. The force chose differently from the obvious route. Working with Cloud Gateway, and procuring through the G-Cloud framework, it moved from a contract-based model to a platform-based one. The platform is UK sovereign and cloud-native, and it lets the force consume new capability as it matures without re-procuring or re-architecting each time.
The shift unlocked capability that the legacy model had quietly capped for years. The force now has direct connectivity to Azure and Oracle cloud, and direct access to national policing networks, from every migrated site, with no backhaul. That single change removed a real barrier to cloud adoption and directly enabled the force's Oracle Fusion ERP programme, replacing a heavily customised on-premises system. A managed firewall service across the estate brought intrusion detection and real-time traffic visibility for the first time, feeding into the force's SIEM and SOC tooling and, through them, the National Management Centre, policing's national security operation.
Single-supplier dependency has gone: the architecture is multi-cloud and multi-provider, so the force is no longer tied to one roadmap or one commercial cycle. With network, traffic and security data now in one place, the force is an active operator of its own network rather than a passive consumer, and capabilities such as secure internet access, SD-WAN and ZTNA can be added as they mature.
The point is not the technology list, though. It is what the foundation does. The direct value is public money spent well: capability adopted incrementally rather than through repeated, disruptive re-procurement, alongside modern bandwidth and hardware across the force's 50 sites. The indirect value is larger. Faster, more reliable access makes officers and staff more productive, and a stretched IT and security team can work ahead of incidents rather than react to them. The network now supports, rather than blocks, the force's wider transformation, underpinning concurrent major programmes, an Azure data centre migration alongside the ERP rollout among them, without disruption. Resilience and national security run through all of it: real-time threat visibility, reduced exposure to ransomware and lateral movement, and a sovereign platform handling sensitive data.
What makes this an exemplar rather than a one-off is that the model is scalable and repeatable. Nothing about the approach is unique to Avon and Somerset. It was procured through a framework open to every force, built on a sovereign platform, delivered in phases so a force can modernise safely and at pace, and aligned to national direction including the Police Digital Service blueprint. Cloud Gateway brought in specialist partners to support this work, because the platform model lets an organisation assemble the right capabilities rather than accept a single supplier's limits. The result is a blueprint, not a bespoke build.
The wider lesson reaches well beyond policing. Digital infrastructure is a strategic national asset, and for the public sector its value is unlocked or constrained by a structural choice: whether an organisation treats its network as a fixed service it consumes, or a flexible foundation it operates and builds on. Avon and Somerset chose the latter, and in doing so rebuilt the foundation that every future digital initiative will rely on. Multiplied across UK policing and the wider public sector, that is how digital infrastructure translates into resilience, productivity and long-term value for the communities these services serve.
Meet the Team
Chris Hazell
Josh Turpin
Josh Turpin
Josh joined techUK as a Programme Manager for Telecoms and Net Zero in August 2024.
In this role, working jointly across the techUK Telecoms and Climate Programmes, Josh is responsible for leading on telecoms infrastructure deployment and uptake and supporting innovation opportunities, as well as looking at how the tech sector can be further utilised in the UK’s decarbonisation efforts.
Prior to joining techUK, Josh’s background was in public affairs and communications, working for organisations across a diverse portfolio of sectors including defence, telecoms and infrastructure; aiding clients through stakeholder engagement, crisis communications, media outreach as well as secretariat duties.
Outside of work, Josh has a keen interest in music, painting and sailing.
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