Capita acquired Cedar HR back in September 2011 for £15m to bring new market opportunities to the group. At the time there was much talk of police turning to technology and outsourcing for efficiency but a period of indecision preceded and followed the first-ever election of police and crime commissioners in November 2012. Against this backdrop, the Cedar seed has slowly geminated and started to grow with Capita today announcing a second high profile win in the relatively small U.K. police sector.  The £1.25m contract has been awarded by North Yorkshire Police for five years to provision Origin HR (the rebadged Cedar HR), training and duty management software and to manage data for the applications and, optionally, for health and safety.

This is the second signifcant contract win for Capita driven by the Cedar HR acquisition. The other was in May 2012, an award by Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire police forces to share back office services under a collaborative agreement. The deal involved Capita deploying Origin to manage all three forces’ data for HR, training, duty management, and health and safety under a contract worth £2.3m over 5 years.

More opportunities are to be expected in the U.K. polic sector, as forces deal with further budget cuts.