Missing People
Missing People is the UK's only charity that works with young runaways, missing and unidentified people, their families and others who care for them. As well as actively searching for missing people and supporting those who are trying to find them, the charity offers three other services:
• Runaway Helpline (for young runaways)
• Message Home (for missing adults)
• Identification (helping to resolve cases of unidentified people)
Missing People work in partnership with police forces in England and Wales under the terms of the National Protocol Agreement. This creates a single, national mechanism for exchange of data, and its subsequent processing and monitoring by police and Missing People. The agreement creates a gateway through which to access the range of services that Missing People offers to support police, at no charge. These services include emotional support to the families or carers of the missing, publicity, poster production and distribution and enquiries to support the investigation.
In order to cope with this work and as part of the same 'Invest to Save' Missing Persons Project, Badger Software was initially commissioned to review the existing systems and databases in place at Missing People and propose a solution which would improve the case management process and data flow. Following this study, Badger developed HERMES, an integrated solution which brought several "legacy" database applications together into one, single, easy to manage system which also fulfilled the requirements for information sharing with police.
HERMES was developed with ease of use and performance in mind, using industry standard Microsoft development tools and database technologies. The entire project, from initial specification to live operation, was completed within one year. It features a modern, friendly user-interface, sophisticated search and matching facilities and is capable of receiving data in an open XML format from other Missing Persons systems in use by UK Police Forces.
The combination of a Microsoft .Net "Smart Client" application and a well-tuned SQL Server database has provided Missing People with a robust and future-proof platform for their case management needs.
Badger Software Ltd was commissioned to develop HERMES in partnership with the Mott MacDonald Group