New Initsys module brings Martyn's Law to local government 

August 2021: CRJ Partner Initsys is pleased to lauch a new module: Venue Manager. It allows town and city councils to comply with Martyn's Law and improve their interaction with the Civil Contingencies Act (2004)

 _{Many towns and cities now have command and control centres or street CCTV control rooms that can be adapted to engage with the venue and public space. Image: Sithhinan/123rf}

Martyn's Law is currently in its final stages before approval. Its aim is precise – to ensure the proper training and planning for terrorist incidents.
 
Many towns and cities now have command and control centres or street CCTV control rooms that can be adapted to engage with the venue and public space. These should have plans to adopt if an incident occurs.
 
Where plans exist, they are often paper-based and require operations personnel to be constantly trained on their implementation. Programmes can be open to interpretation, and in the case of significant incidents, mistakes occur because staff panic. 
 
Initsys Merlin Neon Edition provides several pre-built and adaptable modules triggered by touch screen buttons, apps, and Merlin itself. Each plan is an actionable script with options auto-handled, such as personnel calling and notification. It is ideally suited to allow local authorities – town and city schemes – to provide a low cost planning system to venues within their districts that is controlled centrally, but managed locally.
 
Merlin provides a more straightforward and more effective response when events challenge staff. Downloadable apps enable staff at the venue to call for assistance and trigger a localised plan without drawing attention. The addition of ICETAG gives the ability for geo location even within a venue.
 
Programmes can start sub-actions and fork depending on incident maturity. Building plans can be stored and despatched as part of an incident web page that is built on demand.
Senior managers may adapt a plan at any time or in conjunction with the Initsys Bureau.
Pre-defined plans include a crisis-communication plan, incident notification, legal plan and threat management. Each has been tested and used in commercial and government environments. Other plans can be built on demand.
 
Merlin can have a venue-specific programme designed to the venue's needs, based on size and the type of public-facing threat. This meets entirely the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) as well as the proposals encompassed in Martyn's Law.
 
As an incident occurs, users and stakeholders can add notes and actions to the log at any time and categorisation of these notes can range from 'urgent' to 'notification only'.
 
Initsys Merlin also provides an interface to almost all CCTV systems found in town and city surveillance. Merlin will enable the collection and dissemination of vital recordings (from the point of trigger and bookmark) and live views on demand via its secure WebRTC interface. Merlin treats CCTV as a single global entity with a standard interface without the control room staff or police required to understand individual CCTV elements.
 
Full GIS capability in Merlin allows the rapid identification, display, plot and filter of live information.
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The Video Wall module controls all aspects of the wall, when to show dashboards, cameras by time/date/event and incident maturity. The wall can be replicated remotely to as many stakeholders as required.
 
Merlin Venue Manager is a combination of Apps, Control Software, Information Dashboards and Input Modules.
 
 
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