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Force must act “corporately” as regards mobile information solutions – Flanagan Review
The Review of Policing by Sir Ronnie Flanagan (final report) has been published – here is a summary of the IT/communications-related points raised in the lengthy report.
The report aims to offer a vision for what policing well into the 21st century should look like.
Policing must deploy its resources to fight the threats that the public face, and given the range of demands on policing and the changing nature of the world, “this will mean dynamic and flexible policing”.
The report calls for a new system and structure of the police in England and Wales, to ensure officers and staff are in “the right places at the right times to protect the public.”
This will mean not only in-depth assessment of where officers can make the biggest difference, but also “better demand management and procurement and fully exploiting the benefits of new technology, such as global positioning systems, to maximise the resources to be deployed on the frontline in the most effective ways possible.”
It calls for opportunities to reduce the needless drain of unnecessary bureaucracy, to reduce it in “ways equivalent to more than 3,000 additional officers.”
Sir Flanagan acknowledges the NPIA’s role in spreading good practice amongst forces, but calls for it to learn from similar organisations in other parts of the public sector, to make “best practice expected practice”.
The Review quotes Leicestershire’s use of the IR3 system to map response units more closely to demand. “The system is an IT tool that maps in real time where incidents are taking place. This is linked to command and control incident data, duty rotas and skills/accreditation data; which is in turn linked to automatic tracking devices for vehicles and Airwave radios. The tool can also look retrospectively at where a vehicle has gone throughout a shift.”
Sir Flanagan points out the benefits of this technology: dramatic reduction in self-deployment, substantially reducing multiple deployment and improving response times through automatic identification and deployment of the nearest available unit. “Officer time spent in priority areas has significantly increased, and there are sizable savings in mileage and through the disposal of underused vehicles.”
The report admits that although frontline officers have enthusiastically embraced technology and equipment, the force has not acted “corporately in the implementation of these technologies.” Databases, for instance, are not linked across forces resulting in large amounts of duplication – up to 70 per cent of information is entered into police systems more than once.
Mobile technologies
The total cost to a force for equipping a police officer with mobile IT is estimated at £3-5,000 per officer over five years. “This cost would be driven down if we took a more joined approach to the introduction of business processes enabled by new technologies.”
Sir Flanagan outlines the benefits of mobile technology:
- one force estimates to have saved 51 minutes per frontline officer through the use of PDAs
- another (the first to trial body worn cameras) estimates a 22 per cent reduction in officer time spent on paperwork and file preparation.
The benefits of body worn digital recording devices are described as “considerable”. They improve the quality of evidence at incidents, and no complaints have been recorded against officers using this equipment. “The HO is currently working with forces to trial the use of body worn cameras more widely across the police service.”
The report acknowledges the trials will need to consider the wider costs and benefits across policing and issues such as re-engineering back office processes, as well any impact on the relationship between the police and local communities.
Acting corporately
Acting “corporately” means overhauling how existing databases and systems interact.
“I am aware of several forces who have removed the need for duplicate entry of information for stop and search through mobile technology. Other forces have changed their Crime Recording system to allow them to pre-populate a CRIME form with the relevant details and reduce the need for officers to ask the same questions again. We must ensure our existing processes and systems are efficient, and do not waste officer time. Once we have got this right, we can see the true benefits of mobile technology.”
Not acting corporately in mobile information solutions will result in wasting millions of pounds on 43 different but similar IT solutions for operational processes that are based on the same criminal law. “Similarly, we have yet to make the progress that is required to reduce bureaucracy by standardising forms and data-sets.”
The nightmare scenario is investing in technology and yet become more bureaucratic.
The NPIA should begin building a standard process for use across forces, addressing double entry and the use of standard IT and mobile devices across all forces. This should include the creation of minimum standards for forces in areas such as GIS mapping and AVLS.
Not adopting a force-wide approach would mean losing the benefits of new mobile technology initiatives. Sir Flanagan believes adopting a system where each force chooses the “best solution” for its particular circumstances (in a local market) is missing the point. 43 solutions for 43 forces is a “potentially huge loss of opportunity” likely to further complicate processes and systems.
For body camera footage to be truly valuable it should replace written statements. For hand helds to free up officer time they should replace note books. CPS, Courts Service etc are unlikely to agree to major changes to evidential process if the service cannot act corporately.
Central command
In the past the force has suffered due to there being no central body to compel change nationally. Airwave took almost 10 years to implement and it is now demonstrating real benefits.
“I believe that encouraging, and if needs be, mandating common approaches on non operational issues is genuinely the only way to reduce bureaucracy and maintain its reduction.” Sir Flanagan adds that a forthcoming HO green paper is an excellent opportunity to consult on the issue of whether regional collaboration should be mandated as regards IT systems, Air Support, uniforms etc.
A substantial part of the report is given to the subject of reducing the administrative burden of frontline police officers. Although most of the 2002 O’Dowd Report’s 52 recommendations have been implemented, 20 per cent of time is still spent on paperwork.
Crime recording
The report calls for a new two-tiered approach to crime recording:
- serious crime, which represents 20 per cent of all crime and must continue to be fully recorded.
- local crime: “I recommend that these matters are recorded in a much more concise way, which would avoid the need to complete the long reports that are used in some forces.”
Reducing the amount of non-essential information capture has been estimated in a medium sized force to free up approximately 40,000 hours per year – a huge saving that could be reinvested in frontline policing.
The Review calls for a new streamlined recording process to be trialled form the beginning of 2008 for a four-month period. “This new process will ensure that crimes are subject to proportionate recording, with reduction in the information recorded for many crimes down to that required to meet national standards but with more comprehensive recording for more serious crimes.
Stop and Account
As regards Stop and Account, Sir Flanagan outlined that it consumed over 48,000 hours annually of officers’ time – not including the time taken to log each form once it is returned to the station, or the time spent checking and countersigning each form.
“In this area I believe there are savings and gains to be made by streamlining the exiting process through the use of mobile data systems.”
He adds that he has explored with Airwave the practicality of an officer digitally recording the details of the encounter verbally. “I am assured that this can be done in a way that ensures there is a good record of the individual encounter as presently exists and that such a database can be subsequently interrogated to ensure proportionality etc.”
This could be complemented by the officer giving the member of the public a record of their identity and the date/time/place of the encounter. Sir Paul Scott-Lee, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police will trial this scheme. “A period of three to four months should be sufficient to validate the new process which should then be rolled out nationally. Indeed, its application at that stage could be considered also for ‘Stop and Search’ albeit with the current level of data for ‘Stop and Search’.”
If Flanagan’s bureaucracy approaches are released, he believes between five and seven million hours could be released nationally, equivalent to 2,500- 3,000 officers.
101 Programme
The piloting of the Single Non-Emergency Number 101 Programme is cited as an example of a successful example of effective partnership. The project involving five sites covering 10 per cent of the population of England and Wales provided a single point of contact for reporting many local problems such as rowdy behaviour.
The scheme was anticipated to be rolled out nationwide, except funding was withdrawn by the HO. Nevertheless funding by police forces and councils could be continued, and the Greater London Assembly, Metropolitan Police, London councils and boroughs are to pilot a new 101 service during 2008. The HO decision taken in 2007 is described by Sir Flanagan as “regrettable”, and he recommends that the HO and CLG ensure that learning form the programme is shared with all community safety partners, and that they identify how to encourage the mainstreaming of this approach into local operations.
Local policing summaries
Although the police service has a duty of providing local policing summaries Sir Flanagan does not feel these currently provide what people actually want. He feels at ward level there is a need for information on neighbourhood management activities and outcomes that is available and relevant to local residents and businesses. “This could be web-based and if genuinely multi-service, provided by the local authority.”
