Policing needs to unlock the power of data and technology, says new report

It says these challenges are “stifling the full potential of data, digital and technology to transform modern policing”.

The report, produced in partnership with Virgin Media O2 Business, provides a strategic roadmap for police forces to make the most of digital systems, data and technology. It addresses the challenges with using technology, including upgrading outdated technology and unifying data management systems – both of which will be critical to modernisation.

The report makes a number of recommendations to enable officers to work more efficiently and use data to empower them with real-time insights, including:

• Develop a national strategy for interoperability enabling all 43 police forces to integrate their technology and share data;
• Invest in modern, scalable technology to transition from outdated systems to cloud-based platforms, real-time data and AI (artificial intelligence) insights; and
• Change the leadership culture to promote technological literacy at senior and executive leadership levels, ensuring that decision-makers understand the benefits of innovation and act accordingly.

Rick Muir, director of the Police Foundation, said the police service is not realising the potential of digital, data and technology.

“Too many police officers complain of having to enter the same data multiple times on different systems, of not having access to the right technology at work and of having to work with equipment that is much slower and more cumbersome than that which they use in their personal lives,” he said.

“Too many national police technology programmes have wasted vast sums of money while simultaneously failing to deliver the transformed service they promised.

“The programme to deliver the Emergency Services Network, which was supposed to replace the Airwave emergency services communication system, was launched in 2015 but a decade on has still not been delivered and has cost £2 billion. The Law Enforcement Data Service programme began work in 2016, has still not been delivered and has cost (at £1.1 billion) 68 per cent more than envisaged.

“Too much police data, far from flowing through the system to enable intelligent decision making, is locked away on local police servers, unable to be shared with colleagues in other parts of the country or with other public service professionals locally.

“This not a dry technical matter: in a business like policing an inability to share information about people, places and incidents can be a matter of life and death.

“It is 20 years since the Bichard report into the Soham murders which found that a lack of information sharing between constabularies had meant Ian Huntley was able to become a school caretaker.  He went on to murder Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. These issues have still not been adequately resolved.”

Mr Muir said it is estimated that 90 per cent of the money invested in police technology is spent on maintaining existing and often outdated systems rather than on the new technologies that could transform the service in the future.

However, he noted there have been some successes: the roll out of Office 365 to all forces during the pandemic, the creation of much easier forms of digital public content through the Single Online Home programme and the now widespread use of body-worn video.

“Nevertheless, the big picture is of a police service that has failed to unlock the potential of digital, data and technology,” he said.

“There remains a culture in policing that still doesn’t fundamentally ‘get’ the importance of data to the business and tends to focus on buying ‘shiny new things’ rather than seeing the utilisation of data as a core part of business change.

“As Dame Lynne Owens said in our recent annual lecture: ‘I have yet to hear a single rational reason why 43 different approaches to IT and infrastructure investment is sensible.’

“Large amounts of money are spent on national technology programmes that operate in silos, are insufficiently coordinated and do not work to a single strategy.

“Most of the power and money is vested in 43 police forces who make their own decisions around procuring technology, which is wasteful and means core systems do not speak to each other. Because data is land locked at force level, policing is unable to make the most of data analytics to understand its demand, its performance and its productivity.”

To address these challenges, the report argues that the police need to get their data moving around more easily so they can enable interoperability; they need to make sure their senior leaders really understand the power of information and what is required to enable it; they need to shift away from such a high degree of spend on legacy systems by embracing open solutions in the cloud and doing more at scale; they need to speed up procurement processes so that new technology can be deployed more quickly throughout the service; and they need to be more imaginative about attracting the specialist skills they need.

“The potential is clearly there for the way the police work to be transformed if the right information can be put in the right hands at the right time,” says the report. “That should lead to less harm, a greater proportion of crimes prevented and detected and a police service that is able to spend more time out and about engaging with communities.

“Police leaders must champion innovation, encouraging a mindset shift where technology is seen not as a barrier to change, but as a critical enabler of more effective policing.

“Critically they need to resolve the collective action problem that is undermining their ability to make the most of the technological revolution. This means a single national enabling body with a clear strategy and simple governance. This should allow local innovation to flourish while creating a framework for scaling promising ideas and getting them deployed more quickly into policing.

“The good news is that none of this is impossible.

“With a supportive political environment, buy in from across the service and clear national leadership, the police service can unleash the power of information.”