PNSD puts statistics at the fingertips of analysts

The work of analysts is not helped by having to copy and paste or re-enter data into spreadsheets when analysing performance statistics.

Despite the move to reduce targets announced in the recently published Green Paper, comparisons across forces will continue to be made and the data that iQuanta provides will be useful when measuring the effectiveness of initiatives or to identify trends.

However, the bane of many a performance analyst or policing manager is the data iQuanta produces is in PDF format, and that means it is virtually impossible to import into other programmes such as Microsoft Excel for further analysis.

Until last month that was, when our friends at the Police National Legal Database (PNLD) launched the Police National Statistics Database (PNSD).

The PNSD uses the same database architecture as PNLD to produce comparisons and statistics on a BCU, force-wide or the family of most similar forces (MSF) in Excel format.

The team at PNLD say a query can be made of any data submitted by forces across the country with results returned in under 20 seconds.

At the moment, forces submit data on crime reports and detections together with results of victim satisfaction surveys to the Home Office. This data is then collated and published in iQuanta.

The PNSD will use exactly the same data submission to produce more user-friendly results.

The system has come as a no-cost option for forces as it has been launched by PNLD under its development umbrella and forms part of the overall subscription package.

After a six-month trial in four forces, the system is now operational in 40 forces across England and Wales.

Nigel Hughes, the head of PNLD, said the system would have been extremely useful when serving as a detective inspector in West Yorkshire.

“When I was working in Leeds as divisional crime manager, I would have loved to have also been able to see what was happening in various locations, such as Liverpool, and compared trends in areas such as burglaries. If they were different, we could then ask why that was, what was it that they were doing differently?”