So where is the happy medium in this? The recent consultation paper around police buying seems to try and find the middle position, with the introduction of “Procurement Frameworks” utilising the current OGC frameworks. This approach seems fine in principal, but again there are downsides. Firstly, these current large scale frameworks are notoriously difficult to get on to, with most dominated by the larger System Integrator companies, leaving many current suppliers off the radar. Secondly, if you are a small sized company, you can operate through a framework company to provide your products and services, but there is an administrative mark up by the Framework company, which necessarily reduces value for money for the buyer. It is also apparent that due to the value of some of the contracts that go through Frameworks, some of those Framework suppliers find that they do not make enough mark up (which is capped) to make it worth their while.

So what is the solution? Well, Frameworks are a good way of tackling the issue, but at the same time they need to be more open to the types of products and services which the police need and use. There also needs to be a better education programme for Procurement Departments across the country about what options they have on their procurement menu. So many times have we seen that procurement departments have no idea what is available from the Frameworks that are currently in place.

So in principle, Frameworks are the answer, but not in their current form……

On commencing the national Intelligence Database project in Scotland in 2001, the largest and most immediate piece of work which had to be conducted was to look at the myriad of intelligence handling processes which were going on within individual forces and working together to rationalise these in to a single and agreed model for intelligence management. The National Rules and Conventions were the outcome and yet the true work was to simplify and make as efficient as possible the process of intelligence management. This in itself without the IT system to back it up was a major step forward in reducing costs in processing.

The result of this process was to allow the procurement of one central system for intelligence, rather than all eight forces buying the same system. It was from this that the Service managed to save millions of pounds over the future years.

What seems to be missing from the current approach is the review of process. Buying five of the same within a region may save some cost savings through bulk buying, but one thing you can guarantee is that the current approach will lead to the same system being used in five different ways.

Regions need to wake up and start to review their processes on a collaborative basis as the first step along the road, prior to any discussion about buying the same system.

Sir Dennis O’Connor is therefore right that we should now look at the whole picture in terms of UK policing structure and service and go back to basics in terms of delivering core services. One solution to the problem may well be an acceleration of merging territorial based policing within regions and moving more specialised services to the centre. Do I dare to say a return of the Regional Crime Squad in disguise..? At least under this model, the public get their territorial and local based service whilst major crime investigation and other specialised services are concentrated where it counts. The biggest hurdle to cross now is that of investment. The merger process and setting up of central service incurs significant investment against long term savings. The question is will there be political commitment to spend now and save later? The plot thickens and it may well not come to any conclusion until after the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in October where the real devastation by cuts may eventually be revealed.

In some ways the public are the more intelligent reviewers of what is important to maintain social stability in times of austerity than the government and there are obvious concerns that crime will significantly increase and public order may become a problem. We have seen over the last week what is involved in tracking down a single dangerous individual in Northumbria and the man power and costs associated with this single incident will run in to the millions of pounds. Can the Government therefore justify a 25% cut in the budget of policing or should there be a review of the priorities and what is actually important in terms of maintaining public confidence through what we will be a torturous time in the UK ahead?

The Home Secretary announced this week that the Government wish to protect frontline policing as a policy and through the cuts that need to be made there is a view that Frontline policing should even increase. So with this push for visibility of the police in the community, where can you cut?

Undoubtedly, the answer will be within areas of policing that conduct specialised tasks. There is no doubt that, with the Uniformed element of policing being somewhat protected, the axe will fall on those departments that have been looking at major crime, serious and organised crime, counter terrorism and other areas of specialised operations. John Yates of Scotland Yard has already warned of the threat posed by reducing the work being conducted on anti terrorist operations and no doubt that others will also cite areas of concern, such as serious and organised crime. It is still unfortunate that the true relationship between these specialised areas and the impact these have on communities is not fully appreciated. Reducing the effectiveness of these specialised areas will only have the impact of increasing issues in the community relating to drugs, violent crime, identity fraud and the myriad of other community based activities that go to funding these organisations. John Yates is also right in his assessment of the increased threat of terrorism. Terrorist organisations will be watching and looking for the weak points in countries where financial issues are reducing the state’s ability to respond.

So in conclusion, we have to be very careful where we focus cuts and make sure that we do not specifically focus on politically expedient areas such as frontline visibility. At the end of the day, the majority of the public are not particularly bothered as to whether they see a police officer on the beat or not. What they really care about is that an officer comes to their assistance quickly at that very rare time of most need.

So there is no doubt that common sense will state that having your information in once place will reduce duplication of both the core information and its keying process at the front end.  But interestingly enough, this view of building “single systems” to catch all (i.e. the Records Management approach) introduces a new layer of complexity that tends to balance out the efficiency of introducing the model in the first place.  The reason for this issue lies in the area of “process”.  The problem with many centralised systems is that they try to catch the requirements for everyone within a single process, thus delivering an overly complex and unwieldy application to frontline users.  There has to be an understanding that one process does not fit all and the only way of delivering true efficiency is developing access to centralised data through various different entry points.

Crime is a great example of a process.  In a control room environment, the need to take specific and scripted information from a caller is absolutely key and the rapid entry of this information and non duplication between Command & Control and Crime is a significant effiiciency gain.  However, this same process and way of information management is not suitable for frontline officers on the street.  Many of these centralised records management systems deliver the same process to both, introducing bureacracy and removing the gains of having information centrally.

So what is the  solution? The solution for the future of information management in policing will be through a more holistic view of information across the organisation.  The centralised storage of information is not essential so long as the information is accurately portrayed and utilised consistently.  The use of portals to provide users with the required information will be key and we are not talking about one portal for everything, but several portlets that are tuned to the users’ needs.  Many analytical based companies have moved the view of information to a single source from many data pools, providing organisations with the information they need when they need it from across the organisation. This is currently a back ended process and we now need to move to the front end in providing the interface that is required for the job in hand.  It is data entry that is tuned to the job that will make the biggest efficiency gains in the future.  The 3rd generation records management systems will become obsolete and the 4th generation information management approach will take its place.

IT does play a part in this scramble to save money and most should now look as to how proper and efficient use of IT save time and money for frontline officers, possibly enabling the reduction in required numbers over time.  However, these sort of cuts require significant strategies and not just re-organising the deck chairs!  It has to be time where the service reviews the provision of back office services, including IT, HR, Finance, Fleet Management etc. more radically than before and looks at utilising Shared/CLOUD/Third Party services to deliver these.

We are moving in to a new chapter of policing in the UK where the landscape of service provision to the public will change forever.

With these performance pressures, it is more important than ever that police forces adopt efficient, proven and reliable IT systems. ABM has worked in close consultation with police forces over the last decade to make sure that our software meets these requirements.