According to the Policing Productivity Review, increasing police officer productivity can result in the equivalent of 30,000 more police officers and staff and free up away off up to 60 million policing hours over a five-year period.
The Home Office commissioned the review in the summer of 2022 to find out how police forces in the UK can increase their productivity and improve outcomes. It was completed on September 30, 2024.
A considerable portion of the independent review, which is led by Alan Pughsley, a former Kent Police chief constable, is focused on how police can better utilize technology to enhance the quality of life for frontline officers and operational staff, and boost dwindling trust in policing as an institution.
Politicing productivity is important because it requires utilizing the most effective resources at your disposal, ” he said. “It’s about having more officers on the street, more officers and staff responding to incidents, and investigating crime, all of which mean better outcomes for the public.
The review team has spent time with police and staff members all over the country, learning about the difficulties they face, and seeing examples of great practice that could be used to improve the country’s image. Although the possible savings may raise questions, our recommendations are accurate and truthful in terms of policing. ”
The single publication to date so much is a report based on research from the initial phase, which focused on identifying barriers to police productivity, despite the three-phase review now actually being complete.
These obstacles include the high cost pressures, a lack of modern skills in the workforce, poor data quality, consistency, and sharing, as well as the uneven use of resources and efforts to ensure that innovation is not being disseminated throughout the UK’s unified policing system.
Data issues
On the data issues, for example, it noted the ways in which data are captured, managed, shared and used can vary significantly from force to force; that the definition and interpretation of data are inconsistent; and that forces are generally unwilling to link the data they hold in different ways.
The review team believes that technology has already been used to achieve a range of administrative and managerial policing outcomes, as also provided an overview of the first-phase report.
This includes Bedfordshire’s use of an AI-powered auto-redaction tool to remove content from files being sent to the CPS, which is claimed to have achieved an 80 % saving in time efficiency; Dyfed-Powys, Leicestershire and Sussex police using video calling to attend low-risk 999 calls; and the growing use of retrospective facial recognition in the police national database ( PND), which, according to the report, “underpins results in over 100 cases per month in South Wales Police alone”
Police legitimacy
Additionally, the review noted that data and technology can also be used to combat the declining legitimacy of policing in addition to enhancing productivity and outcomes. It also warned that introducing innovative technologies without substantial public involvement could weaken legitimacy even more.
For instance, it was made clear that “low legitimacy and levels of trust” are affecting police effectiveness by making it difficult for officers to obtain basic information like witness statements ( which in turn means officers have to work longer and harder to get results, which in turn lower overall productivity ).
“The Peelian principle of policing by consent places an important requirement on policing’s adoption and use of emerging technologies, ” it said. “Policing has a duty to demonstrate and explain to the public what a technology is doing, and that its use is equal, valid, guilty and important. Additionally, the Home Office has a significant part to play in providing a framework that will encourage the adoption of new technologies. Because improper use, or a failure to use technology when appropriate, can have a negative impact on justice and legitimacy, this context has a major impact on policing productivity. ”
The report noted that the legal framework underpinning its use is provided through a ‘tapestry ’ approach, which includes primary legislation, codes of practice, and local policy, whose complexity can raise legitimacy concerns.
Low levels of trust in the force may contribute to this lack of clarity and the use of various technologies and their proposed use or governance, and that “an independent national ethics function is required ” to increase public trust in police technology, according to the report.
Greater communication with the public about how technology is used, and the social considerations that have informed its deployment will help build this trust, according to the statement.
A combination of factors, such as the present economic environment, declining public trust, and fast technological change, according to the review, means “inaction, muddling through, or making incremental adjustments carries much more risk to police legitimacy and productivity than can be afforded. ”
Coming investments and legislative changes
However, the review said that for police to harness the full range of benefits of data and technology, there needs to be a revamp in modern skills, investment and coordination.
“Innovation is poorly shared across the sector, ” it said. “Forces ’ efforts and use of resources overlap or duplicate unnecessarily. Some investments made by forces are not as clearly baselined, measured, identified or evaluated as they should be.
“Patchy evaluations mean that innovations ( operational or structural ) remain underexploited. This has an impact on the viability of these pilots or investments, weakens potential funding proposals, and makes funders, oversight bodies, and partners less certain of the value that citizens are getting. ”
According to the statement, police even need people with highly sought-after skills in order to keep up with technological advancement. ”
Pace of innovation
The review also noted that the speed of innovation and the complexity of novel technologies frequently lag behind regulations, regulated expert practice, or guidance. Forces are thus lacking a set of distinct guidelines for how to implement some innovations, the statement continued. “ In their absence, the legal landscape is scattered and includes key legislation, codes of practice and local policy. This impedes deployment or raises legitimacy concerns for the forces and the general public to totally comprehend. ”
The legal framework for policing ( contained in Part Three of the Data Protection Act 2018 ) is clear, unambiguous, and fully equipped for all police technology use, according to Owen Sayers, an independent security consultant and enterprise architect with over 25 years of experience in providing secure solutions to policing.
It is a dangerous step toward digital anarchy to suggest that technology outpaces legislation, and that it is so legislation that needs to be ignored or worked near, is his preferred soundbite among privacy-breaking technologists the world over, he said.
“Laws exist for good reason, adherence to those laws is vital for the operation of safe societies, and the Police ( of all public sector bodies ) should be the first to recognise this, ” said Sayers. “If we need to abandon or ignore English laws to deploy the police’s favoured technology, this largely shows they’ve picked the wrong tech; no that the laws are bad. ”
According to Sayers, the single flaw in the UK’s police-specific data protection legislation is that it “forms a true constraint” to the adoption of policing’s recommended technologies and, more particularly, to the participation of a few cloud providers, with whom the police would like to work and have an unheard of cozy relationship.
He claimed that the report has “ignored” a number of important issues, including that the use of automated redaction technologies and that the majority of the solutions are run on common cloud platforms: “These platforms are outlawed for police to process law enforcement data on – yet the report does not mention this. Essentially, it supports improper data processing practices. How can this increase the effectiveness and trust of the police? ”
The Home Office was contacted by Computer Weekly about the issues Sayers raised, but it did n’t respond on-the-record.
The government, but, stated in its official response to the first-phase report that it would establish a new Centre for Police Productivity at the College of Policing by the end of 2024, which would “set the foundations required for policing to deliver the 38 million police officer hours identified by the independent review.”
This Center will establish a fresh Policing Data Hub to support the use of data by police forces and enable them to deploy and benefit from new technologies, including AI. Additionally, it will introduce innovative model policing procedures that will be tested during this review. Adopting ‘what works ’ through model procedures will result in better outcomes for the public at lower costs. ”
