18
|
Reach
Issue 8 2015
The ongoing shift to completely digital, paperless operations continues to transform policing
and delivers cashable savings
T
he needs of public safety
organisations are evolving.
Police, fire and ambulance
services, as well as other public
safety organisations, need to
be more efficient and effective
than ever before if they are to be
successful in an environment of
on-going austerity and fast-paced
technological evolution.
Work is already underway to address
these challenges through the police-
led Digital First programme, which
aims to enable police officers to record
evidence digitally whilst on the beat
and upload evidence to their local and
national systems. By digitally capturing
and storing evidence at the point of
reporting, officers can start to build a
case file, which can later be drawn from
by the Criminal Justice System (CJS).
The overall aim is for the complete end-
to-end CJS to be digital and of course,
much of this starts with police officers
on the front line.
The government estimates that
the digitisation work done to date, if
fully implemented, could see up to
4.5 million man-hours saved across
all forces every year – the equivalent
of more than 2,100 officers back on
the beat. It is therefore vital that new
police equipment used on patrol can
both record evidence and make it
quickly available to the CJS. Digital
systems also need to be capable
of coping with the legacy police
systems, which were initially designed
to meet specific business needs and,
aside from notable exceptions such
as the Police National Computer
(PNC), are rarely integrated.
Meeting the
digitisation challenge
Working closely with the police
saw the development of Pronto
– a digital document and information
management tool. Pronto provides
officers with the tools they need
to complete a range of activities in
the field, rather than having to request
information through a third person, or
travel back to the station – the ‘yo-yo
policing’ effect.
Combining seamless access to
national and local databases Pronto
gives officers the ability to conduct
online searches in real time anywhere
there is wireless connectivity, and
complete all processes digitally offline
when there is patchy or no wireless
network coverage, which is then
synchronised automatically when the
officer is back in coverage – mitigating
the impact of poor coverage areas
Nominal information, validated
from national systems such as Police
National Computer (PNC), on a
vehicle, person, object or location
can be shared multiple times into as
many processes as required, based
on the type of incident, and submitted
into appropriate back-office systems.
This alleviates the need for officers to
rekey data or return to the station.
Pronto is device agnostic and
works on a number of platforms.
This alone gives forces the flexibility
to use existing technology without
the need to purchase new devices. It
includes a range of tools that can be
tailored to the needs of the force, with
an electronic notebook (eNotebook),
comprising a set of smart forms
covering all areas of operational
police business processes.
The application suite includes an
Electronic Witness Statement (EWS)
developed in partnership with the
Home Office. This enables officers
to capture information and images in
electronic format. EWS files can be
sent wirelessly to a police station or
partner agencies such as the Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS), and are
admissible in a court of law.
Common operational picture
The processes dealt with by the
police rarely end at the police station
back office. There is almost always an
onward step – be it a sudden death
report that has to be completed and
submitted to the coroner’s office, or
information concerning a vulnerable
child or adult that needs to be
shared with social services or the
local authority. Typically, the process
Delivering the digital
policing transformation
