Policing in the UK is world leading and sets the standard for law enforcement agencies across the globe. However, our service is under new pressures. We need to respond to more complex criminality, requiring more specialist skills, with an accelerating demand from cyber-crime, set against an enduring challenge around efficiency, effectiveness and funding. The borderless nature of crime is also challenging our current policing model.
Policing does not operate in a vacuum and cannot stand still in the increasingly digital world we work and live in. The challenges and opportunities that digital disruption present to policing are rapidly becoming defining issues for the service. We must move now and move quickly. While it may feel like the pace of
technology change is already overwhelming, it is only going to get faster. We have however made progress in the last few years, particularly around mobile technology and migration to cloud services, but we need to do more to meet growing digital demands.
Information is the lifeblood of policing therefore we must make the most of the masses of data made available to us enabling intelligence-led preventative policing and investigation, while continuing to meet citizen expectations regarding how we handle their data. Digital ethics is a significant issue for the service and one where we need to work in collaboration with government and representative groups to ensure we have the appropriate policy framework and public engagement in place to maintain the trust and confidence of the public.
To protect people from harm in our rapidly changing world the service must modernise. We must develop capabilities to address the digital challenge and deal
with the complexity of modern criminality through the exploitation of new technologies. Modernisation of the service will require a significant change in our policing system and we must consider what elements of digital transformation will be better delivered locally, regionally and nationally but with a clear convergence around a common roadmap.
Digital transformation is central to our 2030 digital policing ambition to drive improvements in data, technology and, most importantly, the skills of the
people that lead, manage and use it. To do this we need to prioritise and focus our efforts across the service and be clear on what is needed to deliver it. We must make the best of local, front-line innovation and creativity; while finding the means to scale and deploy nationally and at pace. We must also recognise that we have a considerable legacy technology estate therefore investments must take account of the maturity and starting point of all forces.
This strategy sets out a new digital ambition for our service through a set of tangible digital priorities for policing and it outlines the key data and technology
building blocks required to deliver them. In doing so, it builds on the Policing Vision 2025 and other relevant cross government strategies which supports our core mission to make communities safer.
The Digital Policing Strategy 2030 has been developed by the service in response to the digital challenges facing us, but ultimately for the benefit of the public we serve. The service is committed to its delivery and it will be at the heart of our digital transformation both locally and nationally. We all need it to work. Working together, we are confident that the challenges associated with this modernisation are surmountable as part of a concerted and coordinated movement across the policing service.
Ian Dyson QPM, IMORCC Chair
Martin Hewitt QPM, NPCC Chair
Katy Bourne OBE, APCC Chair