Key Considerations in Delivery – Police Digital Service

In moving from intent to action we must be aware that data and technology investments cannot be made in isolation or considered in a vacuum.

For policing to maintain its mandate to ‘police by consent’, the ethical questions of the application of technologies need to be carefully explored and governed. Likewise, the return we gain from such investments will not be realised unless we develop our people and a culture of change to transform the service in the right way.

Digital culture and skills

Our people must be at the heart of this digital transformation; they will be central in embedding new ways of working, embracing new technologies and forging new collaborations.
We must foster a culture that recognises the power of digital to improve the way we operate and protect our society. In order to guide the most effective strategic decision making, this cultural change must be driven from the top.
Our leaders of tomorrow will need to endorse and demonstrate a genuine understanding of how to place digital at the centre of modern policing – this will require significant investment in their development.
To achieve this, we must break down silos between traditional technology and business change functions, be open to new models of citizen engagement, and explore how our service model should respond. Fundamentally, it means being prepared to challenge established ways of working.
The workforce transformation is already underway through national and local level initiatives. The College of Policing and NPCC are leading on the delivery of the Workforce Strategy to realise the ambition set by Policing Vision 2025. In support, this strategy highlights key culture, skills and structural implications arising from digital:
Culture
1. We need to invest in leadership in order to build and maintain a culture of partnership, being purpose-led and innovative.
2. We need to encourage more front-line innovation, providing supporting structures to capture and scale ideas and technologies.
3. We should foster a ‘one-team’ mentality – encouraging collaboration across forces and with public sector partners.
Skills
1. Our leaders must become ‘digital leaders’ through learning embedded as a core thread within the College of Policing development curriculum.
2. We need to invest in upskilling our workforce to increase baseline digital capability, and over time develop digital fluency.
3. We must utilise nationally consistent guidance to officers and staff that encompasses the identification, collection, assessment and prioritisation of digital material in investigations.
Structure
1. We need to continue to evolve our governance and organisational structures to ensure that they are
fit to deliver our digital transformation.
2. We must review our sourcing strategies and talent models to create a modern, flexible and digitally fluent work environment that will attract and retain new talent.
3. We need to improve data sharing and integration, establishing joint technical solutions that enable the transfer of learning and knowledge between forces and public sector partners.

Policing ethics

“The power of police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.”
This principle for ‘policing by consent’ is particularly relevant in today’s environment, and will become even more so given the ethical challenges provided by continuous technological advancement.
The debate is already active, and public scrutiny is likely to increase over the next 5 to 10 years. Public concerns include the use and storage of data, privacy breaches, data accuracy and bias, and the quality of decision making informed by algorithms.
A number of the priorities set out in this strategy are underpinned by data; from sharing information across forces and partners, to collecting new data sources provided by digital channels and platforms, and applying data analytics, and AI to assist decision making. Appropriate and transparent consideration of ethics in pursuing these priorities is critical to maintaining the integrity of our policing service and the trust of the public.
We will be faced with decisions on what information we choose to acquire, the methods used to transfer and store it, and how we use it to inform actions. These decisions will need to be guided by collective debate, and made open to scrutiny to maintain public trust.
As initial steps, this strategy outlines a commitment to:
1. Develop a National Data Ethics Governance model, which will outline standards and guidelines to
be adhered to and embedded in our decision making processes.
2. Establish a core principle that the public’s views on data analytics are pro-actively built into an ethical assessment at the design stage of any digitally-enabled service improvement.
3. Provide clear lines of accountability on data and algorithm use at the top of all policing organisations, including accessible complaints and redress processes. This could be achieved by extending the Data Protection Officer role and updating Chief Officer responsibilities.
4. Safely test the operational deployment of new capabilities which approach ethical boundaries. To do this we will establish appropriate practises in ‘lab’ settings before we consider scaling solutions and approaches across forces.
5. Work with independent, non-policing bodies, such as the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), to ensure data-driven technologies used by policing are used responsibly to support society and businesses.

Capabilities

Capabilities are the ‘things that forces need to do’ in order to deliver a complete policing service to citizens.
Capabilities are delivered irrespective of organisational structure differences across forces, and therefore serve as a useful tool to highlight the impact of digital on forces. In recent years, with support from the NPCC, COP and National Programmes, Policing has become increasingly capability focused through the development of the Law Enforcement (LE) Capability Model. This model sets out the strategic, core and enabling capabilities for policing.
This strategy depends on changes to all of the data-centric capabilities outlined in the Law Enforcement (LE) model. Namely Performance, Analysis, Intelligence, Data and Information Management. Improvements to these data-centric capabilities are critical to enabling more effective delivery of operational LE capabilities such as Neighbourhood, Response, Investigation, and Safeguarding.
However, the current definition of these data-centric LE capabilities reinforces existing organisational silos, rather than encouraging cross- functional collaboration. Societal change, heavily
influenced by digital trends, changes the nature of demand for policing from that which can be responded to by individual functions within the force, to that which is capability led and requires input from a number of different functions. In order to maximise our investments in digital, we have defined a new set of Digital Capabilities that transcend traditional functional silos:
Knowledge provision and disruption
The provision of timely, contextual and accurate crime prevention advice based on insights from analytics; as well as the use of digital disruption techniques to unsettle identified criminal activity.
Reporting
The ability to receive and create incident and intelligence reports through multiple channels from the
public, our partners and the front-line.
Data management and sharing
The storage of data in accredited data management systems which comply with national data management and handling standards and processes – allowing interoperability between forces and partners.
Data acquisition
The ability to acquire data, maximising the potential provided by digital technologies in support of public safeguarding and crime prevention.
Data preparation
The ability to access, cleanse and manipulate vast amounts of data efficiently and effectively and make this available for decision making processes, analytics and intelligence development activities.
Process automation
The ability to automate predictable processes, as well as automated demand analysis and response to improve quality of decision-making, tasking and assessment.
Analytics
The ability to provide insights from acquired data in the form of predictions, estimations and conclusions. Infrastructure and technical governance Infrastructure which provides scalable storage and computing capabilities whilst enabling interoperability between forces and partners.
Continuous improvement and innovation
The ability to continuously improve and innovate, promoting a culture of change and adaptation at the pace of the operational environment.
Service sustainment
An effective governance structure in place which leads the delivery of projects. Assuring compliance with standards and policy for in-flight and newly implemented projects. Undertaking benefit management to ensure projects are delivered to the required scope, time, quality and budget.

Digital Capabilities are critical to the realisation of our digital policing ambition. In focusing efforts, we will be able to maximise the return on our investment in skills and technology by avoiding development
in silos that pit functions in competition with one another.

We must integrate, and then mainstream these Digital Capabilities within the Law Enforcement Capability model.