Webinar: Virtual scrutiny panels for Stop Search with South Yorkshire Police

One of the biggest challenges for all police forces is maintaining and building public trust. Part of this work includes involving the community in scrutinising the way officers way including of course the use of stop and search powers.

Over the last few months South Yorkshire Police have been working closely with us to improve the facilitation and management of Stop and Search Scrutiny panels, and have successfully developed a use case, enabled by the use of Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Forms to facilitate the recruitment of scrutiny panel members but also the meetings and review process.

On Wednesday 2nd March Chief Inspector Sarah Gilmour will present an overview of the solution which is based on the Microsoft 365 platform. The webinar will cover the key principles, solutions deployed, and challenges faced.

The final solution uses Microsoft Teams as a platform. Panel participants are invited to a Teams meeting where they can review BWV footage of Stops selected at random. The participant is then able to use a Microsoft Form to comment on the footage as they view it allowing the chair to see feedback from several participants live in the panel session. This enables the chair to identify and discuss key themes or areas for further discussion and is a source of data for ongoing review and assessment of force performance.

This process has streamline 4 district process into one single process and is a template for other scrutiny panels such as use of force. It has also significantly increased the opportunities for the public to access panels which has increased the diversity of panel members. Chief Inspector Gilmour has navigated the sometimes-challenging waters of data compliance due to the inherent security of the M365 platform, local data consent forms for each panel member and a DPIA covering the approach.