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E-notebooks on the streets
The Lothian and Borders Police Mobile Data Project, which began in 2003, is the first Police Mobile Data Project to totally replace the traditional paper-and-pen notebook. Temporary Chief Inspector Norman Dixon, Project Manager, talks about a project that has set the agenda for the Scottish Police Force’s National Mobile Data strategy.
The Lothian and Borders Police Mobile Data Project, which has been wholly developed and funded by the Force, is based on the “Systems Thinking” principles of designing core business processes from the perspective of the customer. Norman Dixon says that the aim is to increase the value work that is being carried out by staff and eliminate wasteful working practices and duplication of effort.
Working with front line operational police officers and police support staff as well as internal and external partners – most notably the software development company Kelvin Connect Ltd – the project has evolved in four phases with each phase gradually increasing the number of police officers involved in the project from the original 6 to now over 800. The project is on course to have 1,000 trained by Christmas 2007 and 2,500 by April 2009.
Norman says this slow measured way of working has reduced the risks and allowed rapid application development to take place in line with real operational requirements. The result is the creation and operational deployment of PDA electronic notebooks that allow Police officers to gather, manage and transfer information in a completely electronic format.
By harnessing new technology and creating PDA e-notebooks the force has given police officers, at the point of contact with the public, the ability to capture and place information into the relevant core business processes in an electronic format. This, combined with a better understanding of the business process information requirements and the creation of structured templates for police officers to utilise, has result in better quality of information. Once captured, information can then be managed in a more efficient and effective manner reducing unnecessary and repetitive police bureaucracy.
The PDA e-notebooks are a complete replacement for the traditional paper and pen notebooks, and allow police officers to gather information in an electronic format in over 18 predictable core police business processes. These include witness statements, crime recording, HORT/1, Scottish intelligence database 5x5 reports (SID), vehicle defect forms, domestic incidents recording, missing persons, conditional offer fixed penalty notices for road traffic and anti social behaviour offences and sudden death reports. Other predictable police business processes are currently under review and will be included on the devices.
The PDA e-notebooks combined with mobile printers, supplied by Brother, allow officers to work in processes that issue tickets or leaflets such as conditional offer fixed penalty tickets for RTA offences, delivering advice to victims of crime and fixed penalty tickets for anti social behaviour. In the past, all these forms would have had to be carried separately and hand written, and the potential for error was high. Norman says that being able to offer the public clear, typed forms is a major bonus. “The officers like using it and it provides a far more professional and up to date image of Lothian and Borders Police to the public.” He adds the combined weight of a PDA e-notebook and printer is less than that of all the books and forms the officers used to have to carry around with them.
One of the major achievements of the Mobile Data Project is that it has produced a direct electronic link with the courts in relation to conditional offer fixed penalty tickets for RTA offences, and fixed penalty tickets for anti social behaviour. Information captured on the street is sent via the PDA e-notebook management system straight into the court computer systems without the need for any further reprocessing of that same information.
Similar direct interface development is taking place with UNIFI Crime recording, SID Intelligence recording and the creation of Standard Prosecution Reports. Discussions have started regarding direct integration with the new STORM command and control system. At present, information is copied and pasted into STORM, and this already saves the re-keying of information.
The work of the Mobile Data Project also links into the West Lothian and Edinburgh criminal justice projects. Norman Dixon says this has the potential for addressing challenging statement disclosure issues within summary justice reform.
Overall, the PDA e-notebooks have delivered significant business benefits, says Norman. “They have improved the security of data, improved data quality, increased speed of submission of data, delivered the ability to manage witness statements quickly, increased intelligence submissions, greatly reduced end-to-end times in processes, increased police officer visibility and reduced duplication of effort. Very importantly they have improved morale.”
With regard specifically to police visibility and officer time savings in carrying out administration processes, he emphasises that the use of PDA e-notebooks does not deliver more police officers. “What it does do is allow you to do more with existing resources, both in terms of operational police officers and back office police support staff.”
The force is committed to introducing PDA e-notebooks to all operational police staff. “The current training programme is prioritised towards the training of front line operational police officers in line with anti social behaviour legislation enforcement.”
New recruits into the force arriving back from their initial training at the Scottish Police College are now being trained in the use of PDA e-notebooks and now work is ongoing to include specialised officers such as CID, licensing etc. and certain support staff members within the project’s scope. The plan is that all the Force’s operational staff will be using PDA e-notebooks by March 2009.
Norman says the work of the Mobile Data Project and the PDA e-notebooks touches on all the Force’s major projects. “‘We see PDA e-notebooks as the front end of our future information management structure in line with national developments.”’
The information management system that holds all the notebook entries is managed on a hierarchical structure giving immediate supervisory access to data once a PDA e-notebook has been synchronised. This has improved supervision of officers’ work and in particular increased the ability of supervisors to manage their probationers. Information from this database can be exported and be used to analyse performance from individuals, teams, stations, divisions and as a force. This has still to be refined and work is ongoing with the force performance unit to make best use of this ability.
Norman Dixon says they are aware of the further benefits that remote access to information can bring to police officers to help then make better informed decisions and provide them with information to assist them to do their job. “However, we have concentrated on the ‘pull’ of information into the organisation. The devices we have purchased do have wireless capability and now that we are satisfied that we have a solid platform to built from we will start to look at methods of starting the ‘push’ of information out to the police officer such as PNC and SCRO information.”
The Force is working in collaboration with all other Scottish Police Forces to develop the ACPO(S) National Mobile Data strategy that is built upon the PDA e-notebook designed by Lothian and Borders Police.
