Mobile data keeps Wiltshire Police out on the beat

Wiltshire Police is to start usability testing of a mobile data application next month in a project slated to cost £2.1m and save £4.4m in productivity by keeping officers out on the beat.

The application is intended to free officers in the field from having to return to the station to update police systems by using reporting and scheduling applications out on the beat through mobile devices.

Officers currently spend up to 50 per cent of their time in the station looking for information or updating information systems. It costs the police force £6.5m a year in lost productivity in terms of the time spent by officers picking up and reporting information, according to Wiltshire Police finance director Matt Bennion-Pedley.

The initiative ties in with the Sir Ronnie Flanagan report delivered last week, which recommends freeing up police time by improving and strengthening the structures and systems that support policing to cut bureaucracy and red tape.

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The project integrator HCL has developed applications to cover 16 separate police processes, in conjunction with a working group of front-line officers, that will be delivered through an HTC slider handset with a qwerty keyboard, a vehicle-mounted laptop or a fixed-line PC. The system will use Orange GPRS as the data channel, with Airwave radio also being used as a back-up in areas where GPRS coverage is patchy.

The project will cost £2.1m in development with a rollout from late June. The rollout is expected to be completed by Christmas 2008.

Speaking to silicon.com, Bennion-Pedley said: "The idea is that officers will actually build the incident log as the officers' investigations go on."

Bennion Pedley said officers will be able to do Police National Computer checks on people, vehicles and property. They will also be able to pick up information from Wiltshire Police's intelligence systems about a person of interest, such as whether they have a firearms licence, which could have an impact on the way they approach a situation.

He said: "The processes have been developed with people who actually do the job to create the most streamlined way of using the applications."

As the rollout commences, the development team will work with users to investigate the viability of introducing other aspects of the system further down the line, such as a duty roster and a process for overtime claims.

Bennion-Pedley said: "Again, the idea behind these future functions is cutting out the need to go back to the office to complete paperwork."

Similarly, the development team will look to extend to other areas of the force, such as crime-scene officers.

The system may also be integrated with a more streamlined resource allocation at the control centre, so that controllers have a better idea where officers are and the nearest and/or least busy officer can be despatched to an incident.