Met Police To Go Mobile With Tablet Rollout

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has announced its £200m IT transformation plan, an ambitious three-year project that will see thousands of police officers on the beat equipped with tablet-style mobile devices, as well as greater use of big data tools and cloud services.

The delayed Total Technology 2014-17 strategy was intended for launch last April, and followed an internal investigation by consultancy Deloitte that found technology changes were needed to avoid a “destabilising” impact. The force was also criticised in a report last autumn by the London Assembly’s Budget and Performance Committee, called “Smart Policing: How the Metropolitan Police Service can make better use of technology”, which found that much of the MPS’ IT budget was merely maintaining outdated equipment that dated as far back as the 1970s.

Big changes

The Met’s response will include equipping officers with modern mobile technology, as well as revamping online services, broader use of social media and new procurement policies.
“Our new agile ways of working will allow for shorter delivery lead times, whilst more flexible contracts with a tougher governance approach will ensure the technology we buy is ‘roadworthy’ and stays fit for purpose in the years ahead,” said Met chief information officer Richard Thwaite in a statement. “Such wholesale changes in the way we use technology are extremely challenging but they present fantastic opportunities both to deliver more and save money.”

New online systems are to provide victims with the ability to report non-emergency crimes, upload video and photographic evidence and track crime progress, while an improved 999 system is planned for improving response times and giving officers better information.

The force is to broaden its use of social media to provide information to and interact with the public, use big data analytics tools to help predict crimes before they happen and expand the use of cloud services to cut costs.

“We are going to use technology to stop crime, arrest offenders or help victims,” said Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. “We need to keep police officers out of police stations and reduce bureaucracy. Digital policing will help us to do this.”

Mobile rollout

The mobile device rollout, which is key to the strategy, aims to ensure that 90 percent of officer transactions are completed via a mobile device such as a tablet, something the MPS believes will have an impact equivalent to putting another 900 officers out on the beat. In part that is because officers will be able to complete their administrative tasks without having to travel back to the office, thus remaining visible to the public, the MPS said.

The devices are to be used for taking witness statements and taking evidence photographs, as well as providing crime data statements that can be handed to victims at crime scenes.

The MPS has already ordered 500-600 iPad Minis for a trial that is to begin in the spring in Hammersmith and Fulham, with a London-wide rollout scheduled for the autumn. The Met said it does not plan to standardise on Apple devices, and plans to make a choice available further down the line.

Officers are also to use body-worn video to gather evidence in real-time, with trials of this expected to begin in 11 boroughs in the spring.

Thwaite said the Met’s existing application estate of 200 is to be reduced to 50 over the next three years, consolidating aplications running on a SharePoint environment.

The Met plans to reduce contracting time through the use of streamlined procurement frameworks such as G-Cloud and Sprint ii, according to the strategy document.

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