Bridging the gap between force data to ensure policing can better join the dots

Policing collects vast amounts of complex and sensitive data. When managed correctly and properly utilised, this data is a strategic asset which can enable our teams to proactively spot patterns and trends, highlight areas of risk and lead smarter, intelligence led investigations.

However, police data is often kept within individual force systems making it incredibly difficult to access and use effectively, even when public safety depends on it.

As a result, officers and staff are forced to spend a significant amount of time manually searching for the information they need, missing valuable opportunity to get a sense of the bigger picture, quickly - and diverting limited resource away from front-line priorities, all of which has a detrimental impact on the service we can provide.

As set out in the Police Reform white paper and to equip our teams with the data and technology they need to keep pace with criminality and provide the best possible service to the public; the National Data Integration and Exploitation Service (NDIES) will provide a centralised approach to data integration.

Led by the National Data and Analytics Office (NDAO) and in close collaboration with the Home Office, NDIES will ensure national datasets are accessible to officers and staff, irrespective of their force area, when necessary to protect the public.

Additionally, analytical tooling which has been proven to be safe, reliable and compliant will be able to ‘plug into’ national datasets, to fully utilise the information we have, ensuring better policing outcomes and enhanced public safety. 

Practically, NDIES will ensure officers and staff (at a local level) can gain access to the information they need, without having to log into multiple systems, saving valuable time and resource in the process.

Crucially, as we work towards the wider aims of reform to better centralise areas of national concern to better support local delivery, it will allow policing to effectively share data between forces, and with the centre.

Working with partners from across law enforcement and Government, a scoping exercise will now take place to fully establish NDIES as a concept.

In the meantime, nationally consistent guidance will be sent to forces to ensure that local innovation continues to be supported, while maintaining rigorous commercial, technical and data protection standards.

Chief Constable Chris Todd, Chair of the National Police Data and Analytics Board, said:

The National Data Integration and Exploitation Service marks a significant milestone for policing in the way we manage and utilise our data and is one of the many steps being taken to ensure we fully unlock the potential of our information.

In putting the measures in place to join up our data and remove the obstacles put in place by siloed systems, we can empower our teams to join up the dots without unnecessary delay, ensuring our officers and staff have the information they need at their fingertips and empowering our teams to intercept criminal activity and safeguard those at risk of harm, at pace.

Crucially, in bringing together local force data and making it accessible to those who need it, NDIES will take friction out of the system and help us to become far more proactive in the prevention of crime, the golden standard for police forces up and down the country and the ultimate way to ensure public safety.

Kate Fishers-Stevens, Director of the National Data and Analytics Office (NDAO), said: 

Combined with the aims of the NDAO to improve data standards and data quality, the NDIES will work to make sure the data we have is accessible – because data can only be used to protect the public if we can see it. 

Our aim is not to create a single national platform, collect more data or share it unnecessarily. Instead, our aim is to ensure data can be collated when necessary to build a bigger picture, harness the power of the data we have and ensure officers and staff have the information they need to better prevent crime, quickly identify offenders and above all else, protect the public. 

The creation of a centralised data infrastructure that supports cross-force, cross-system data sharing will be pivotal to that aim - creating a single version of the truth, with time, resource and subsequent cost significantly reduced.