Technology-led performance framework and app

To develop a digital process allowing the force to determine the effectiveness of neighbourhood teams.

A greater understanding of and ability to monitor the hidden or unreported work that neighbourhood teams are doing in their communities.

South Yorkshire Police (SYP) sought to design and implement a digital solution to measure neighbourhood activities that aren't normally captured by other data sources.

A large part of the force’s neighbourhood team work is not something that can be obtained through standard business intelligence (BI)/Microsoft Power BI products. These products are primarily able to produce data from existing core systems that look at crimes, custody and incident demand or attendance. While these areas form part of neighbourhood team effectiveness, they don't account for large areas of work covered in the three deliverable pillars of neighbourhood policing. These pillars are engagement, problem solving and targeted activity.

Performance framework

This gap led to the introduction of a new technology-led performance framework for all neighbourhood teams. The framework allows supervisors to measure the effectiveness of neighbourhood teams through metrics such as crime and anti-social behaviour rates, frequency of incidents and local satisfaction survey results.

Working groups were held with subject matter experts from neighbourhood teams to develop a comprehensive list of neighbourhood police constable (PC) and police community support officer (PCSO) tasks. These task lists were then incorporated into role profiles. The tasks were broken down into the three deliverables of engagement, targeted activity and problem solving. Where some tasks had the potential to sit under a couple of headings, decisions were made and they were allocated.

The force worked through the task lists and established what was already captured on reports through BI/Power BI and what was not. Once they identified the work they couldn’t currently record, the force looked at ways they could develop a mobile app to record this hidden work and incorporate it into governance processes. 

Neighbourhood policing app

The Power BI-based neighbourhood performance and effectiveness framework has been designed to be used by all staff to understand their areas of work. The framework supports supervisors to understand the:

• demand faced by neighbourhood teams
• impact of their problem-solving activities

Data can be broken down at force, district, neighbourhood and ward level. The tool can also be used to oversee the amount of time neighbourhood officers undertake non-neighbourhood police work. This helps the force understand how well its abstraction policy is working. 

The framework is broken down into three tiers.

Tier one

Tier one contains:

• neighbourhood crime rates
• anti-social behaviour rates
• 'Your voice counts' survey data
• crime survey data for England and Wales
• staff survey outcomes

This can be broken down into districts, teams or ward level data.

Tier two

Tier two contains all the neighbourhood app data included for tier one.

It can be filtered down to district and team data across all headings. 

Tier three

Tier three is aimed at daily or weekly use by neighbourhood supervisors. It aims to assist with managing their operational performance and effectiveness.

It holds data that was previously spread across more than 13 separate BI reports on a single location. This currently includes:

• active investigations
• outstanding suspects and outcome data
• neighbourhood crime rates and mapping
• problem-orientated policing (POP) plans
• intelligence submissions
• traffic offence reports
• stop and search
• social media engagement

The force is looking to add further reports to help with the management and effectiveness of neighbourhood team work, such as burglary cocooning rates and outstanding premises. The force IT team is looking to make this possible.

Considerations and resources

The framework was developed by staff in in the force performance and governance team, with neighbourhood inspectors and sergeants as the business leads.

As the framework was built using Microsoft 365/Power BI by the force performance and governance team, no budget was required to create the framework. 

The design and implementation of the neighbourhood performance and effectiveness framework, app, abstraction policy and deployment protocols were monitored and approved through a monthly neighbourhood board. This board was chaired by the assistant chief constable for neighbourhood policing. It is attended by all districts and has command team representation and subject matter experts as required.

The processes mentioned were monitored through this board through the implementation phase and aspects are continually monitored, discussed and amended as necessary.

The force can now accurately report on the work that neighbourhood teams are doing on a daily basis. They understand the differences between teams depending on their communities and the specific issues they face.

The force can break down the proportion of work completed on engagement, targeted activity and problem solving – including how long is spent on each of these areas. They can now look at how this affects local confidence and satisfaction.

The abstraction recording also ensures oversight of reasons for abstraction. This can then inform workforce planning and demand decisions at a force and local area.

It was beneficial in the initial stages to involve subject matter experts. This ensured the force had the operational expertise to steer the project from the start. This helped ensure the end product was accurate and worked operationally.

Effective communication is essential to explain the purpose of the tool. In SYP, this communication helped ensure buy-in from the officers who were being asked to use the system. 

The force has recognised through this tool that identifying the hidden demand of neighbourhood teams ensures they can measure and understand the demands they face outside of crime investigation and incident attendance.

SYP suggests that the creation of the framework could potentially be completed in two months if:

• completed by a dedicated resource
• all the correct data is available in Power BI

It took SYP twelve months to complete tiers one and two of the framework (with tier three very near completion). Delays have mostly been due to connections needing to be made with Power BI by the force's IT team.