Met Strategic Digital Enabling Framework 2021-25 - Metropolitan Police
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Met Strategic Digital Enabling Framework 2021-25 Met Tech Direction Publication Date: June 2021 Validity: 1st January 2021-31st December 2025
Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4
Role of Digital Policing ............................................................................................................................ 5
2017-20 Key Achievements..................................................................................................................... 6
Mobility ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Digital Asset Management and Sharing with Partner Agencies ......................................................... 6
Opening up our Data - MetInsights Implementation ......................................................................... 6
Improving Digital Disclosure ............................................................................................................... 6
Office Automation and Communication ............................................................................................. 7
Cloud Hosting Platform ....................................................................................................................... 7
Strategic Procurement ........................................................................................................................ 7
The Met Direction ................................................................................................................................... 8
Operational Priorities .......................................................................................................................... 8
Enabling Priorities ............................................................................................................................... 8
MPS Data Strategy ................................................................................................................................ 10
Data Quality ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Data Classification ............................................................................................................................. 10
Data Ownership ................................................................................................................................ 10
Metadata Management .................................................................................................................... 10
Data Assurance ................................................................................................................................. 11
Data Stewardship .............................................................................................................................. 11
Data Asset Realisation ...................................................................................................................... 11
Data Integration ................................................................................................................................ 11
Data Security, Privacy & Compliance ................................................................................................ 11
Data Architecture .............................................................................................................................. 11
National Strategies................................................................................................................................ 12
Policing Vision 2025 .......................................................................................................................... 12
National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-30 ....................................................................................... 13
Thematic Overview ............................................................................................................................... 15
Growth .............................................................................................................................................. 16
Enhanced Mobility ........................................................................................................................ 16
Digital Collaboration ..................................................................................................................... 16
Service Improvement ........................................................................................................................ 17
Delivery Streamlining .................................................................................................................... 17
Contact Transformation ................................................................................................................ 17
Radios and Emergency Services Network (ESN) ........................................................................... 18
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 2 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
Innovation ......................................................................................................................................... 19
Innovation Scope .......................................................................................................................... 19
Innovation Approach .................................................................................................................... 20
Collaboration................................................................................................................................. 21
Innovation Governance................................................................................................................. 22
Specific Initiatives ......................................................................................................................... 22
Application Transformation .............................................................................................................. 24
Improving End User Experience .................................................................................................... 24
Application Portfolio Management and Optimisation.................................................................. 24
Technology modernisation and Delivery Automation .................................................................. 25
Doing More, Better with Data........................................................................................................... 27
Fast Intel........................................................................................................................................ 29
Frontline Situational Awareness ................................................................................................... 29
Delivering the Strategy ......................................................................................................................... 31
Financial Management ......................................................................................................................... 32
Commercial Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 32
People and Structure ............................................................................................................................ 33
Sourcing ................................................................................................................................................ 34
Reporting and Metrics .......................................................................................................................... 35
Employee Engagement & Support .................................................................................................... 35
Portfolio Health ................................................................................................................................. 35
Supportability.................................................................................................................................... 35
Supplier Management ...................................................................................................................... 35
Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 36
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 3 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
Introduction The mission of the Metropolitan Police Service (the Met) is to Keep London Safe for Everyone. The scale is clear; in London, there are circa 9 million residents and millions of commuters, visitors and tourists who come into our city every day. Digital Policing is the Met’s technology function. The Digital Policing focus for the next five (5) years is providing effective services for our 50,000+ end users, our partners and every member of the public, all within current financial constraints. Digital Policing will meet these objectives through delivery of technology as an enabler of broader business strategy, in partnership with the wider MPS. Digital Policing has an important role to play. Our aim is to give every customer the best possible technology experience, from our Police Officers and staff working in stations and on the street, to our partners that rely on our support and data to support safeguarding, crime prevention and investigation, to members of the public who want to engage with us in new ways, through a channel and at a time that suits them. It is our responsibility to deploy the right technology and to increase the speed and efficiency of delivery. The Met is committed to ensuring all of our people have the data and technology they need to do their jobs well and for citizens to be able to use a variety of digital channels to communicate with us, report crime and carry out transactions. The Coronavirus Pandemic has shown us that the future is more difficult to predict. Experience during this period has been that the MPS workforce adapted quickly to remote and mobile working and that our reliance on traditional office space has declined. Our technology must be intuitive, user focused, but also more mobile and flexible than ever. When buying new systems, the user will be at the heart of everything. Digital Policing will measure and manage customer satisfaction and seek to continually drive improvement. It will be more important than ever to decommission old technology, to enable and support new ways of working and to divert all funding possible into new capabilities, which will drive ever greater efficiencies in our services. This document sets out Digital Policing’s strategy to helping realise the Met’s digital vision. The work needed will be challenging, but the end goal is important – great technology for our customers. The Digital Policing team is full of talented and dedicated professionals, who share a drive and determination to continue to transform the Met’s digital services in line with the needs of the business. Over the period covered by our last strategy, we have increased the pace of change, and we will need to continue to move even faster. We will deliver, and keep delivering, the right technology for our users following sound principles which support the wider Met business and integrate with national technology. I know this will be an exciting time and we have many challenges. We must take the opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of the people of London. The role of technology in the success of the Met will only increase over time. This document sets out how Digital Policing will contribute to this success. I hope you find the document informative and I welcome any feedback you have. Angus McCallum December 2020 Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 4 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
Role of Digital Policing Technology is critical for the delivery of services in a digital age. Our customers increasingly default to digital channels that allow them to communicate with us. Our workforce assesses our technology against that which they use in their homes and personal lives. This strategy sets out the Digital Policing focus on building on the successes under our 2017-2020 Strategy. Digital Policing will continue to deliver modern technology for our internal customers (police officers and staff) and our external customers (the general public, partners and businesses). During the 2021-25 strategic period, we will decommission the last of our core strategic legacy solutions that the Met has used for over two decades. We will continue to mature our well-defined ways of working, supported by clear principles, standards and patterns. Digital Policing must take a partnering approach with the internal organisation, through Business Engagement Managers to understand the pressures and goals for individual divisions, provide challenge and to hold an open dialogue on the advantages and possibilities that can be introduced through the application of technologies to their operations. For digital areas of core strategic MPS value (such as data, interfaces and channels) these efforts are supported by domain specialist architects. We then take accountability for technology delivery, making sure our colleagues are able to realise the benefits of technology investment and constantly seek to enhance ways of working as technology evolves. We have expanded these partnering approaches to other police forces and criminal justice agencies, through our engagement in national forums (such as the National Police Technology Council) and support to the delivery of national initiatives (such as the National Enabling Programme and Single Online Home for policing). We already have great people and will continue our commitment to nurture diversity and develop our workforce, seeking expert assistance when necessary to achieve our goals. We will continually seek and listen to feedback from our customers through our Digital Experience team and adapt as quickly as is sustainable when our environment changes. This document outlines the way in which Digital Policing will guide technology selection and implementation to support creation of an effective and efficient police service and the Met vision ‘To make London safe for everyone’. Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 5 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
2017-20 Key Achievements Digital Policing have delivered on our 2017 commitments and have completed the following key activities and themes from, the 2017-20 strategy document1. We have also uplifted and expanded our infrastructure capacity and improved performance as, whilst this was not a dedicated objective, it underpins the user experience. Mobility More than 40,000 laptops and tablets have been deployed across the workforce. Front line officers have now been equipped with a second generation of devices which are ruggedized and performant, enabling full functionality in the field. Many back office staff have been made more mobile, reducing the demands for physical estate and enabling thousands of employees to work away from the office safely. The new technology has enabled officers to spend more time on the streets and less time in police buildings. This deployment was completed in close partnership with the Smarter Working initiative within the Transformation Directorate and in close coordination with Front Line Policing. This tripartite delivery focus ensured that strategic ambitions were met as well as minimising the deployment impact and maximising the value derived from the implementation by working closely with the officers that would be utilising the technologies. These approaches proved highly successful and are the template for all future work. Digital Policing have selected a corporate Android smartphone device and are deploying them across ~10,000 personnel, having enabled email access and use of a curated set of off the shelf apps to support operational improvements. Digital Asset Management and Sharing with Partner Agencies Digital Policing have implemented Digital Asset Management platforms, which offer scalable document and media storage for the organisation and enables the sharing of files securely with 3rd parties to improve collaboration and monitoring / auditing of partner use of MPS data. Such platforms are key to enabling a digital end-to-end process, providing storage for media uploaded by the public through to files shared with the Crown Prosecution Service. Digital Policing will continue to work with partners to eliminate the use of CDs and DVDs for sharing evidence. Opening up our Data - MetInsights Implementation Digital Policing have implemented the MetInsights solution in partnership with the Information Futures programme, allowing for automated analysis, dashboarding and reporting to improve access for senior officers and performance teams and frontline officers to data providing decision-support. Working with the Data Office we are evolving this service to meet broader aspirations for data derived insight at a portfolio level, empowering BCU Commanders with demand insight and supporting deployment and response decisions at all levels of the organisation. Improving Digital Disclosure Partnering with a specialist provider Digital Policing have co-produced search and review capability, which empowers frontline officers to assess larger volumes of digital evidence more efficiently and aids with ensuring timely and accurate disclosure. When deployed this solution will enable officers to combine mobile phone information and multiple social media channels, text messages etc. The 1 https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/force-content/met/about-us/one-met-digital- policing-strategy-2017-2020.pdf Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 6 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
service also protects the privacy of victims and empowers officers to be able to undertake more elements of investigations directly, rather than relying on high-demand specialist teams. Office Automation and Communication In line with the National Enabling Programme, MPS completed migration of all email boxes to the Microsoft 365 platform (as of the end of 2019) with additional capabilities around Microsoft Teams (for video conferencing, instant messaging and team collaboration) also available to all. Power Apps are being deployed to enable greater Smarter Working opportunities from 2020. Our Digital Experience unit work closely with operational units to review business processes and identify opportunities to add automation and additional capability to help manage demand. Cloud Hosting Platform Digital Policing have contracted with a specialist SME provider and established a set of hosting environments on the Microsoft Azure platform across the full Delivery Lifecycle and have successfully migrated a number of substantial applications onto the platform to remove the need to procure physical hardware as capital assets and remediating a number of operational risks around existing infrastructure. The platform includes dedicated connectivity with the Met estate to provide predictable performance levels, as this is a key consideration for cloud migrations. Strategic Procurement The 2016 SIAM & Towers model was fully implemented and Digital Policing is now at market for the next round of agreements and will have announced preferred bidders and started transition before the end of 2020, in preparation for service commencement in 2021. Our new model will simplify our supply chain arrangements to make accountability clearer and reduce implementation risks and costs, whilst maintaining an element of competition. These agreements will provide the primary delivery vehicle for this strategy, with elements competed across more niche specialist providers where appropriate. Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 7 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
The Met Direction
Digital Policing embeds the core principles of The Met Direction2 in everything we do, both for our
customers and our own people. For elements of this strategy we are the key enabling partner and
this will be at the heart of our focus.
Operational Priorities
1. Focus on what matters most to Londoners
Through continuing development and use of the Single Online Home, we will ensure that the
MPS’ public-facing digital services continue to meet the needs of Londoners and by extension
improve the service the Single Online Home offers to all citizens in England & Wales in
collaboration with other forces.
2. Work more closely with partners and the public
Digital Policing has implemented a number of services to support better collaborative working
with partners and the public. Moving forward we will continue to enhance these offerings and
through our work on the Application Programming Interface (API) economy, will offer more
opportunities for consumption of our services. Through adoption of the National Law
Enforcement Data Services (NLEDS) and other national data services we will ensure that we
enrich data for both ourselves and other partners.
3. Achieve the best outcomes in the pursuit of justice and in the support of victims
Digital Policing is working closely with the operational policing units to help accelerate
investigations through the application of data analytics and to provide more regular updates on
case progress to victims. Our digital tools offer more choices to victims in terms of how they
engage with us, but we know this may not be suitable for all of them and so we continue to offer
them traditional means of engagement in addition to these new tools. These services are
carefully designed around the needs of victims and their potential vulnerability.
Enabling Priorities
1. Seize the opportunities of data and digital tech
This is Digital Policing’s core strength, offering market insight, implementation expertise and
innovative approaches to using commodity technology in an operational policing context. We
have dedicated strands around enhancing the Digital Experience for our colleagues (promoting
greater collaboration and productivity) and on using technologies to assist with the analysis and
presentation of data, in concert with the Data Office. In addition to this Digital Policing provides
strategic partnering support to our transformation projects and programmes. We will focus in
the coming period on providing the enabling technology and helping to underpin all aspects of
the MPS Data Strategy in close partnership with the Data Office and supporting the MPS in
becoming a data led organisation.
2. Care for each other, work as a team, and be an attractive place to work
Digital Policing continues to score highly in Met Staff Engagement surveys and is further
developing the support we give to staff through better tooling, career path development,
promoting diversity inclusion and belonging, and wider availability of training / mentoring
2
https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-us/about-the-met/the-met-
direction/
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 8 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
opportunities. The work we do is directly linked to providing better justice outcomes and better
service for Londoners and we believe we offer a strongly compelling prospect for technologists
that are motivated by these drivers.
3. Learn from experience, from others, and constantly strive to improve
Our Digital Experience and Service Delivery functions have an ongoing programme of
improvements to our digital services to ensure that the services continue to offer better value,
deliver increasing capability and benefit from their extended use and that they are secure,
supportable and delight our users. We draw inspiration for our improvements and innovations
from our peers in the Justice system, but also from our industry partners and academic research.
4. Be recognised as a responsible, exemplary and ethical organisation
In our use of new technologies, we carefully consider the ethical implications and our
responsibilities, both from a legislative and also from a community support and public service
dimension. Through engagement with internal specialists, the public, academia, peers and
broader industry we will assess the legal, ethical, moral and technical implications of the use of
new technology capabilities and will balance this against the operational efficiencies and
benefits that could be gained through their adoption. In partnership with the MPS Commercial
function we have introduced mandatory standards and tests for procurement activities focused
around ethical and legal considerations at point of procurement, embedding these practices
across the entire technology lifecycle.
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 9 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
MPS Data Strategy
Technology provides a key factor to enabling the Data Strategy and so Digital Policing have a key role
in supporting the Data Office in realising the ambitions laid out therein.
Data Quality 1 2 Data Classification
Data Ownership 3 4 Metadata
MPS Management
Data Assurance 5 Data 6 Data
Stewardship
Pillars
Data Asset 7 8 Data Integration
Realisation
Data Security, Privacy 9 10 Data Architecture
and Compliance
Figure 1 - MPS Data Pillars
Data Quality
Digital Policing are working in partnership with the Data Office to investigate gaps and
inconsistencies in data and populate them where data is held in other stores / sources of
information. By applying more intuitive interfaces and investing in auto-population (for example, of
location information based on device location services) to reduce the administrative burden of data
capture and to conduct greater input validation to ensure accuracy.
Data Classification
Use of automated inference and classification of information, based not only on its contents but also
on the services that consume it so that context can be inferred, will allow for the classification of
data. Taking this approach to enriching information sources will make their subsequent searching
and analysis significantly easier and will also allow different control regimes to be applied in a data
security and privacy context based on the sensitivity and usage context of the information.
Data Ownership
Where data is reused or replicated in multiple services, data will be tagged with the organisational
owner. This will make it easier for application Business Service Owners to understand who owns and
controls the risks and handling of data. For Information Asset Owners this will also improve the
ability for them to see where data they are accountable for is in use and to do reporting on the
utilisation and access to said data.
Metadata Management
Advancing approaches to metadata management within MPS will allow decisions to be made on the
appropriate processing and management of the data without needing to process the data directly,
therefore improving the privacy and security of the data without constraining the ability to surface
and analyse at a portfolio level. Digital Policing will investigate and assess whether the application of
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 10 of 36 Metropolitan Police Serviceexternal metadata management tooling is required to best achieve this or whether applying additional metadata directly within existing stores and adding the amount of tags and additional data that is automatically applied through the capture process and through subsequent enrichment. Data Assurance New applications procured and deployed by Digital Policing will feature input validation to ensure that data is accurately captured or validated at point of persistence within a System of Record. In addition to this, Digital Policing will explore tooling to analyse existing data for accuracy, completeness and compliance and automatically correct errors (where possible) or provide reports on errors to be addressed to the Information Asset Owner where these cannot be adjusted without risking the integrity or the record. Data Stewardship Digital Policing’s specialised data architects will be working in close partnership with the Data Office to produce standards for the stewardship of data, with appropriate recourse to the Information Asset Owner (be that internal or external) on the expectations of handling and management within applications. These standards will be applied in future procurements to ensure that new applications can manage in line with these standards, or that mitigating action can be taken through their use in an informed manner. Data Asset Realisation Digital Policing will mature offerings to conduct discovery and reporting of data within the organisation, ensuring that reports and outputs can be consumed with confidence indicators on their completeness, accuracy, currency and volatility. Standard outputs will be automated to ensure the broader availability of data assets to wider audiences. Data Integration Digital Policing will continue the established trend of removing duplication of data across systems and moving to direct API based integration with authoritative sources of data. MPS will make broader use of its strategic Integration Platform (MetIP) to make data from critical Systems of Record more broadly available for consumption – initial priorities will be around learning and skills data, availability information and location / mapping information. Data Security, Privacy & Compliance Building further on the MPS Cyber Strategy3 and in partnership with the Data Office, we will continue to mature the use our security controls to address risks of inappropriate data usage. These same controls will be applied to new process contexts to promote broader privacy and allow faster reporting of, and tighter control and management of, compliance with policy and legislation in the use of data, helping build confidence in the organisation’s use of data and transparency over its use. Data Architecture Through jointly developed standards with the Data Office, Digital Policing will produce taxonomies, entity models and visualisations to improve understanding of the existing data landscape within MPS, covering internally held data and that processed and exchanged with partners. This will allow for discussion on where enrichment can / should occur, where ownership rests and on priorities. 3 https://www.met.police.uk/police-forces/metropolitan-police/areas/about-us/about-the-met/cyber- security-strategy/ Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 11 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
National Strategies
This strategy is aligned to both the Policing Vision 2025 and National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-
30 as published by the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) respectively. As
well as delivering the MPS’ elements of these strategies, the key themes from these national models
have also been embedded within the vision for the MPS’ own ambitions, which we will deliver and
build upon over the course of this period.
Policing Vision 2025
The Policing Vision 20254 sets out plans across 5 core areas:
Local Policing
Digital Policing is aiding the Met’s delivery of this commitment by provisioning better and more
granular data analytics to identify trends, causative factors and situational awareness to enable
frontline officers to better focus on preventative action locally, supported by more insightful and
responsive data to enable their decision making. By building out technical links through our API
strategy with broader partner agencies, we facilitate the ethical exchange of richer information
in a more responsive manner to enable better delivery of the right support to those that need it
most.
Specialist Capabilities
We are leveraging our investment in innovative Cyber Security technology, and the skills of our
Cyber Security specialists, to provide closer support to operational units dealing with Cyber and
Cyber-enabled crime. In addition to this we provide more early investigation and triage in cyber-
attacks carried out against the MPS to accelerate investigation of those cases and help in the
building of “best evidence”.
Work Force
Digital Policing has focused on providing new technologies that are intuitive to reduce the
requirement for formal training to make Officers and Staff effective. This allows formal training
to be focused around increasing the effectiveness, pace and value that is derived from these
solutions and the ethical use of data. We have deployed e-learning solutions to support
continuous development of our personnel with dedicated tools for specialist professions (e.g.
Cyber Security and Cybercrime) to provide greater depth. Through our enterprise e-learning
platform we offer both structured and nudge learning opportunities to continue to develop both
our people and support the development of others in the organisation. We encourage the
development of a breadth of skills to allow moves into parallel professional paths within the
organisation.
Digital Policing
Through our continuing development and enhancement of the Single Online Home, Digital
Policing will continue to improve the digital channels available to citizens and businesses for the
reporting of crime and accessing of essential prevention and protection information. We
continue to apply technology to support operational policing in accelerating the analysis of
information in support of intelligence and investigatory activities. Through use of collaboration
tooling we are improving the sharing of digital material with our partners across the Criminal
4
https://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/Policing%20Vision.pdf
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 12 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceJustice System (CJS) and making proceedings for victims, witnesses and officers more flexible
and convenient so that they are less intrusive and improve the overall experience.
Enabling Business Delivery
We are applying the same principles, approaches and solutions of collaboration with Local
Authorities and other partners as we do with the broader CJS to improve the sharing of
safeguarding and other key data. We work closely with our partners providing improvements in
business process and technical integration to drive greater efficiencies, not only for ourselves
but for our partners, and will continue to build on this over the coming period.
National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-30
The National Policing Digital Strategy 2020-305 articulates the 5 priorities for digital enabling and
advancement over the next decade:
1. Seamless Citizen Experience
Through the MPS ownership and delivery of the Single Online Home, we will help drive forward
the national policing ambition to make the citizen experience frictionless and continue to
broaden and deepen the level of services available to citizens via the Single Online Home.
Through the evolution of our API economy we will improve integrations for wider exploitation
both by ourselves and by partners, via a suitable controls and risk framework to govern access.
We are already supporting the trialling of the next generation of operational technologies (e.g.
enhanced Body Worn Video cameras) which will allow us to augment and enrich evidence in
support of achieving positive justice outcomes.
2. Addressing Harm
Working alongside our Data Office colleagues we will help develop the MPS’ analytics platforms
to draw greater inference and insight from our data in support of the whole breadth of policing
activities, but specifically around the reduction of harm through helping officers with decision-
support solutions on the most impactful and best outcomes from interventions and provide
more focus in the prevention of harm and broader crime that this insight can provide. The MPS
will continue to work collaboratively with the Home Office to develop technology that assists us
to identify child exploitation and address the same.
3. Enabling Officers & Staff Through Digital
Digital Policing are providing market awareness and implementation expertise in the
deployment of new learning capabilities, focused on operational skills and ethics in addition to
those digital skills that are increasingly important in the fulfilment of policing duties. Through
our use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and automated workflows between our back office
systems via their APIs, we will automate routine process in order to accelerate their execution,
but also to increase the proportion of personnel time that is spent on value-add and priority
tasks rather than on basic preparation and fulfilment actions.
4. Embedding A Whole Public System Approach
Through the continued development of solutions that support initiatives like Multi Agency
Incident Transfer (MAIT) between forces and more open collaboration on data with wider public
5
https://ict.police.uk/police-innovation-strategy/national-policing-digital-strategy-2020/
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 13 of 36 Metropolitan Police Servicesector organisations (aligned to the government’s National Data Strategy6) we will enable more
effective delivery of services to the public by ensuring that the most effective agency (that which
can make the earliest or most impactful intervention) has access to the data they need to take
that action. Our strategic platforms (Command & Control, Connect for crime reporting & intel
etc) will have links to corresponding solutions with partner agencies to ensure the timely and
effective sharing of information. This approach will be enhanced through our enterprise data
workstreams, delivering enterprise search, reporting & analytics and an evidential data archive
to manage, access and query data more effectively. We will collaborate directly with our
partners in the implementation of these interfaces, rather than publishing an interface and
leaving the onus on the partner to consume it, to ensure that they work in the best interests of
both organisations.
5. Empower The Private Sector
By engaging with innovative vendors and partnering on the delivery and support of core policing
capabilities, Digital Policing continues to support the private sector in gaining greater insight into
police challenges and providing mechanisms through which they are able to demonstrate
contributions to operational policing goals, as well as driving greater effectiveness and cost
efficiency into core services. Digital Policing maintain active engagement with the market
outside of immediate needs and procurements in order to provide this insight and encourage
those firms seeking to make contributions in this sector to offer ethical solutions that work for
policing, be that through adapting solutions from other markets to policing purposes or through
the delivery of new capabilities. Digital Policing adheres to the guidance and policy from
Commercial Services on running Proof of Concepts as part of these engagement. Our robust
commercial approach (principles outlined in Financial Management) and supplier management
ensure that we achieve Value for Money for the taxpayer from these engagements.
6
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-national-data-strategy/national-data-strategy
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 14 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceThematic Overview
The strategic framework is structured around 5 core themes:
1. Growth
a. Enhanced Mobility
b. Digital Collaboration
2. Service Improvement
a. Delivery Streamlining
b. Contact Transformation
c. Radios and Emergency Services Network (ESN)
3. Innovation
a. Automating the Back Office
b. API Economy
c. Biometrics
4. Application Transformation
a. Improving End User Experience
b. Portfolio Management and Optimisation
c. Technology Modernisation
d. Automation of Delivery
5. Doing More, Better With Data
a. Fast Intel
b. Frontline Situational Awareness
Figure 2 - Strategic Themes
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 15 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceGrowth Digital Policing has delivered a succession of new technologies to replace legacy platforms and to implement new or enhanced capabilities to better support operational colleagues, as well as in improving our own operations and service delivery. Growth is about us building on these strong foundations to deliver greater capabilities and efficiencies through wider use of existing technologies, as well as enhancing the offerings themselves with additional features. Enhanced Mobility Digital Policing has delivered over 40,000 mobile devices across the workforce in partnership with the Smarter Working initiative. Front line officers on response teams, neighbourhoods, safer transport and taskforce are now equipped with the second generation ruggedized tablets. These devices are robust and enable officers to complete their work in the field with minimal need to return to police stations except with prisoners or at the start and end of shifts. In addition to the next-generation tablets, MPS will deploy corporate smartphones to a broader array of roles in the organisation, offering more flexibility for receiving intelligence on the move and allowing more roles that have a need for location based or mobile services and cannot access these suitably on a laptop to have access to them to drive further operational efficiency. New recruits are being trained on the mobile devices and are able to use them as soon as they are deployed into their first post. The new devices will be capable of supporting the new Connect and Command & Control systems when they come online in 2021 and 2022. Officers can also video conference and access the full Office 365 suite of applications. In addition to this, a number of our corporate Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings are enabled for access from either these tablets or corporate smartphones with appropriate security and auditing having been applied to protect both the organisation’s information assets and also the exposure of the individual from device compromise or inadvertent disclosure. Digital Policing will also investigate options to maximise the services available to these devices to enhance the richness of information and capability available to officers on the front line, allowing more operational functions to be carried out whilst in the field. Detectives, specialists and back office staff are equipped with laptops, leaving only a relatively small number of special roles on desktops in police buildings. Laptops have enabled staff to work remotely, reducing the demands on the physical estate and use the same operating system as the tablets, providing a consistent user experience. Technology is now specifically covered in the annual MPS Staff Survey and the Digital Experience team will test all new technology with front line users to ensure it is fit for purpose. Digital Collaboration Building on the introduction of mobile devices and deployment of Office 365, we will enhance the video enabled justice that has been started in response to COVID-19. Working with HM Courts and Ministry of Justice, Digital Policing will further link our technologies to enable remote hearings and court appearances as far as possible, saving officer time and costs. Digital Policing will also work with partner agencies to make national systems suitable for mobile use, such as VISOR, PNC and PND. This will give officers access to the relevant data to make operational decisions without recourse to returning to the station or radioing colleagues for information. Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 16 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
Service Improvement
Digital Policing is committed to the continual improvement of the services we deliver in terms of: the
capability and efficiency they deliver; their Total Cost of Ownership, and their Return on Investment
within that; their currency, reliability, supportability and security. In support of this there is an
ongoing programme of enhancements, upgrades and maintenance activity to ensure that our
services continue to deliver, and augment, the enabling impact their use has for operational policing.
This programme is too extensive to detail here, but there are several strong themes that are worth
highlighting in terms of their importance to the service portfolio.
Delivery Streamlining
In order to continue to improve the efficiency of delivery (both from a cost and time perspective),
Digital Policing will broaden our catalogue of standard service items allowing for more automated
fulfilment and more rapid processing of requests and provision to the end user. The automation of
approvals and provisioning for low cost / risk items will also accelerate overall delivery, this will
empower people to take more responsibility for their own provision, with full show-back of costings
allowing for continued exercise of management oversight and intervention where required.
All provisioning processes for common items (server hosts, software deployments, account
management etc.) will be automated through our core tooling to reduce the amount of
administrative effort required, allowing us to reduce our service fulfilment costs and focus skilled
resources on better engagement and support to operating units on their roadmaps, more complex
needs and potential service improvements.
Analysis of requests will also be conducted to identify new candidates for inclusion in the catalogue
and to highlight and promote the best business fit of items where requested resources are not the
most cost effective option, allowing for continual embedding of Value for Money practices and
ongoing management of cost.
Contact Transformation
Digital Policing will converge our fixed telephony, soft-phone, video conferencing and mobile
telephony into more flexible standard tier offerings focused around:
999 / 101 critical contact management
Business contact centre provision for specialist internal support functions
Corporate communications both internally and externally
As an extension of the work done over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Digital Policing will
mature and expand our offerings to promote flexibility and increased capability, allowing contact
services to promote and support greater collaboration options with stakeholders and also allow
functions to be fulfilled entirely remotely or as a hybrid of corporate and home based working to
allow greater flexibility in operating units delivering their own capabilities.
This approach will be developed in partnership with these support functions, not dictating change
but offering a variety of options for them to evolve their own operating models and to further
exploit the opportunities these technologies can offer. By providing more flexibility, Digital Policing
will enable further costs to be driven out of business units and to offer contact better aligned to
organisational demands. This will allow the introduction of new support models and also offer wider
flexibility around estates demand, support times and contact types.
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 17 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceRadios and Emergency Services Network (ESN) Digital Policing continue to work on refreshing and enhancing the radio estate to ensure that this critical lifeline of communication is maintained. This work covers not only the replacement and refreshing of handsets themselves, but also improved methods for managing their access to the network and providing updates to them remotely when required. MPS are actively engaged with the ESN programme within the Home Office and have started enabling work aligned to this to ensure that officers are ready to be equipped with ESN devices and have access to ESN services at the earliest suitable juncture. In addition to this Digital Policing are working with the Home Office to understand the potential for ESN handsets to also provide the app- based services that are currently being deployed through MPS handsets to ensure officers do not have to face duplication of equipment. Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 18 of 36 Metropolitan Police Service
Innovation
Digital Policing has a small dedicated Innovation function that works in partnership with our supply
chain, other Digital Policing functions and wider business units to identify, assess and trial innovative
technology solutions to deliver improvements and transformation in areas where policing is distinct
/ unique from other industries and where our deep business context offers most value.
Innovation is key to the Met Direction and facilitates our ability to predict and react to change,
identify new ways to prevent and tackle crime, and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
policing in the capital. The Met Direction provides the business context for what areas of innovation
is of value and provides the framework for prioritising this. Technology innovation enables the
identification of strategic and emerging technology trends, which are operationalized to deliver new
or extended capabilities.
The technology landscape is changing at an unprecedented rate and does not discriminate between
citizens, the police and criminals. The Met needs to assess each trend and its potential impact on
the organisation. Utilising new technologies to disrupt criminals and counter the threat of
technology being exploited for crime is key to a safe city. Innovation supports the Met in gaining a
lead on crime and providing the best police service to our residents and visitors.
Technology innovation is about taking advantage of new or existing technology and putting them
into practice, thus adding value to the organisation. In simple terms, technology innovation is a tool
to solve the organisational challenges and prepare it for what lies ahead. The objectives of
technological / digital enablement innovation activities at the Met are:
To support transformation, continuous improvement and other change initiatives within the
Met by identifying innovative technologies that enable their target operating models, for
example empowering frontline officers with the right tools and skill to resolve crime in an
efficient and timely manner. The policing COTS market is fairly small (though growing) and
so this can also be met through finding broader technologies not utilised for policing (e.g.
resource management, Power Apps etc) and applying them in a policing context.
To explore cutting-edge technologies, prioritised by the business that the Met could take
advantage of and open opportunities for completely new operating models that would not
have been possible in the past.
To build and proliferate knowledge of new technologies and contribute towards an
innovation culture within Met and beyond. At the same time, deflate hype and unrealistic
expectations of new technologies.
Drive collaboration internally and externally and influence the roadmaps of technology
providers and partners as well as standards for new technologies, to support law
enforcement requirements. This can include getting more generic / broad market security
vendors to recognise policing applications of their platforms and highlight their usage in this
context.
Innovation Scope
The speed and scale of technology advancement poses a challenge in keeping up with the latest
development and identifying viable technologies for the Met. The areas of focus naturally diminishes
the further we look out, that said, technology takes time to mature so a roadmap of embryonic IT
developments to explore is required, albeit the longer-term view is more subject to change. Our
remit must consider both sides of the “innovation coin” - the positive impact innovation can have in
reducing crime and on the flip side its exploitation to commit crime and hide criminal activities. Our
view of innovation will reflect the legal and ethical framework that is required in this former context,
with a demonstrable understanding of the criminal application not being bound by these same
constraints. The areas to explore are split into three tiers with some examples as illustrated below.
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 19 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceFigure 3 - Innovation Scope
Innovation Approach
Dedicated Innovation Team
We have a dedicated team in place to explore and evaluate new technologies that can be
subsequently implemented by a standard project delivery route. Having this dedicated function,
rather than seeking to delegate innovation practices into the wider organisation allows us to:
Have a consistent process in place for evaluation of new technologies
Identification of new technologies by horizon scanning and idea generation by specialist
resources
Run proofs of concept and pilots where necessary without impacting standard service and
operational activities
Produce business justifications for viable new technologies based on cost-benefit analysis
Scrutinise ethical and legal implications of cutting-edge technologies through specialist
insight and relationships
Looking for innovative procurement routes, and provide a focal point for SMEs to engage
with us
Cultivating and supporting the growth of innovation culture by closely working with the
wider business both in terms of idea generation and future adoption of new technologies
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 20 of 36 Metropolitan Police ServiceFigure 4 - Innovation Process
Collaboration
As part of the Innovation team’s remit, we explore and cultivate ideas from within the Met, other
police services and external organisations to accelerate innovation specifically related to policing and
combating crime.
Internal Collaboration
We recognise that any technology led innovation needs to be closely aligned to Met’s needs and
priorities. We also want to harness a huge pool of ideas and knowledge from the Met’s employees
where the technology could help. We will directly engage these critical internal assets by:
Working closely with Digital Policing Business Engagement Managers
Close working with Chief Officer Groups, the Data Office and our Transformation function
and senior officers
Close collaboration with Strategy & Enterprise Architecture to ensure technology fit
Partnership with Commercial & Finance to explore how these approaches can be suitably
procured and funded
Technology innovation days for a Met wide audience
Innovation forum for joined up working with other change initiatives within the Met
Pursuing improvements in innovation and associated processes to make innovation easier
for everyone and more efficient
Championing the value and commitment to innovation by engaging with all levels in the
organisation starting with senior leadership
External Collaboration
The exploration of cutting-edge technologies sometimes requires very specialised skills which are
not available in the Met, but which may be available in other organisations. When working with
other organisations the Met also has the ability to directly influence the development of new
technologies that result in innovative capabilities for policing. We shall provide open and direct
collaboration with external parties in this space in order to:
Learn from other organisations and where possible reuse their ideas, approaches and
capabilities.
Collaborate with universities, industries, entrepreneurs, research groups and forums that
tend to be the sources of original research and sector disruption.
Run collaborative projects or complementary trials with other police forces or blue light
organisations and sharing the findings. Specific opportunities are sought to collaborate more
Digital Policing Strategy 2021-25 Page 21 of 36 Metropolitan Police Servicebroadly across the Greater London Authority (GLA) in support of broader Mayoral
objectives.
Work with the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) to participate and learn
from proof of concepts they run for HMG national security departments (NCA, UKIC, MOD
and HO).
Outside of the NSSIF we also work directly with other Police Forces on areas of innovation to
share learning and seek joint solutions where this is of benefit.
Get greater value from existing suppliers and embed innovation in their contracts.
Take advantage of national initiatives, forums and external funding streams for exploration
of new technologies. The National Police Technology Council (NPTC) is a priority forum in
this regard and we ensure the Met has strong representation.
Where possible extend collaboration internationally, such as other EU forces, sharing
knowledge on technologies and products.
Innovation Governance
We shall mature our governance for technology innovation to ensure that it remains proportionate
and responsive to the experimental nature of this work in order to ensure that we:
Provide a framework for technology innovation
Select ideas for further exploration that demonstrate tangible business value
Oversee any proofs of concept or pilots of new technologies
Acknowledge learning from both successful trials and failures
Ensure trust and transparency in new technologies within the organisation
Promote technology innovation
Specific Initiatives
In the early stages of this cycle, the following areas will be explored in concert with the wider Met as
specific areas of perceived business value, whilst continuing to apply the broader approach outlined
above.
Automating the Back Office
The MPS will make further use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and workflow orchestration and
automation opportunities within our existing strategic assets to remove laborious elements of
administrative tasks from our operational and support functions that consume valuable skilled
resources that could otherwise focus on higher value-add or risk management functions.
Opportunities for these automations will be derived through user research directly with operational
business units and will be done in concert with exploring opportunities for process redesign to
ensure that we do not simply automate and accelerate inefficient working practices. Early
candidates for these will be entry of data into additional systems from a source system where it is
required to be entered in multiple locations, entering structured data into our core business
applications from less structured formats (like emails) or processing request forms for standard
services (e.g. for HR, Finance etc.). These opportunities will be sought across Corporate Services as
well as support functions across operational policing.
API Economy
As MPS continues to mature its internal data operations and its partnering with wider Police Forces
(e.g. BTP), other emergency services (e.g. LAS), CJS agencies, local authorities and the public,
opportunities will grow for making greater utilisation of APIs across MPS applications and data stores
both internally, to promote wider efficiencies and automation, and also externally to allow trusted
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