As many as 60 million hours could be saved with the integration of technology and improvements to digital skills among UK police forces, equivalent to the work of 30,000 police officers and staff.

The recommendations are part of the independent Policing Productivity Review, which concluded on 30th September after initially being commissioned by the Home Office in August 2022. 

Although the final stage of the three-phase review has yet to be published, earlier estimates from the review claimed that across 64 tech projects being trialled, a total of 347,656 workforce hours per year would be saved, with direct net savings of £8.2 million a year in costs.

As well as highlighting significant potential savings, the review also focuses on the barriers to productivity currently faced by officers on the ground, including challenges related to ageing IT networks, system interoperability, a lack of digital skills, and poor long-term strategic planning.

Among the recommended solutions are the rollout of more automation and robotics, with already proven success for forces using Robotic Process Automation Process to free-up frontline officers’ time by completing tasks such as linking victims as witnesses, and Computer Aided Despatch for log reporting, and victim referral checks.

The review argues that more must be done to link often disparate systems with often huge and unwieldy data sets in order to improve both productivity and outcomes for victims. One solution highlighted is the use of bots to trawl systems which can link crime reports on the same incidents, victims and suspects that a human operator might miss. 

The technical debt within policing is spiralling, with chief scientific officer to policing claiming that 97% of technology investment in the sector is spent on maintaining existing technologies, however the review points out that more is needed to ensure not just that existing systems are fit for purpose, but that the police are able to keep up with the changing face of crime.

“Productivity matters because it means we are getting the best possible policing service we can from the resources we have available. Good policing is the cornerstone of a safe and thriving society,” said Alan Pughsley, lead reviewer and former chief constable with Kent Police.

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“Improving productivity needs to be more ingrained in policing culture. We make several recommendations, including a big push on data and evaluation and a bespoke policing productivity function to drive improvement. It will be important to build on the momentum created by early productivity gains.”

Under the previous government, the Home Office committed to a £65 million uplift in policing innovation and technology budgets in 2024/25, with emerging technologies such as facial recognition, robotic process automation, digital evidence gathering, and Rapid Video Response being highlighted as key areas of investment.