‘Police Scotland mobile working project’: implementation and impact evaluation, and benefits realisation.

Diack, Lesley; Falconer, Midj; Graham, William; Gallagher, Martin

Abstract

Running within the context of the ‘Digitally Enabled Policing Programme’ (DEPP), the ‘Police Scotland Mobile Working Project’ is an on-going project as part of the Police Scotland ‘Serving a Changing Scotland Strategy’. The project seeks to equip operational officers with a digital mobile policing solution to replace the traditional paper notebook system, to provide remote, live access to key policing information systems. Identified long-term potential benefits include: realised time efficiency savings to both police officers and staff; improved officer safety and wellbeing; increased officer visibility; improved detection rates and public confidence, and reduced organisational risk. The national phased roll-out commenced in June 2019, with the distribution of smartphone devices to police officers in five Police Scotland Divisions: initially Tayside (D-Division), and latterly to police officers in the Highlands and Islands and North-East (N and A-Divisions), Greater Glasgow and Renfrewshire and Inverclyde (G and K-Divisions). To date over two thousand officers have been trained in using the device. To ensure a robust evidence base in respect of the realisation of benefits, Police Scotland have appointed Robert Gordon University (RGU) and Abertay University to evaluate the implementation and impact of the national roll-out of digital mobile policing to date, which will also inform the final stages of roll-out to 10000 police officers across Scotland. The research utilises a combined prospective and retrospective approach, an alternative to the predominantly retrospective focused approach employed in the evaluation of the implementation of digital policing. This paper will present an overview of the methods employed to undertake this evaluation. It will illustrate how these methods will effectively assess utilisation of devices where currently deployed and inform the final stages of implementation, and appraise benefit realisation of the deployment of digital policing technology to meet the requirements of contemporary operational policing.

Citation

DIACK, L., FALCONER, M., GRAHAM, W. and GALLAGHER, M. 2019. ‘Police Scotland mobile working project’: implementation and impact evaluation, and benefits realisation. Presented at the 2019 Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) Scottish international policing conference: digital policing: ethical challenges regarding the role of technology in policing, 10 December 2019, Edinburgh, UK.

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: 2019 Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) Scottish international policing conference: digital policing: ethical challenges regarding the role of technology in policing
• Conference Location: Edinburgh, UK
• Start Date: Dec 10, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jan 16, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 21, 2020
• Keywords: Police Scotland; Digital mobile; Information systems; Time efficiency; Safety; Wellbeing; Visibiltiy; Detection rates; Public confidence
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/828872