Architecting police forces: How Enterprise Architecture helps address tomorrow’s challenges
As with many organisations across the public sector, police forces are under pressure to modernise and digitalise with the same, or even fewer resources than before. These seemingly contrasting goals have put many forces at a critical juncture.
We are excited to contribute to techUK’s Emerging Tech in Policing Week to help look at the role technology can play in addressing these challenges. In this article, we show how Enterprise Architecture (EA) helps build the right foundations for success.
Death, taxes – and change?
We all know that the only certainties in life are death and taxes, but perhaps it is time to add ‘change’ to that list.
Given the challenges of modernisation, cloud adoption, and resource constraints in an environment of constant change, a structured, outcome-driven approach is vital for success.
How does Enterprise Architecture help?
EA helps police forces plan and adapt for change. It does so by turning data from across the organisation into consumable knowledge that can be harnessed to inform change management and transformation programmes. Effective EA is an organisation-wide approach to driving positive, data-driven change, and is best described in four layers:
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The business layer to capture the high-level objectives and strategies of the force;
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The application layer – the tools and platforms that enable the business layer;
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The information layer – the capture, analysis and governance of data;
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And the technology layer that enables all of the above (devices, infrastructure, networks).
With this framework in place, police forces can architect from the top down to be leaner, agile, and more resilient to the challenges that come their way. In short, it breaks down organisational silos to provide data in a usable format to allow planning for and adaption to change.
How this fits with policing’s strategic priorities
The College of Policing laid out three strategic priorities in a 2022 report; one of these is driving consistency, and overcoming the weaknesses of the 43 force model.
A properly implemented EA programme would address consistency issues both within and between forces. This would reap benefits in both cost efficiency and operational efficiency.
From the cost perspective, it gives forces the opportunity to inventory applications, and to map their usage against strategic goals. Trimming the fat on legacy applications that are not central to key objectives allows budget to be redeployed onto more value-generating resources.
Furthermore, EA is not all about saving money – it can also help on an operational level. By creating and giving visibility of the entire organisation in the form of a digital twin, forces can move from disproportionate focus on incident response, instead focusing on the broader goal of crime prevention.
Integrating without integration
The concept of a nationwide police force, while mooted, is unlikely in reality for a whole host of reasons.
In the absence of this, EA provides the opportunity for forces to integrate without integration. In other words, it would provide a single repository of information and data as the basis of valuable interoperability within and between forces, not to mention other intelligence agencies, the NPCC, Police Digital Service, and other interested parties.
Old EA versus Next Generation EA
Old school approaches to EA have often been likened to librarians, with too much focus on documentation resulting in low perceived value. Because of this, it can prove difficult to create a business case for Enterprise Architecture.
By contrast, modern, pragmatic, automated EA focuses on outcomes to create future proof organisations. Building a programme from a starter level through to an influential status is the best approach, and facilitates a much quicker realisation of initial results. This approach keeps start-up costs to a minimum while giving a solid platform to build on as the EA practice becomes more entrenched across the force.
In summary
By aligning IT, information systems and processes from across public services entities, EA plays a pivotal role in modernising police forces. Through its ability to illustrate relationships between technologies, applications and processes, EA can break down the silos that exist within and between forces.
Next generation approaches to EA also provide the foundation for police forces to select and plan future technology investments to avoid overlaps and redundancies. This has the potential to optimise the utilisation of public funding by providing a greater visibility of technology assets. EA also provides a holistic understanding of technologies, processes and dependencies for different stakeholders to effectively plan and improve policing services to deliver better community outcomes.
Author:
Ben Beeching, MEGA International
Georgie Morgan
Georgie joined techUK as the Justice and Emergency Services (JES) Programme Manager in March 2020, then becoming Head of Programme in January 2022.
