Derbyshire Constabulary's new, digital way of working with Microsoft Teams

The pandemic drives digitalisation

The need to find new ways of working throughout the pandemic lockdowns, when face-to-face contact was difficult, served to expedite digital transformation in many organisations across the UK. In this, Derbyshire Constabulary was no different.

Under the umbrella of the National Enabling Programmes (NEP) the force was already someway along implementing a secure, trusted, cloud-based digital platform along with the tools, applications and services to help them work better. 

“We were already ahead of the curve with Microsoft Teams,” recalls Gemma Booth, “we’d started looking at use cases, we’d redesigned processes, and we had the support of IS to progress the technical infrastructure. It meant we could accelerate when the pandemic hit.”

Having rolled out Microsoft 365 in November 2019, Derbyshire Constabulary fast-tracked the release of Microsoft Teams to its 3,500 users over three weeks in March 2020.

Early use cases focused on static content

One of the first use cases for Microsoft Teams was to build a ‘how to’ database for learning and development. Gemma Booth explains the thinking: “At 3am in the parade room when an officer asks, ‘how do I do this?’ that’s the moment to get their attention and embed learning. If we wait for two weeks to get them in a classroom, that moment has gone – so we needed a go-to place that they can access the information they need at 3am.”

Short videos have been uploaded to Microsoft SharePoint on a wide variety of topics. Police officers can stream these through the Microsoft Teams channels to access the information they need when they want it.

Another early use case was to create an environment where daily tasking briefing content could be recorded. The existing process relied on Microsoft PowerPoints being created each morning before the tasking meeting, so priorities could be discussed. “It was a static document that was almost immediately out of date,” recalls Sarah Baker, Detective Constable at Derbyshire Police.

Seeing the benefit: the move from static to dynamic content

“When we used to do daily tasking, it would be a snapshot in time that was compiled once a day,” advises Gemma Booth, “but when you’re dealing with risk and threat, 24 hours is a long time. Now, the tasking information is in Microsoft Teams, it is a drip feed all the time. Our staff can put all important information into the briefings in real time.”

Daily tasking meetings are now held over Microsoft Teams, so there is no longer a need for officers to drive to a particular meeting room every morning to receive the briefing. The change delivered immediate carbon reduction and timesaving benefits back to the force. Crucially, at the time, it also enabled colleagues to work remotely and in a hybrid way. Furthermore, all officers can view the information at any time – as and when required.

“It’s fair to say that all the benefits of switching to a dynamic tasking system weren’t clear to us before we switched,” admits Sarah Baker. “When we started to realise the potential, we created a tasking team to identify how to maximise our returns from the technology.” 

Connecting officers across the force in a better way

“We’re using videos and sharing them via Microsoft Teams at crime scenes – that’s natural now,” says Sarah Baker. This helps to reduce the number of people at a crime scene, whilst engaging a greater number of colleagues in the investigation. Importantly, this offers opportunities for a more joined-up approach to solving potentially linked crimes.

The force has many examples of how connecting via Microsoft Teams has changed the way its officers collaborate. Alerts and images for missing people can be pushed out immediately, enabling a faster and more cohesive response. Similarly, images of offenders can be pushed out, helping to protect staff on the frontline. 

In one instance, an officer shared drone footage with colleagues over Microsoft Teams so everyone involved had a good understanding of the active area – something that wouldn’t have previously been possible in real-time. Information would have been communicated verbally, rather than visually.

“Previously, updating officers later in the day, outside the tasking briefings, would have been done via phone calls. Now, instead of making four or five phone calls, everyone involved can jump on a Teams call, so we can work much more efficiently,” says Sarah Baker. 

“Microsoft Teams has given us a platform to professionalise and formalise those processes,” agrees Gemma Booth, “and to come together as team.” 

Twice daily briefings & ‘one force’ tasking

Once tasking had become a real-time process, Derbyshire Constabulary saw an opportunity to enhance the way it operated. Gemma Booth explains, “Having a briefing more than once a day wasn’t perceived as viable in the old model. What Microsoft Teams has enabled us to do is to create a platform for a second tasking briefing and improve information sharing.”

The new, afternoon tasking briefing was conceived as a ‘one force’ briefing. Previously, for logistical reasons, daily tasking had been segregated into North Derbyshire and South Derbyshire. 

“It would have been difficult, given the geography of the county, to do a countywide tasking briefing meeting without Microsoft Teams,” confirms Sarah Baker. “That was an issue, because we have different capabilities spread out across the county.” 

“By introducing afternoon tasking, we proved that one-force tasking worked, so we were then able to move to one-force tasking for morning tasking as well. That’s been important because it has broken down the risk of siloed tasking,” explains Gemma Booth, “the tech and the platform enabled us to do it.”

Replacing verbal and paper processes

By eliminating the old reliance on static PowerPoint slides and telephone calls and moving to a centralised record in Microsoft Teams, the force has improved information management, accountability and knowledge transfer.

“By putting it all on Microsoft Planner, we can be more accountable,” states Sarah Baker. “It’s clear who is responsible for each task and we can ensure that tasks are updated in a timely manner.”

“Document management is improved,” Sarah Baker adds. “Instead of seeing documents sent on email or stored on many different drives, there is just one version with version history, saved in a secure environment.” 

“Communication and handover can be an issue in any team, but we don’t want changes in personnel to impact our handling of incidents,” emphasises Gemma Booth. “Now all information is captured and sharable in Microsoft Teams, all officers can see clearly the actions and thought processes and the ‘where are we now’.”

“It’s beneficial from a visibility and leadership point of view too,” she continues, “Because Microsoft Teams offers a transparent platform, senior officers can check in easily and there is more opportunity to bring experience to bear and add different perspectives.”

Data captured can now be used for reporting

The other important benefit of moving to digital processes and central data capture is the potential for reporting and how that reporting might feed into continuous improvement programmes.

“We’re getting really clever at understanding which questions we need to ask and which data we need to pull in order to answer them,” reports Gemma Booth. “For example, we’re using Microsoft Forms so officers can complete quality assurance assessments. This gives us real-time insights into how to prioritise our quality efforts. Officers also use it to complete risk assessments. We can pull out more qualitative data to see which officers need extra support when completing these assessments. All of this feeds into our learning and development and e-learning activities – and our understanding of how to improve our investigations.”

Derbyshire Constabulary has built a number of Power BI dashboards to present the data captured. “We can identify hotspots, trends and patterns in almost real time – instead of waiting for data analysts to crunch the data,” advises Gemma Booth, “so we don’t need to wait for monthly tasking meetings – the information is immediately available to everyone who needs it in their operational role.”

Feeding information into resourcing and planning

Additional Microsoft Power BI dashboards pull together statistics on staffing and sickness. The force used the Power Platform to create a COVID-19 app. Another dashboard pulls in data about detentions, so the force can easily identify whether there will be any pressures on custody resources.

All the information can be easily shared with the performance assurance boards and in gold and silver command meetings. During the pandemic, for example, the force identified an increased need for child protection online. The data captured fed into investment decisions and, in response, Derbyshire Constabulary has doubled the size of its online child protection team.

“What’s great about it is we can track the changes we are making and see how they are working,” says Gemma Booth.

Soft power

As Derbyshire Constabulary’s use of Microsoft Teams developed, new uses cases have continually emerged and developed. The force has used Microsoft Teams for remote and hybrid interviews for recruitment, reviews and promotions, as well as for regular department, team and individual check-ins.

“For me, as a head of department, it has been really difficult through the pandemic,” admits Gemma Booth. “We’ve got agile working, those working in the office, those in the field. How do we make sure people don’t feel isolated and gel the team together? We’ve been able to use Microsoft Teams for regular dial-ins and regular catchups. We can share messages about changes in practice, achievements and sometimes just have a catch-up and a cuppa.”

“As a receiver of that, it was really important, especially when my immediate line manager was away for a couple of weeks,” agrees Sarah Baker. “It gives you access to all that activity you would normally pick up just by being in the office. It was really beneficial to have that contact. In a funny sort of way, it made the command team more accessible – and bought us more together as a team.”

Important learnings for other forces

The success of the rollout for Derbyshire Constabulary owes much to the innovation culture of the team and their willingness to experiment. Gemma explains, “Culturally, at the time, we were willing to say that not all projects will land; some are going to fail. And we were prepared to explore, innovate and bring it to a swift conclusion. That’s quite unusual for policing where every project is ‘doomed to succeed’.”

The underpinning by Microsoft via a Unified Support contract gave the team added confidence to experiment. Unified Support provides an end-to-end support solution, with reliable problem resolution support and preventative care for the force’s Microsoft technologies, as well as technology-specific, in-depth support wherever needed.

Sarah Baker also emphasises the need to engage with officers across the force and to actively manage change. 

“Stakeholder engagement has been vital to the success of this project. Communicating via video has been a huge cultural shift for officers more attuned to ‘seeing the whites of their eyes’. We were heavily reliant on static documents and they were a comfort blanket for people who liked to sit round a table and discuss them. We don’t all like change do we?” she says. “Don’t underestimate the need to get everyone onboard with change – or the power of spending five minutes to talk through the benefits and get everyone on board with it.”

What’s next? The role of digitalisation in building community engagement and trust

Derbyshire Constabulary is keen to explore further ways to maximise the returns from its technology investment and leverage the information in Microsoft Teams. In particular, it is keen to explore how to harness Microsoft Teams to improve the way it interacts with the public. 

“It’s very important for policing to be responsible and transparent and to build trust and respect,” states Gemma Booth. “The transparency that we now have into our processes and decision making through the data gathered in Microsoft Teams can play an important role in building that trust and confidence and showing how we manage risk.”

Another key area of interest is evidence-based research. Sarah Baker states, “If something has worked well, we now have an opportunity to reflect on that and pull the information about what has worked into an area of best practice.” 

This desire to build on best practice should also feed into policing’s use of the Microsoft technology platform, she says. 

“Although this is something we’re doing internally within the force, the join-up potential for the whole of policing UK and how we interact shouldn’t be lost,” emphasises Gemma Booth. “Criminals don’t think about borders. We need to harness what we have done and achieved; to explore which use cases have yielded the best return and work out what this looks like on a national level.”