Policing Insight is delighted to publish the third set of finalists in the inaugural World Class Policing Awards sponsored by Accenture. This week we feature another outstanding array of nominations including a mobile technology project in New Zealand that has freed up over half a million officer hours a year, an intelligence officer whose work proactively targeting the downloading and sharing of child abuse images has led to many arrests, but has also safeguarded 100 children and an operation that led to the seizure of 24 firearms and the arrest of five people who have been sentenced to a total of 79 years in prison.
World Class Policing received well over 100 entries which have been rigorously judged against specific criteria by an expert panel consisting of senior police stakeholders.
Six winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony 14 November in central London. One of the six winners will also scoop the overall prize.
The awards are listed alphabetically.
National Missing Persons Week 2018
The Australian Federal Police’s National Missing Persons Co-ordination Centre organises the annual National Missing Persons Week (NMPW). For the 30th anniversary in 2018, a new digital campaign was launched, including an emotive short film of a father’s true story regarding the loss of his missing daughter, and a social media ‘30 for 30’ campaign highlighting profiles of 30 different missing Australians. The $35,000 campaign reached a cumulative audience of over 10 million, with 184 articles published in the media.
Lead force: Australian Federal Police (AFP)
Partners: Common Ventures
New Zealand Police Mobility Programme – More street than station
The Mobility programme uses smartphones and police-specific applications to enable New Zealand Police’s frontline officers to be better informed, share information quickly and securely, and be more productive and visible within communities. The introduction of the programme in 2013 has ensured the country has one of the most mobile fleets in the world. The 10,500+ mobile devices issued to officers have resulted in productivity gains of over half a million hours per year.
Lead force: New Zealand Police
Partners: Smudge, Vodafone
Thomas Farrell
Since 2014, Tom, an Intelligence Officer, has proactively targeted those downloading and sharing indecent images and videos of children online. His work has led to the arrest of 270 people across Suffolk and Norfolk, with 100 children safeguarded and 15 children protected. An accredited trainer, since 2017 Tom has been seconded to the Home Office, creating innovate proposals that have led to the identification and arrest of a group of high-risk online offenders previously believed to be untraceable.
Lead force: Suffolk Constabulary / Norfolk Constabulary
Partners: Home Office
Norfolk Multi-Agency Child Exploitation Programme Board
UK police forces have formed a range of teams to prevent children falling victim to county lines drug dealing and child sexual exploitation. Norfolk’s Multi-Agency Child Exploitation (MACE) programme is unique, bringing together police, YOT and social workers with detached youth workers, family support workers and Pathways Out mentors to engage with vulnerable children in the most effective way. The model has been described by the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre as the most advanced of its kind.
Lead force: Norfolk Constabulary
Partners: Norfolk County Council Children’s Services, Norfolk County Youth Offending Team, Office for the PCC for Norfolk
North Yorkshire Police Rural Task Force
North Yorkshire Police created the Rural Task Force (RTF) to address a severe gap in rural policing, and low confidence and trust from rural communities. Covering 3,000sqm of some of the most remote areas in England, the RTF is an excellent example of evidence-based policing, and is now considered national best practice. In 2017/18 the team of seven PCs, seven PCSOs and an inspector had approximately double the arrest rate per PC of the rest of the force.
Lead force: North Yorkshire Police
Operation Lattice
Bedfordshire, one of England’s smallest forces, had the fifth highest number of firearms incidents in the UK. Operation Lattice was established to tackle the supply of illegally converted firearms in Bedford and elsewhere. The force’s Serious & Organised Crime Team, working with law enforcement and forensic partners, identified the supply network from the county to gang nominals in London, Luton and the West Midlands; ammunition and 24 firearms were seized, and five people received prison sentences totalling 79 years.
Lead force: Bedfordshire Police
Partners: Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU), Metropolitan Police, Europol
Operation Polarity
The cyber-attack of PlayStation and Sony in the US over Christmas 2014 affected customers globally, leading to the launch of Operation Polarity by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit’s Regional Cyber Crime Unit. This three-year international investigation was ground-breaking in scale, involving the seizure of approximately 10 terabytes of information. It resulted in the creation of a number of national units and databases to support similar future cases, as well as the successful prosecution of the key offender.
Lead force: Bedfordshire Police Eastern Region Specialist Operations Unit (ERSOU)
Partners: National Crime Agency (NCA); Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI); Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
Operation Validate
Operation Validate was a three-year investigation into a complex fraud regarding the manipulation of vulnerable clients by independent financial advisors Taylor and Taylor Associates in Norfolk. The directors of the company defrauded 239 victims of over £17m, investing it in high-risk trading that resulted in a £13m loss. The team of three officers secured guilty pleas, jail terms of six and seven years, and the recovery of all the victims’ funds through compensation from the regulatory authorities.
Lead force: Bedfordshire Police Eastern Region Specialist Operations Unit (ERSOU)
Partners: Norfolk Constabulary, Suffolk Constabulary, City of London Police, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Accounting Regulatory Bodies. HMRC
Operation Cobb – Policing the badger cull
Operation Cobb, which polices the culling of badgers in regions across England, is now the longest running police operation since WWII, and involves collaboration between 13 forces. The operation has engaged successfully with both the pro-police rural community and with protest groups, established one control room to track and deploy all police officers as well as over 10,000 cull operatives, and cut costs by 95% per cull zone over a five-year period, while also reducing criminal activity.
Lead force: Devon & Cornwall Police
Partners: Police forces – Avon & Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, West Mercia, Warwickshire, Thames Valley, Hampshire, Cumbria, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire; DEFRA; Natural England; Home Office
The World Class Policing Awards celebrate and acknowledge the best in all aspects of 21st century policing. The awards reflect that effective modern day policing requires partnership and collaboration, whether in teams of officers and staff; collaboration between forces; multi-agency operations; wider public sector involvement; and collaboration also with the supplier community and beyond.
The awards also recognise that successful outcomes and developments in policing come from a blend of innovative, committed and well trained personnel, serving, engaging and protecting the public, delivering good practice, using technology and systems to police efficiently and effectively.
This year’s awards are supported by National Police Chiefs Council, Police Superintendents’ Association, the Police Federation of England and Wales, the College of Policing, Police ICT and techUK.
The Founder sponsors for the World Class Policing Awards 2019 are Accenture, Sopra Steria, Chorus Intelligence, Grant Thornton and KPMG. Policing Insight (policinginsight.com) and Police Oracle (www.policeoracle.com) are the official Media Partners for the World Class Policing Awards 2019.
Entry for next year’s World Class Policing Awards 2020 will open in the new year.
Read about the other finalists here:
World Class Policing Awards: Final nine finalists announced!
This week, once again, the fantastic nominees cover the gamut of policing from the huge, coordinated response to the poisonings in Salisbury to an integrated anti-stalking unit and the use of video-game technology to create virtual police training scenarios.
World Class Policing Awards: Week five finalists announced!
This week, the brilliant nominees include an operation that has led to the arrest of thousands of drug dealers, a first aid programme for frontline officers that has already saved 15 lives and a telematics fleet system that ensures optimal use of vehicles.
World Class Policing Awards: Week four finalists announced!
This week, the brilliant nominees include an operation to foil an attempt to kill the UK Prime Minister, a project to better support children exposed to domestic abuse and a highly complex investigation that resulted in the conviction of a major organised crime group.
World Class Policing Awards: More details of the outstanding finalists published!
This week, the outstanding nominations include a police cadet scheme for adults with learning difficulties, a new mobile fingerprint reader, a drink awareness project in Australia and many more.
The final countdown: A focus on the finalists for the World Class Policing Awards
From missing people to reducing offending to fulfilling potential in the work place and fast-tracking detectives – Policing Insight is delighted to publish a series of six weekly articles highlighting the 54 finalists for the inaugural World Class Policing Awards. We present the first nine in alphabetical order.
World Class Policing Awards: Shortlisted nominations announced
Following rigorous judging of over 100 UK and overseas entries to the inaugural World Class Policing Awards, the shortlist of nominations has now been finalised! See if your force has made the final cut.
World Class Police Awards Judging Process
Nominations were submitted to an online portal by police forces themselves or by third parties. All nominations were required to have a ‘lead police force’ and be endorsed by the chief constable of that force. The judging panel then reviewed the submissions and scored the nominations out of ten with marks awarded for fulfilling the World Class Policing characteristics and for overall quality of the submission.
The shortlisted nominations all go forward to be represented at the awards ceremony and to be put forward for consideration by the judges when they select the overall winners.
The World Class Policing Awards judging panel
The World Class Policing Awards judging panel is comprised of experienced and expert representatives from across policing in the UK and overseas. They include:
- John Apter, Chair of the Police Federation for England & Wales
- Superintendent Danny Hatfield, Chief of Staff at Police Scotland
- Chief Superintendent Ian Wylie, Police Superintendents’ Association
- Rachel Tuffin, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at the College of Policing
- Ian Bell, CEO Police ICT Company
- Mark Evans OBE, Deputy Chief Executive: Service Delivery at New Zealand Police
- Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Metropolitan Police Service
- John Azah, Kingston Race and Equality Council
- Ben Bradford, Institute for Global Cities at UCL
- Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation
- Allan Fairley, Chair of techUK’s Justice & Emergency Services Committee
- Stephen Kavanagh QPM, former Chief Constable of Essex Police and Chair of the World Class Policing Steering Group
Nomination categories
The nominations could represent one or more categories across the range of policing activity:
- Victim support including improvements in identification of vulnerability
- New system/technology implementation
- Outstanding or complex investigations
- Operations delivering difference
- Projects driving change
- Crime prevention reducing harm in communities (real or virtual)
- Business change to tackle new and emerging offences
- Training and development in a changing world
- Employee and officer welfare building sustainable policing
The overall winners will be selected regardless of category but special commendations by category will be awarded where appropriate.
Characteristics of a successful World Class Policing Awards nomination
As well as explaining and evidencing why they represented examples of World Class Policing, the nominations also had to demonstrate and evidence some or all of the characteristics of World Class Policing:
- Did the activity demonstrate exceptional performance?
– Efficiency
– Effectiveness
– Improving police legitimacy
– Value for money
– Successful outcomes set out and achieved - Did the activity demonstrate progressive policing?
– Innovative strategy/tactics
– A new system or technology developed
– A new technique or practice
– The activity and benefit can replicated by other organisations
– Complexities that were overcome - Was the activity collaborative?
– A team effort or an effort across multiple teams
– Collaboration with another police force/agency
– Local collaboration with other agencies
– National collaboration with other agencies
– International collaboration with other forces/agencies
– Industry, academic or 3rd sector collaboration
– How were strategic hurdles overcome?
– Free up resource or demand reduction on non-police matters - Did the outcomes benefit the public/victims?
– Crime prevention/reduction
– Minimise risk or harm
– Victim/witness welfare
– Public engagement
– Free up resource or demand reduction
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable groups (young people, women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc) - Does the activity take into account officer/staff welfare?
– Improved working conditions
– Improved welfare or support
– Improved skills through training and development
– Improved job satisfaction
– Improved inclusion or reduction of stigma
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable officers and staff (women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc) - Does the activity benefit how suspects and offenders are handled for better outcomes?
– Early intervention
– Rehabilitation
– Restorative justice
– Reduce re-offending
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable suspects and offenders (young people, women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc)
The judges awarded points for these characteristics and for the overall quality of the submission, producing an overall mark out of ten. Those nominations scoring seven or above were selected for the shortlist to be represented and recognised at the awards ceremony.
The six winners including an overall winner will be selected by the judging panel on a further in-person judging day. Further commendations by category will be awarded where appropriate.
