OPINION: In the final part of the series of articles exploring UK policing’s software landscape, organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson looks at the challenges and opportunities offered by policing’s largest technology supplier – Microsoft – and questions whether policing’s relationship with the US tech giant needs to be significantly restructured as part of modernisation and reform process.

OPINION: In the second in his series on UK policing’s software and IT archipelago, organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson explores what modernising actually looks like when the islands of the archipelago cannot simply be rebuilt from scratch, including the constraints to modernisation, how they can be navigated, the police reform process as leverage, and what an effective and realistic modernisation sequence should look like.

OPINION: In the first of three articles exploring UK policing’s ‘software archipelago’ – the interlocking landscape of platforms, systems, tools and infrastructure – organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson looks at the growing focus on organisations developing their own software using AI prompts, and why issues such as the regulatory complexity of policing systems means that in most (but not) all cases, buying rather than building is still the best option.