How data in policing can drive real change

Simon Pountain served as a police officer in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) for over 30 years, with a varied career in a number of areas of Central and North-West London, and central units such as the Diplomatic Protection Group and Community Safety Policy Team.

As a senior officer, Simon served as the Operations Superintendent in Camden Borough, before taking command of Hackney Borough as it’s Borough Commander in 2003, followed by a stint as the Staff Officer to the then Commissioner Sir Ian Blair.

Upon promotion in 2008, Simon was appointed deputy director of intelligence for the MPS, and had command of the MPS Intelligence Bureau, along with the Crime Academy, Murder Review and Disclosure Unit. Simon was the National
Lead for the disclosure of criminal convictions.

Further postings as a Commander gave him responsibility for a section of North London and then Head of Public Order - a role he took up a week prior to the 2011 riots in London. In February 2024, Simon took on the role as Business Lead for Criminal Justice Projects within the Centre for Data and Analytics in Policing (CDAP).

Tell us a bit about your role in the Centre for Data and Analytics in Policing

My role within CDAP looks at the discovery and build of tools that drive improvements across the Criminal Justice System, as a whole. Having spent many years working in policing and seeing first-hand where there are ‘pinch points’ that can cause delay for victims, I’m keen to combine policing data and my own insight to drive changes that have real world impact and improve the system for the better. The Criminal Justice tool that I am currently working on seeks to do that.

Tell us more about this Criminal Justice tool

The tool aims to bring together and link data to bring together data from across the criminal justice system, initially including policing, courts, prisons and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which will allow Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJB) to highlight where there are issues that delay justice, prevent victim care and encourage reoffending. The tool follows the criminal justice system journey from offence - right through to outcome, highlighting areas that are working well, and areas that need to be made more efficient.

How is the tool progressing?

As with any analytical tool, there are a series of stages involved in bringing a vision to life in order to tackle a problem:

• Discovery to establish what is needed and why
• Build of the tool so it can be tested
• Trial within a live environment
• Evaluation to decipher benefits and/or issues
• Rollout once the tool is proven to be successful, and useful

Currently, this tool has been through each stage up to trial. The proof of concept stage involved seeing if our data sets could be linked, using synthetic data to outline any issues. The good news is that it can be. Once that was established, we needed to trial the tool - with Durham Constabulary kindly hosting the tool alongside Durham LCJB, using data from their own unique RMS Red Sigma. Feedback has been really positive, particularly around how the data is displayed and the detail it gives users about the criminal justice process.

Did the trial identify any issues, or changes that need to be made?

For policing, realistically we need to put a national data set on there to build a national picture, allowing us to streamline the provision of data and reduce the impact on local forces in downloading and matching data.

What could a tool of this kind mean for policing?

First and foremost, the better service to victims - with less delays and swifter justice.

Better crime prevention, with pinch points that lead to reoffending being identified and tackled, quickly.

On a practical level, the tool could mean far less wasted time for officers, particularly those attending court to given evidence - only to find out that there are delays, not guilty verdicts given last minute or bail conditions that cause delays in getting there in the first place. All of this means more time on the ground, tackling crime and protecting those most vulnerable.

Find out more about the teams working to innovate our service: Modernising Policing (npcc.police.uk)