Five ways to overcome tech debt in UK policing

Technology debt.

Two words, but a world of pain to public sector organisations up and down the country.

When an organisation uses old or inefficient tech, it’s just storing up problems and costs – a ‘debt’ – to be paid off later, leading to higher maintenance costs, expensive upgrades, inefficient operations and more.

But apply that problem to the police and it becomes even worse. Outdated systems don’t just drain resources, they also potentially put the public at risk.

As a respondent to a recent Police Foundation report commented ‘90 per cent of current police IT spend is going on maintaining legacy systems rather than investing in technology that will transform services.’¹

And as a police technology leader put it in the same report ‘Most police IT strategies are replacement strategies’ aimed at updating systems rather than thinking strategically about how tech can improve services.²

So how can UK policing organisations cut that tech debt and unlock the power of their digital investments?

The first thing to do when looking at tech debt is to get to grips with what you’ve got. Think of it as a health check.

What legacy systems are you running? Are they expensive? Which ones slow down operations? And what about security risks?

For police forces, this could involve looking at everything from communications to forensic tools.

By mapping out your tech ecosystem, you'll immediately see the weak points and where you should focus your efforts.

It’s also worth talking to the people who’ll be using the tech to see what works and what doesn’t. After all, tech programmes work best when they’re led and co-designed by end-users.

Not everything has to be done at once.

By phasing changes, you won’t just spread the costs, you also keep day-to-day disruption to a minimum. It’s also a great way to test and refine new systems before you roll them out.

So, a police force might start by identifying the biggest challenges it faces and how it’ll get key stakeholder support.

Next, perhaps, it’ll find the right consultant to support it on its journey whilst setting out realistic timescales and objectives based on outcomes.

It might also talk to other forces to discover what’s worked for them and see what it can adopt and scale.

And because it’ll need specialist skills, that force needs to think about how talent can be attracted, and staff upskilled.

And, of course, there needs to be a plan to manage training and set out how any new initiative is adopted throughout the organisation.

Cloud computing has been a game changer for cutting tech debt since it gives the flexibility to scale up or down without large hardware investments. And with automatic software updates you don’t need to maintain outdated systems manually.

In policing, these kind of cloud solutions can transform data storage and communication.

For instance, a cloud-based records management system can give officers real-time access to critical information from anywhere, making a huge difference to response times and decision-making.

And the cloud not only cuts costs but also boosts collaboration and accessibility across departments.