THE POLICE DATA CHALLENGE Copyright Policing Insight/Cognyte 2023 analyst skills were still essential to understand the “nuances of police data”. That skills shortage appears to be a challenge for law enforcement agencies globally, not just in the UK, and has an operational impact, as Inspector Carla Gilmore, Manager of Emergent Technologies for New Zealand Police, explained. “This is one of the issues that we’re finding within the police; we have a set number of resources, and the public want to see our people, our staff, out on the street – they want visibility. But there’s so much in the back end of the organisation that needs [to be done] to support that work.” One of the struggles around new technology, said Insp Gilmore, is equipping the staff with the knowledge and training to get the greatest benefits from that technology – something which can present its own challenges. “We want to be innovative, and we want to get ahead of the game… but what comes with that is knowledge that we don’t necessarily have in the policing organisation; trying to find where that knowledge is, who can inform us, and then using these tools comes with training requirements.” Insp Gilmore added that while NZ Police was able to train people up, those tools would also “keep evolving” with the force needing to keep across the “new iterations”, which added to the “whole push and pull of where we place our resources”. Growing our own So how does policing address that skills shortage at an operational level? For CC Winward, one answer is that, through much closer connections with universities, policing can work with institutions to create degree courses and study opportunities that enable forces to “grow their own”, rather than relying on recruiting analysts and other data specialists direct from the turbulent labour market. “It means that we gain all of that immediate, fresh knowledge from a university course that is absolutely up to date, and where people have got the latest knowledge. The benefit of them coming to us is that we help them to gain qualifications, and the return on that investment is that they stay with us for four or five years while they gain that experience and those qualifications. “As long as you understand that the churn will come at that point; you then take the freshly qualified people, again, from university who have got the latest up-to-date knowledge into the organisation.” Inspector Carla Gilmore New Zealand Police “We want to be innovative, we want to get ahead of the game… but what comes with that is knowledge that we don’t necessarily have in the policing organisation; trying to find where that knowledge is, who can inform us, and then using these tools comes with training requirements.” Inspector Carla Gilmore New Zealand Police