Serious and organised crime – Qliksense dashboard

The purpose of the serious and organised crime (SOC) Qliksense dashboard is to assist the force to understand the place-based harm from SOC and the impact of police and partner activity.

Place-based harm in this context refers to the mapping of each crime (with an associated harm score) linked to SOC nominals, along with other key measures such as drugs and firearms offences. The various geographic areas of the force are then scored and ranked according to the levels of place-based harm. Tasking of police and partner resources can take place in line with this greater level of understanding. Differences in the place-based harm scores over time can help to understand the impact of police and partner activity.

The intended outcomes of the SOC Qliksense dashboard are:

• tasking of resources in line with identified issues
• understanding of demand (to assist with force management statements/strategic policing requirement reports)
• understanding the possible impact of activity
• potential to understand impact of referral of mapped nominals such as organised crime group (OCG) members into diversionary schemes

The dashboard uses partnership data from the Coroner, Crimestoppers and Trading Standards and was implemented to enable Northumbria to have a broader understanding of SOC. The dashboard can be used to research and understand the make-up and criminality that OCGs, priority individuals and peer crime groups are linked to, as well as their geographic impact.

SOC Qliksense dashboard supports the understanding of areas identified as higher place-based harm, in relation to thematic issues such as drug-related deaths and firearms discharges, as well as understanding intelligence from firearms teams, Crimestoppers and Trading Standards within geographic areas. Importantly, the raw data used to populate the dashboard can be viewed to allow for further interrogation via other systems if additional analysis is required.

The sector overview breaks down the force area by each sector, which are ranked according to the level of harm from the measures used:

• OCG crimes by sector
• peer crime group crimes by sector
• drugs supply offences
• cannabis farms
• SOC related firearms discharges
• number of OCG members and priority individuals
• number of urban crime group and peer crime group members
• number of drug-related deaths
• number of firearms intelligence reports

These issues and offences are then multiplied by the relevant crime severity score (CSS). The CSS is designed to reflect the relative harm of offending, rather than how many crimes there are. For example, under this system murder is given the top weighting of 7,979 points per offence. When the offences are multiplied by their CSS, a ‘SOC primary harm score’ is produced, which is used to position the sector on the list displayed within the sector overview. Each of the elements listed above can be subject to further analysis.

The development of the SOC Qliksense dashboard required support from the assistant chief constable and head of crime. The system was developed within the force's corporate development department using the Qliksense system and can be accessed internally. The system can be viewed by relevant staff who wish to use it such as response, neighbourhood and intelligence officers. It also required support from our lead coroner (for toxicology data) and Trading Standards.

There has been no formal evaluation. There has been positive commentary from staff during training sessions and governance meetings. The training has been delivered to neighbourhood officers, intelligence officers and to our serious violence disruption unit.

The training is straightforward and was delivered by a chief Inspector with a background in SOC. The system achieved what it set it out achieve, which is an understanding of place-based harm from SOC and the impact of police and partner activity, including:

• the make-up and criminality that OCGs, priority individuals and peer crime groups are linked to as well as their geographic impact
• thematic issues

• The main barrier was accessing someone within the force with the relevant skillset to develop the system. While it mainly involved one system developer, they had competing demands.
• No specific funding was required.
• As with any system, there are limits to effectiveness in terms of the number of different data points the system uses to plot place-based harm.