Strategic performance management dashboard

The aim of the dashboard was to equip investigation supervisors (predominantly detective sergeants) with management information about crime performance (supervisor reviews, investigation updates, victim contacts, bail dates, approaching statutes of limitation). It can be equally useful for officers in case to this end. 

• increase supervisor efficiency to complete their reviews
• increase amount of time to scrutinise the investigations
• reduce number of outstanding crime updates, victim updates and supervisory reviews
• reduce crime data integrity (CDI) errors

The force were using a Power BI system called DELPHI to manage performance data. This was added to on an ad hoc basis and showed a list of dashboards which was not very structured. The maintenance of this platform was inconsistent. Users fed-back that they were unable to conduct certain searches and unless they knew what they were looking for and it was hard to find the information from the homepage.

In the DELPHI system there was a platform called ‘my investigations’. This offered a snapshot window of data for officers at that point in the day. This worked on a four-day refresh process and did not offer any advanced warning of tasks required for the coming weeks/months. Sergeants were held to account to review investigations, but they did not have the right tools to assist with this.

As a result, a new dashboard was created called the daily actions dashboard. This created new searches, including investigation reviews due for sergeants, status of investigations and arrest data. 

Investigation information on the dashboard includes figures on: 

• named suspects
• occurrence enquiry log (OEL) updates
• victim contact
• detection mismatches
• crimes under investigation
• supervisor reviews
• crime data integrity (CDI check – identifying errors)
• linked crimes
• bail
• fail to surrender/released under investigation 

Officers are able to click into specific crime reports by double clicking the data field to gather the information listed above.

The dashboard is used by Merseyside police daily for officers to plan their workload and prioritise deadlines, to make sure they adhere to legal deadlines and policy requirements.

It is also used as a strategic management tool as it measures crime demand at a team, department and strand/basic command unit level. It is used to identify local issues and can indicate where there may surplus demand or excess capacity in the system.

The force already had a contract with the software provider, Bluestar, which used the Corvus data warehouse and Delphi Power BI tools to access data on the data record management system (Niche RMS). The process was as follows:

• Reviewing the 'my investigations' dashboard – this found the information was limited, did not predict demand, could not be accessed on a 'team' level and once deadlines were missed they became invisible. Despite this, it was widely used and showed need for an updated tool.
• Identifying gaps in existing searches – the absence of a set search for supervisor's reviews which had to be done by repeatedly entering an officer's collar number manually was a key issue to target. Many of the searches were also in different parts of the Delphi tool and this required so much navigation that officers did not use it to its full potential.
• All of the searches were added together and another was designed for supervisor reviews.
• A visually appealing dashboard was created with colour coded notifications/flags that officers can 'turn off' by completing an outstanding victim contact.
• This was tested by operational teams and minor refinements made.
• The dashboard went live with strategic leaders driving its use through a series of gold meetings to monitor use and performance.

The dashboard is aimed at the young workforce demographic, particularly those on the front line. The idea was to mimic the notifications methods that many young people are used to on smart phones and tablets. All officers in force have access to the dashboard. 

The original intention was to assist detective sergeants with their supervisor reviews, making them aware when they were impending or when they were overdue. Focus on this element alone has reduced the number of outstanding supervisors’ reviews from 3,967 in March 2025 to 327 at the end of May 2025.

It also reduced outstanding victim contact contacts by over 600 in the same 3-month period, and overdue victim contacts dropped from 3,160 to 671.

On the whole, feedback from users has been positive. 

A cultural shift has been required to drive use of the dashboard. Driving this through a gold meeting was potentially counterproductive (the data showed a positive correlation but some staff disliked it, felt it was a form of criticism and that it was the only data managers are focused on). Overall however, the reception from officers has been positive.

The dashboard does not show the full workload of officers and should not be used to monitor all performance of the workforce.

The dashboard has also highlighted the fine balance between resources and demand. Some teams experienced sharp, sudden increases in demand which have resulted in their figures increasing as they are not able to attend to daily business. This shows how little 'slack' is in the system and potentially that the model of crime management and allocation needs revising.