Corporate, IT, and Legal

[Written on behalf of Simon by a colleague at Avon and Somerset Police]

Simon Bale MBE is one of our Contingency Planning Officers, and NILO’s (National Inter Agency Liaison Officers). As part of his role, Simon is the Avon and Somerset Police coordinator for national Joint Organisational Learning (JOL), JESIP command training and the lead planner and director of Exercise Blue Core, our command-and-control exercise dealing with our response to a marauding terrorist attack.

Simon takes personal responsibility for lessons learned nationally, from reviews such as the Manchester Arena enquiry, continually looking for ways to ensure organisational learning is embed, and recommended changes are actioned. Simon coordinates, reviews, and delivers the JESIP commanders’ course and has mentored members of the team in delivering this training, which he links to his work within JOL.

He has inspired the team in the delivery of Exercise Blue Core, a complex and intense exercise where Simon has used his abilities to obtain and coordinate volunteers from Bridgwater College, external agencies, the special constabulary and other units to great effect. This nationally acclaimed exercise is the product of Simon truly embracing and leading the way in our value to learn. He has used his skills as a national structured debriefer on each exercise to improve and develop future exercises. This has propelled Blue Core as an example of Avon and Somerset's preparedness to be the envy of other constabularies. All this development is continuous, and the learning is inclusive of all the departments involved. 

As a national debriefer he has facilitated in some of the nationally most important debriefs and been at the heart of the learning that has come out of them. This includes the Keyham shootings in Plymouth, and Thames Valley Police’s operation on the Queen’s funeral. He ensures that the learning is embedded in our training, exercising, and our contingency planning. 

I work at Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and am responsible for recording Road Traffic Collisions (RTCs) and dealing with solicitors, insurance companies and members of public regarding any information requested in relation to RTC's.
I am also the main contact for Safe and Considerate Driving Courses, and any queries/problems. I have devised a procedure to deal with any requests for a course to be offered including comprehensive notes and a diary system to ensure deadlines are met.

I deal with all the training needs of my colleagues, giving them access to the various systems required to enable them to offer courses, and deal with any problems which may arise, along with ensuring that courses are completed or referred back to the investigator for prosecution if the course is not completed within the required timescale.

I enjoy all aspects of the administration of Safe and Considerate Driving courses including the training and dealing with any problems.

My role was originally dealt with by one person who trained me to be her cover for holidays/sickness, and when she left GMP I was asked, by my manager, if I would like to take on the role, but also to train all other members of the department.

I'm proud most of the training and administration of Safe and Considerate Driving Courses and my comprehensive notes which I keep updated. Colleagues comment on a regular basis that the 'step by step' instructions are a great help and that I am the 'go to' person. I pride myself on being able to answer any queries, deal with any problems and to give advice, instruction and training to colleagues to enable them to better understand the procedures.

As the Business Intelligence (BI) Manager at Dyfed-Powys Police, I have the crucial role in driving organisational performance through the development and management of BI solutions, predominantly in the form of Power BI products.

As the manager of a team of BI developers, my role required close collaboration with various departments to gather and understand their data and reporting requirements. Both my team and I are responsible for analysing existing data sources, designing appropriate data models, and ensuring data accuracy and reliability. Through use of Power BI, I create visually appealing and interactive dashboards and reports tailored to the specific needs of the organisation.

I am required to be cognisant of governance policies, data security and privacy concerns, often collaborating closely with IT and other relevant departments to integrate Power BI solutions seamlessly.

I advocate continuous improvement in all aspects of my role to stay abreast of the latest developments in BI and to identify opportunities to enhance existing BI processes. Collectively, I am responsible for leveraging data-driven insights to inform evidence-based decision-making to drive organisational excellence.

The role of a BI Manager at Dyfed-Powys Police brings with it a profound satisfaction, particularly in the strategic utilisation of data to drive organisational performance. One of the most rewarding aspects of this role is the opportunity to collaborate with various departments and stakeholders to comprehend their unique data needs and objectives.

Developing visually compelling dashboards and reports is a gratifying experience as it transforms complex data into actionable insights, aiding decision-makers in their roles. Witnessing the impact of these Power BI solutions on daily operations, performance monitoring, and strategic decision-making within the organisation is a continuous source of professional satisfaction.

Furthermore, I enjoy providing training and support not only within my own team, but also to end-users, empowering them to harness the power of data for enhanced efficiency.

Following the completion of my MSc by Research in Exercise Science at Swansea University, I was successful in ascertaining the role of a Performance Analyst at Dyfed-Powys Police. Aware of the vast benefits ascertained through the use of business intelligence tools, I expanded my upskilled my understanding of coding and database querying language and started to develop Power BI reports.

From here, I was successfully appointed the Business Intelligence Manager and now lead a team of BI developers to deliver BI solutions force-wide.

I am most proud of the suit of BI solutions that both myself and my team have developed that are used on a daily basis to drive both operation and organisational improvements for the benefit of the communities we serve. These include:

• Perpetrator Tool (aided in the visibility and management of perpetrators, specifically those that are escalating would not typically be highlighted for action)
• Officer Operational Performance Dashboards (aided in the management of individual officer performance)
• Niche Data Quality (improved Force-wide data quality)

I manage Humberside Police's operations and events planning, emergency preparedness and contingency planning, counter terrorism planning, football planning and central duties planning team, as well as having corporate oversight over force wide duties planning.

What I enjoy most is the variety of work and the people I work with. We have a great mixed team of officers and staff, with a wide variety of experiences both internally and externally.

I was offered this opportunity after completing a significant project, following a number of years as the force union lead.

There are too many proud moments to mention. One that comes to mind is as Project Manager for the new Melton 2 complete, which is the largest building Humberside Police have ever had, housing the Force Control Room and Specialist Crime Command, as well as some other teams.

I am currently the Programme Manager for several large-scale projects at Norfolk Constabulary. I have recently led a small team to the successful delivery of the Investigations Hubs Programme (>£11m). This programme was built on the foundation of three principles:

1. Bringing teams back together: This saw the geographical alignment of the Criminal Investigation Department, Child Abuse Investigation Unit, Public Projection Unit, Crime Scene Investigation, Roads Policing, Sprowston County Policing Team and Police Digital Investigations, bringing sergeant's back together with their teams with a complimentary new shift pattern.
2. First class facilities: A brand new state of the art building, thinking about the work flow and use of the building to make policing as effective and efficient as possible. The design was worked through with the police officers and staff who will occupy the station to ensure that it was fit for purpose and equipped with the most up to date technology for their policing purpose.
3. Making connections: The design and implementation of a brand new Digital Investigations Team who sit alongside detectives to progress live time digital enquiries, aiding positive outcomes.

The second programme I work on, is in relation to the design and development of Norfolk Constabulary's Professional Development Centre (>£6m). Norfolk purchased a grade listed public school which required a complete re-design and refurbishment in order to make it fit for purpose for our policing need. The Professional Development Centre is currently in its final phase and boasts, a Learning Development Centre office, a barn for large scale conference events, several large meeting room spaces, a Police Heritage Centre, IT classrooms, a Drones Centre of Excellence and a Custody Centre of Excellence.

Furthermore, there was an opportunity to enable a steady income generation attached to meeting room lettings to partnership agencies. The site development has enabled aspects of corporate social responsibility enabling work with charities and local community clubs on site.

The third programme is the refurbishment of Bethel Street Police Station, Norfolk's flagship police station

What I enjoy the most is the challenge and the knowledge that I am contributing to front line policing.

I love working with new people from the early onset of an idea to the fruition of delivery. Change is not an easy world to work in and often as the programme manager you are met with resistance, but I enjoy the journey from resistance to acceptance and am proud of my role in this.

I truly understand my contribution to policing and therefore am grateful to be a member of the police family.

I am currently seconded from my Project Manager role within the Norfolk Horizon's Team (which is a team within the Department for Local Policing), into my current role as Programme Manager. I am hoping that I can retain this role, based on my recent successes.

Despite the successes from projects, I am most proud of helping my team recognise their potential in the working environment. This gives me the greatest buzz. I have recently taken on the role of an Inspectors Assessor for the Change Module and hope that I provide some real guidance to those individuals, based on my experiences.

I work at Essex Police in support of the Network Director to ensure that the Eastern Region Innovation Network (ERIN) is a centre of excellent that leads on innovation and research to jointly test and implement transformational change at pace, harnessing and developing the expertise and skills in existence from across the region.

I promote a forward-thinking culture to tackle the policing challenges of tomorrow. This has included designing and hosting a regional event supported by the College of Policing, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser "Developing Futures thinking in Policing".

I work in partnership with peers from the seven Eastern Region forces (Kent Police, Essex, Norfolk Constabulary, Suffolk Constabulary, Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary, and Hertfordshire Constabulary) to deliver benefits individually and collectively from an effective regional relationship and maximise the effectiveness of existing regional operational and organisation capabilities.

I coordinate and manage regional forums to promote regional learning and sharing of best practice. I also stand-up temporary project capabilities and provide assisted implementation support to deliver regionally commissioned projects, ensuring deliverables are clearly understood. This has included running assisted implementation working groups for the regional replication of Rapid Video Response (RVR) working at pace with project leads from across our forces, to stand up this capability in a matter of weeks and continuing to support them through their testing phases and into business as usual.

I provide tactical, technical, legislative and project management advice to enable replication. ERIN co-ordinates innovation leads from each force, championing ideas and identifying projects that have value if shared regionally. Once identified, a blueprint is commissioned and produced at pace allowing other forces to benefit from work completed in the originating force. 

ERIN provides assisted implementation support ensuring all forces benefit from lessons learnt, sharing documentation, negating duplication, and collecting benefits realisation in a standard way.  Furthermore, upon replication, ERIN identifies improvement and iterations that can be shared regionally for any given project.  This has recently included authoring a Blueprint on Robotic Automation working with leads from Thames Valley Police and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary (who are outside of our region) to draw down their experience and learning, and bring it into the eastern region.

I explore and exploit a regional approach to research with academic institutions and funding bids via external partners making use of the regional communication platform that I have designed to highlight these opportunities across the region. This platform also provides a space for forces to discuss their current and future innovation and research strategies, a research library, regional skills library, and a repository or published blueprints and appendices.

What I enjoy most is working with passionate forward-thinking innovators to create a regional network and culture of reducing duplication, improving interoperability and scalability of innovation. Delivering innovation at pace that benefits operational policing, victims and witnesses.

At the 2021 annual summit of the Eastern Region Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables, it was decided that there would be a change in approach and focus on innovation to meet the policing challenges of the future. After and an in-depth consultation of key stakeholders, the Eastern Region Innovation Network (ERIN) model was created.

At the time I was working as Staff Officer to the Networks SRO Deputy Chief Officer Drysdale (Kent) and had a good understanding of the collaboration between Kent and Essex and moving to a regional role was an exciting challenge and next step.

My greatest achievements have been in delivering innovations such as RVR and auto redaction at pace to our region and receiving feedback from those who have benefitted from it.

• RVR - “It was amazing to have the service so quickly, I could see the officer he was amazing and I felt connected and reassured. “….“I feel it was gold star service, amazing video consultation, the advice given was amazing, I have to say 5 star for everything.”​
• "The support of ERIN has been invaluable to enabling us to get RVR up and running in such a short space of time, with the Blueprint being of incredible benefit. The Blueprint documents saved a lot of duplication, enabled me to tailor products to local processes and support conversations with stakeholders in force."
• “This saved me a lot of time as it was phone downloads which had multiple numbers. If I was redacting that the old way it would have taken me 4/5 hours - it took me about 10 mins using the new tool."
• “This is a game changer. Very impressive tool which expedite file prep and therefore enable increased foot patrols and time out on the beat."

As a project manager at Norfolk Constabulary involved in change, I have found it essential to hone my negotiation skills to bring officers, staff, and staffing associations together when there are opposing views with a change. I also need to influence and challenge senior leaders (whether they are police officers or police staff) when I feel they are proposing new ideas or changes that either need a more realistic implementation plan than they initially expect or will not achieve their desired outcomes. This needs to be done professionally and diplomatically, yet with a direct and honest delivery.

I work very closely with the senior officers and staff on establishment and budgeting planning, assessing roles and their associated full-time establishment against funding availability to ensure the most effective use of public money. As well as being responsible for the larger changes on the staffing establishment, another of my main responsibilities is robustly monitoring the smaller changes required on the establishment.

I provide the appropriate communication routes and effective influence required between finance business partners, workforce planning, resource management unit and the operational management teams to either set up or remove positions or increase posts. I ensure all such change is properly documented for audit purposes and that the chief officer team is fully briefed.

I also provide an agile pathway for operational structural and database changes from concept, full business case development and presentation, implementation to go-live and land my projects on time. As well as working directly with the chief and senior officers or staff, I chair a monthly change and implementation tasking and finishing work group with tactical stakeholders from all the HR-Finance-Crime-RMU databases and systems as well as areas such as ICT and Vetting.

This provides everyone with a one-stop virtual table to understand what change is going on, how it will impact on their teams and systems, and identify where overlaps occur with other systems. We can then assess dependencies and develop suitable implementation plans. One example was doing a major shift pattern change in the CCR. This involved many pay changes as well as numerous flexible working agreement reviews.

Through coordinating the concerns of the key tactical managers, I provided the environment for everyone to come together. I had the resource management unit, payroll, the HR service desk, the CCR chief inspector, operational and support supervisors and finance business partner working together. They developed their own plan synchronising each party’s requirements and produced a much more straight-forward bulk updating arrangement than the business-as-usual method for single applications.

I support my fellow project manager colleagues with their projects where pay and staffing changes are involved, inviting them to the monthly work group to brief on their projects.

I am responsible for shift pattern change, working closely with staffing associations. Over the years, I have built up a unique rapport with UNISON and Police Federation colleagues. Through mutual learning, we have developed very specific tried and tested change methodologies adhering to police regulations and Police Staff Handbook rules.

At times, I do have line management responsibilities if additional resource comes into our change team for larger projects. This can involve supporting people who may be returning to work following periods of absence and re-establishing their confidence.

What I enjoy most is the challenge of taking colleagues through the full cycle of a change process and the associated resistance pendulum from early ideas, developing options, all of us learning about operational policing and database configuration to going live, tracking and monitoring the new models and processes as the changes beds in.

Listening to officers and staff expressing serious concerns that proposed change will not work, taking them on a journey through the stages of developing of a business case, assessing cost implications to achieve the most financially viable outcomes, assessing perceived and emerging issues enabling colleagues to implement the agreed option across several HR-financial-crime systems that enable officers and staff to use them effectively, improving their day-to-day productivity outcomes, then hearing comments such as “that wasn’t so complex as it first seemed” (colleagues re-configuring databases) or “you’ve made that shift pattern change straight-forward for us” (operational officers and staff impacted by changes to their personal lives) or “all the requirements came together readily and neatly; thank you” (many individuals in differing teams).

Following 25 years in private industry, 20 of which were as a systems engineer in the merchant navy, I joined Norfolk Constabulary’s new ICT Airwave team. Ten years later, after time with the new MoPI team, then several years with the Resource Management Unit.

A temporary position on shift pattern and database change became available on an austerity change project for Norfolk local policing. From here, I obtained a permanent post with the then newly forming strategic change team.

My proudest moment has been being nominated and winning the Norfolk Constabulary Outstanding Staff 2023 Excellence in Policing award. This has been a humbling and emotional achievement that is very special to my family and me. To quote the summary of the award wording:

“Susan Maas: At the centre of organisational change, this former mariner is arguably the chief engineer. A tactical advisor to the executive charting the pathways to implement change. From the 2012 Local Policing Review, the 2020 Local Policing Model implementation and onwards: the heart of delivery.”

To know that I have the trust of the Norfolk Chief Officer Team, the chief superintendents, directors of support departments, the staffing associations and colleagues in all ranks and staff posts across the constabulary is a great privilege – one that I am careful to respect with a continued diligent work ethic supporting my colleagues in their varied policing roles, and ultimately being a small cog in providing the public of Norfolk and beyond with a genuinely good policing service that strives to continue improving its delivery amidst 21st century culture.

I create the framework whereby the West Mercia Police's strategic objectives are protected from threat, and success is made more likely. Running parallel to that strand of my work is an array of different methods of improving how West Mercia becomes a better learning organisation.

It's easy to explain what I enjoy most! Firstly, whenever my work has a tangible benefit to policing and in turn helps to improve our forces service to communities and victims; I am very glad to be one of the many parts of that.

The wide and varied number of subjects I work with and the interesting people I talk to while doing so means I can be working on anything with anybody.

After 18+years in the motor industry, I wanted to do something more than make business owners richer. I trained to be a teacher but found that after being a police officer in my early 20s, the service still called to me. I applied, and here I am 17 years later.

My proudest moment was in receiving a commendation when my work positively affected national policing in protecting missing children. This led to my input that the force needed an organisational learning framework, which has grown into a quarterly board chaired by the DCC.

Recent achievements that I'm proud of are:

• my second commendation for my support to Chief Officers during the Covid-19 pandemic
• my recommendation that our officers debrief together after each shift is now business-as-usual across the force (and are very popular with officers)
• 60 Second Learning is part of the forces commonly used ways of sharing learning
• 60 Second Policy pages are now the first page of ever operational policy, when they are revised
• 60 Second Support Cards are about to be launched force wide after a successful pilot
• starting a new innovative initiative to share organisational learning with other forces, simply, openly and efficiently so that all the forces involved can benefit from each other’s corporate memory

People might be surprised by the broad variety of what we do. In the Business Analyst role, and also the wider Corporate Development department, there are new things going on all the time which keeps it fresh and interesting, and sometimes fast paced! This can range from something as big as a new change project to support, to someone contacting you to ask an interesting question about our data that hasn’t been looked at in quite that way before.

The best thing about working at Lancashire Constabulary is the sense of being in a team, working towards shared goals. We are all here because we care about making a difference – some roles make the big decisions, some roles manage the day-to-day work, some roles are physically active, some sit behind a desk, some are fast-paced, some are more detail-based, but we are all moving in the same direction as one team.

I am responsible for leading the implementation of large-scale change programmes and projects at Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP). This includes assessing the impact of a change on the affected parties, engaging with the relevant stakeholders, creating targeted communications campaigns to reach large audiences, identifying training requirements in order to provide new skills, and developing new behaviours to ensure successful delivery.

Every programme/project varies greatly and tends to move at pace, providing interesting subject matter and exciting challenges, often delivering new initiatives and changes at the 'cutting edge' of innovation. It enables me to engage with a wide spectrum of differing teams across the CTP network and also with other private and public organisations. This provides a fascinating opportunity see the 'bigger picture' by learning about what each function does and how so many different aspects interconnect to achieve shared objectives.

I have been in the Metropolitan Police Service for about 20 years and have worked in transformation programmes since 2013. When I heard that a relatively new entity known as CTPHQ was developing its own business change capability I jumped at the chance, as I was keen for the opportunity to work at a national level and join the complex and clandestine world of CT. I applied forthwith, almost four years ago, and have not looked back since.

I am most proud of my work on my current programme leading the implementation at the new Counter Terrorism Operation Centre. Bringing together for the first time all of the London-based elements of Counter Terrorism Policing, the intelligence agencies, and the criminal justice system, as well as other government agencies focused on tackling the threat from terrorism is a unique opportunity that I've been privileged to be involved in.

My role is to install and to provide continual support for all desktop computer equipment used in South Yorkshire and Humberside Police. This includes all laptops, mobile phones, body worn cameras and video-conferencing equipment used in the senior leadership team rooms, patrol rooms and in the Custody Suite Virtual Court installations. I mainly support the whole of the South Bank of the Humberside Police geographic area. I am part of a supportive team where we share information and suggestions of improvement together and I know I can call on support from my colleagues and those above me.

I absolutely love fixing IT issues because I can change someone's bad experience into a good one. Users usually go away delighted when I have resolved their IT issues. Also, I am not just fixing computers, I am actually helping our police force to fight crime and feel I am a vital link in helping them to function in their daily work, and keeping the IT function of the police running smoothly.

I spent eighteen years teaching craft, design and technology in secondary schools where my slant on my subject became more computer and IT related. I developed the use of CAD/CAM in my school and integrated it across Key Stage 3 and Key stage 4 (11 - 18). At this point I made a career change and started my own IT business building PCs and supporting home and business users as the internet became a more integral part of day-to-day life.

I realised I was not making a realistic living from this, and I needed more experience working in a real world network environment, so I took a post as an IT Technician at Pilgrim Hospital Boston, and a couple of years later took a job as an IT Manager in a school where I built a full domain network from scratch.

After this I worked for a company which involved me in installing computer upgrades in DWP Job Centre sites around the country as a contract worker. This led me to gain a contract with Lincolnshire Police which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I continued contract work and was then offered a contract with Humberside Police and absolutely loved working here and I have been here for the last nine years.

I think the thing I am most proud of is having the feeling that every day I am providing a much needed service that police officers, police staff and senior management require, and that I feel really appreciated because they know that if they have an IT issue I will do my best to resolve it as quickly as possible.

I develop and deliver efficient and high-quality business intelligence products on the Microsoft PowerBI platform using data provided by all of the IT systems used within Dyfed-Powys Police. This includes products providing management information for supervisors as well as products designed to aggregate relevant information used for briefing frontline officers.

The role is very varied as most departments requiring management information. This gives me the opportunity to learn what type of work other departments are responsible for and how we can link our information to aid multiple departments.

I had been working as the Command and Control System Administrator within our Force Communication Centre for 18 months when the Business Intelligence Systems Developer job was advertised. My head of department was aware of my background in analytics and recommended that I apply due to the role being a good fit for my skills and experience.

My proudest moment was in developing a Perpetrator Tool. This product was designed to highlight the nominals who were causing the most harm within our community using the Cambridgeshire Crime Harm Index. The product also highlighted nominals whose harm index was escalating in order to identify potential intervention opportunities.

[Information submitted by a colleague at Avon and Somerset Police]

Jon has worked for the force for many years in a variety of roles. These have always involved some element of innovation, but his journey really began when he became a champion for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) four years ago, and led the force proof of concept and subsequent adoption of RPA technology.  Jon is now a nationally recognised expert in the field, speaking regularly at conferences and events.  It would be appropriate to also recognise the efforts of the excellent team that Jon has built up - Anandhi Pandurangan, Leo Albins, Dave Cann, Simon Woolley, Paul Biggs and most recently Stuart Martin - who between them provide the wealth of expertise that makes Avon and Somerset a recognised leader in this field.

More recently since taking on the role of Principal Delivery Lead for Digital Experience, Jon and his teams have initiated a number of other innovations. Jon proactively seeks out problems in the organisation that he feels he, or his team, or our delivery partners, can help to solve.  A good example of this is his most recent venture - redaction.  On the back of a pocketbook blog comment he read from an officer complaining about the length of time it took them to redact documents for court, Jon has single handedly initiated a proof of concept to develop a product for policing to solve this problem.  He has rallied up support from operational colleagues right across the business and helped to develop a minimum viable product. This attracted attention from the Office of the Chief Scientific Advisor as well as the Police Digital Service, who part funding the proof of concept - recognising its potential benefits to police forces nationally. The redaction software has now been implemented and has been rolled out across many areas of the business.  

Jon and his teams also are responsible for delivery of a number of innovative web-based and M365 solutions which are too numerous to list here but collectively help to demonstrate the level of courage and innovation that takes place in IT in Avon and Somerset.

True to the force values, however, Jon is not precious about his ideas, is not afraid to fail, and knows when to back out! Most recently, he initiated an AI proof of concept - which could have been really transformative in terms of employee experience - but we recognised issues with the maturity of the technology, and the timing of its introduction to the organisation was not right. Jon was courageous in recognising this and putting a stop on the work with our suppliers.

Jon demonstrates the force values in everything he does. He genuinely cares about his colleagues and those reporting to him and works hard to make people feel part of the family.  He is courageous in taking risks and making decisions where he knows these can be well justified and are serving the greater good and does not shy away from challenge and seeking change and improvement. He is not afraid to fail and creates a safe and blame free environment that fosters and encourages creativity and learning. These characteristics are an asset to him in his role as an innovator in IT.

My role is extremely varied! First and foremost, I oversee and orchestrate the efforts of a dynamic and dedicated team comprised of seven skilled database administrators at Sussex Police. Modern policing is almost entirely driven by its need for timely and secure access to accurate data, and my team and I help ensure that happens round the clock.

My responsibilities extend beyond mere leadership, and as the Technical Lead I am also the principal technical authority on all matters related to databases within Sussex and Surrey Police.

At the very core of my role is the guidance and mentorship of my team, ensuring that their skills are honed, and their efforts are aligned to the Policing Priorities of our two forces, whilst being firmly guided by the Code of Ethics. I take pride in fostering a collaborative and innovative environment that enables each team member to flourish.

In addition to my leadership duties, I function as the technical escalation point of last resort. Colleagues turn to me when intricate database challenges arise, or when issues demand a problem manager's expertise. My role further extends to providing deep-level technical design consultation, serving as a critical link between conceptual ideas and their seamless execution.

The scope of my responsibilities also encompasses being the go-to subject matter expert for resolving complex issues that transcend the routine. This includes being the final arbiter when conventional problem-solving methods prove insufficient. I am dedicated to ensuring that our database systems not only meet but exceed expectation in terms of efficiency, reliability, and security.

In essence, my role as the Database Technical Team Leader encapsulates both leadership and technical within a collaborative and innovative environment whilst ensuring the seamless functioning of our critical database infrastructure.

The part I enjoy the most is simply being able to admire what my team and I undertake completely in the shadows to truly enable making our communities safer, uphold the law, prevent crime and bring offenders to justice.

Between both forces across my team of seven and I, we setup, operate, maintain and develop over 140 database servers containing over 1,500 individual databases. These systems range at one far end from the simple post tracker used in the mail room through to databases that ensure only authorised persons can get into police buildings; then all the way up to crime and missing person investigations, custody and so on; ANPR systems handling millions of vehicle reads a day and required to feed national counter-terrorism functions; to SmartStorm that enables control room colleagues to handle and effectively respond to 101 and 999 calls and incident response.

Without effective, available, performant and well-designed and managed databases providing timely access to all required data, those policing and other supporting processes would be severely hampered or need to be curtailed.

I have been in police IT for around seven years now although I have been part of Sussex Police for 22 years, starting off in the Force Control Room. In that time I've held a number of roles from 999 call handler, through to Radio Controller, Oscar2, and even a police officer for 6 or 7 years.

In terms of my current role though I can probably trace (and therefore blame) my love for all things computers all the way back to my parents when they purchased me my first computer aged 4. An opportunity arose in 2017 to join the IT Department as it was then called, and after 15 years of shift work in the FCR it seemed like a role I could make a real difference in (and stop getting up at 4am as a side benefit!). I applied to be a Senior Applications Technician and was successful in that application and, this enabled me to bring my wealth of operational knowledge on the 'sharp end' of the systems we run to my IT colleagues, and it is still useful every day to this very day. Once in IT, I very quickly became enamoured with enterprise-level database technologies and moved internally to that team in 2018.

After 5 years of professional growth in that team which was just Sussex (the Surrey Database Team was another team entirely at the time), the opportunity to head up and lead the newly joint DDaT Database Team opened up and I was hugely delighted to be successful in that interview to be where I am today.

It's so hard to narrow down my greatest achievement to a single event, but I have settled on the one that had the greatest impact not just locally, but across the entire country.

As the clock struck midnight on New Years Day 2021 - a late and night shift traditionally one of the busiest of the entire year for policing - all Surrey and Sussex police officers and staff who were not already logged into the PNC (Police National Computer) found they could not login.

The IT Duty Manager made a callout to me at just gone 1am New Years Day. After investigating, I discovered the source of the issue and devised an in-situ fix to the problem, less than two hours after the issue first occurred.

The reason I mention this one though is by the time I had found the fault and implemented a fix for it locally, a very significant number of other forces were experiencing similar issues. In support of my colleagues, I put together an email with step-by-step instructions to resolve the issue I think the final tally was the fix I'd devised was not just used to resurrect Sussex and Surrey PNC access, but also 26 other police forces up and down the country.

As the Head of Legal Services, I manage the overall delivery of legal services across two forces (Devon & Cornwall Police, and Dorset Police) and three counties. This includes the following key responsibilities:

• Setting the strategic direction for a team of 28 individuals in order to maintain the provision of a comprehensive legal service for both Forces.
• Providing strategic and technical advice across a wide range of disciplines.
• Representing the Chief Constable at meetings and court hearings.
• Handling of sensitive and high profile cases across both Forces.
• Managing the performance of the senior management team in line with Force priorities, objectives, and performance indicators.

My team are based in various locations across three counties and cover a wide range of areas from representing the Chief Constable at Employment Tribunals, Misconduct hearings, and Coronial matters, to providing advice on commercial contracts, to protecting the most vulnerable in society by placing civil preventative orders before the courts.

Ordinarily it is rare to find individuals who are truly passionate about the work that they do, however at Devon and Cornwall Police and Dorset Police, I am surrounded by these individuals. I have the pleasure of leading a team of truly talented individuals who believe in what they do and provide the best service they can, often in challenging circumstances.

It’s a cliché, but it’s true, no day is the same. I have no idea from one day to the next what I am going to be working on, and that is truly exhilarating.

Whilst I always dreamed of becoming a ‘lawyer’, from the moment my Dad sat me down in front of an old black and white movie ’12 Angry Men’, I knew the corporate world of financial deals and property transactions was not for me. I had visions of fighting for justice, being at the heart of society, and playing my part to make the world a better place for those most vulnerable in society.

Throughout law school I volunteered for the innocent project and became an appropriate adult, witnessing first hand the criminal justice system in action, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I secured a scholarship to qualify as a solicitor and completed my training in a range of areas including criminal and civil litigation.

As I started to reach the end of my two year training contract, I started to look for roles within the legal industry which I felt were ‘slightly outside the ordinary’. I began the process of applying for the navy, before accepting a job before I was even qualified with the police as a Force Legal Advisor. I have been with the legal team now for over eight years, progressing first to Senior Force Legal Advisor within the litigation team, and recently as Acting Head of Legal.

I have just been awarded a Chief Constable’s commendation for the advice and support I have provided to the Chief Constable on a complex matter relating to a historic case stretching back to 2011. This was a case I have worked on for a number of years and has required significant dedication whilst under a huge amount of pressure. The outcome being one that served best to maintain trust and confidence in policing.