PITO moves forward with ‘joined up’ Criminal Justice System

Simulation is being increasing used to help forces across the UK to improve their effectiveness in a number of key areas including scientific support, incident and call handling.

PITO has announced that it will be using a software simulation package called WITNESS developed by the Lanner Group.

November’s ACPO sponsored Delivering the Police Case Management Process Conference in London saw the formal announcement of the new strategic partnership with Lanner which was met with widespread support.

Warwickshire Chief Constable John Burbeck, the Chairman of The National Custody and Case Preparation Programme Board, told the audience of national police forces together with representatives from the CPS and other areas of the Criminal Justice System (CJS), that Lanner would be working with PITO as part of the ongoing process in the area of custody and case preparation.

Mr Burbeck said: “This is the start of a ten-step approach to force-wide business change and Lanner’s WITNESS simulation will be at the front end of how we approach this.

Forces will now be able to develop a plan for how benefits can be realised and from that, identify a business change plan.” The Government’s ultimate objective is to deliver a ‘joined-up’ CJS that will incorporate a fully automated end-to-end case management process. One of the key benefits of the new system will be unique and easy access to relevant cases of both victims and witnesses, enabling them to be regularly updated as cases unfold. This will result in faster decision-making and easy remote access.

Superintendent David Branfield, Head of Business Change, Custody and Case Preparation for PITO, said: “One way of ensuring that we capture full benefits is to use simulation to understand the ‘As is’ and ‘To be’ of the situation within a risk-free environment. This evidences possible scenarios that maximise benefit and deliver an optimum solution. Lanner will assist us in driving the full programme roll-out including transitioning those forces currently in the NSPIS (National Strategy for Police Information System) programme into this next phase.

“We will start with a review of six forces initially, complemented by a period of knowledge transfer between Lanner and PITO to bring us up to speed with WITNESS so that we can deploy it across the forces that have so far committed to the programme. Lanner will also fulfil the role of programme consultants on areas of benefit realisation.”