Queensland Police Service

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The Challenge

The QPS is entrusted with policing almost 25 percent of Australia’s land mass, an area covering 1.7 million km2, with more than 9,600 police officers and more than 3,600 staff serving a community of 4 million residents.

In the 2006/07 financial year, QPS spent $1.28 billion across its four output areas - Community Safety and Engagement, Crime Management, Traffic Management and Professional Standards Ethical Practice.

It comprises eight geographical regions and two centrally established functional commands providing specialist support. Two specialist units and one command report directly to the Commissioner, while four areas collectively deliver all corporate support.

Major initiatives for 2007-08 include creating an additional 200 new sworn police positions, lifting operational numbers to 9,928 sworn officers by October 2008. Further, funding has been provided to engage an additional 167 civilians. They will perform administrative and support functions currently undertaken by sworn police officers.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is transforming the way the QPS delivers services to meet community expectations and ensure the sustainability of its workforce. Improving police information and communications technology will reduce the administrative burden on police, enhance access by police to accurate and timely information, and enable more effective policing responses.

“The aim of QPRIME (Queensland Police Records and Information Management Exchange) is to allow officers to share critical information across Queensland. We have recently implemented the second phase of QPRIME which brings us closer to realising all of the benefits of this integrated system for the Queensland community.”

The Solution

QPRIME is an integrated policing solution. Its main software component is a Commercial Off the- Shelf (COTS) product developed by Niche Technology Inc of Winnipeg, Canada, which has been adopted by, and is achieving good results in numerous overseas policing jurisdictions.

QPRIME also comprises a suite of reporting and information analysis tools (QPRIME Analysis); and a linked mapping and Geographical Information System (QPRIME Mapping).

The QPS sought the following business benefits from its ICT investment:

• Improved ability to prevent, detect, solve and resolve crimes through faster access to single source, quality information.
• Enhanced safety for the community and for police officers. QPRIME will allow police to better identify high risk situations and trends.
• More advanced information capture and sharing with partner agencies.
• More support for police in interpreting and responding to incidents.
• Sophisticated information tools will help police analyse problems and provide appropriate responses.
• A reduction in administrative tasks and a better workload balance.
• Greater accountability and better risk management.

Assistant Commissioner Ian Stewart said that the new integrated system would effectively eliminate many of the information sharing challenges for QPS, assisting policing such a large decentralised state.

When fully implemented, QPRIME will replace 234 systems and indices currently used by police and provide them with a single information access point.

This investment provides for the central management of traffic incidents, domestic violence, crime reporting and management, property and exhibit management and operational intelligence capability. It also delivers interfaces with other Government departments to facilitate integrated justice; provides for management of charging, diversion and court processes, prosecutions management, watchhouse management and offender histories.

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand was instrumental in providing architecture of the entire solution and professional Team Leaders to ensure QPS delivered on-time.

Fujitsu facilitated an arrangement to augment the on-boarding of resources for QPS for the large number of staff of various skills (more than 100) that were needed for the multi-year project.

Fujitsu’s support for QPS and Niche extended to sourcing resources for the QPRIME project and working collaboratively to provide appropriate skilled resources to deliver the systems integration and architecture and conduct analysis tasks within QPRIME.

The Benefits

Assistant Commissioner Stewart said QPRIME was a welcome weapon in the fight against crime.

“The new information management system will provide police across the state with information anytime, anywhere,” Assistant Commissioner Stewart said.

When fully implemented, QPRIME will be used to record and manage all reportable police incidents.

QPRIME provides officers throughout the state with easier access to information which assists them to prevent detect and solve crimes at a regional and state level.

As well as eliminating time consuming information searches, QPRIME is designed to support crime-fighting from a state-wide perspective.

Police are able to identify crime hot spots, monitor persons of interest and information about offenders and also study crime trends from a whole-of- Queensland perspective.

QPRIME Phase 1 delivered officers the operational benefits of a single view of offenders with more than 350,000 mug shots, missing persons, sudden deaths, traffic accidents and complaints.

QPRIME Phase 2.1 delivered crime reporting, property management, domestic violence and vehicles of interest functionality. Extensive information analysis and reporting capability was provided for operational police, intelligence officers and management including mapping of crime patterns through sophisticated geographical information systems.

QPRIME Phase 2.2 is scheduled for delivery in mid-2008, encompassing charging, diversion and court processes, prosecutions management, watchhouse management, offender histories and warrants management.

Following this, there will be further opportunities to use QPRIME in areas such as liquor licensing incidents and providing mobile access to QPRIME information.

Indicative lag indicators show significant benefits made in the management of property and completeness of persons of interest profiles, resulting in much less time spent collecting information from different systems and more time realising officer safety, increased ability to investigate and solve crime, and enhanced safety.