The Chief of Police started the investigation from a broader mandate: to keep control over rising costs in a time when police work is rapidly digitalizing. Around the summer, concerns about the budget arose within the police in several domains, including information provision. This led us as police management to have several domains thoroughly examined. Where is our money going and where can we save? The Chief of Police emphasizes that this is not a reaction to incidents such as the data leak last September. This investigation is completely unrelated to that. We made this choice ourselves. It fits into a broader line where we look not only at IV but also at housing, business operations, and the organization of police work.
Well-founded choices
The conclusions of research agency Ernst & Young are strong. The IV costs are rising rapidly, the IT landscape is fragmented and often outdated, and project management is lacking. In accountants language, it actually states: we have insufficient visibility into what we spend, what comes in, which projects are running, how many external forces we hire, and which different applications we use for the same purposes. We want to make this more transparent so that we can make well-founded choices, also from a financial perspective. The Chief of Police sees sufficient positive starting points: The objectives and strategies we formulated earlier, for example in the recently presented Strategic Agenda, are good. An efficient and flexible foundation in the field of information provision is one of the most important prerequisites. But the choices that are now implicitly or unconsciously made must be made explicit. We need to prioritize more strictly and manage more business-like.
Better focus
Managing more business-like also means that sometimes difficult choices must be made. Doing everything at once is no longer possible. There are projects that we will pause, delay, or not execute. We do not take this lightly and always in conjunction with colleagues in the operation. The service to them must remain at a high level. But it is necessary. The police is also critically looking at standardization. Not five different applications for location determination, but one. These are not easy decisions, but they are necessary. The report helps us to make responsible decisions together, from both the operation and IV. The Chief of Police emphasizes that there will be no cuts to cybersecurity We cannot hit the pause button on that. It has and will remain our highest priority. Especially to keep the organization safe in an increasingly complex digital environment.
ICT is police work
That digitalization changes police work is beyond doubt for the Chief of Police. IV is not only supportive, it is part of our work. We need our officers on the street, but our data engineers and web designers just as much. This also requires something from our workforce. We need to become more diverse in that regard as well.
New ways of working are also being introduced. Our High Tech Crime team does fantastic work decrypting all shielded phone communications. But the data storage that goes along with it is enormously costly. We need to be more precise: which data do we keep, what can go? And sometimes we use multiple systems that can do more or less the same thing. We previously hardly managed that. Now we have a better view of what costs that entails.
Sharper management
The coming months, the police will use to further develop the recommendations. Ernst & Young has been asked to make the financial component of this even clearer in a follow-up study. Close collaboration is being sought with the ministry, trade unions, and the works council. The goal: sharper management, clear choices, and more control over the future. Regarding this, the Chief of Police says: We owe it to ourselves to make conscious choices with the knowledge we have now. For the operation, but also for the trust of politics and society. Because that requires a police force that has its finances in order and is accountable for them.
And yes, the report touches on the sore spot. But you can also look at it as: it gives us direction. We see many starting points with which we can move forward. And that helps us and the operation to make good choices.