Registered users:   CLICK HERE to VIEW and SEARCH papers.

Police Authority Papers

There are 51 Police Authorities or Boards in England, Scotland and Wales, plus Northern Ireland, British Transport Police and others. They hold over 1,400 meetings each year, with over 20,000 agenda items and over 14,000 supporting papers.

Together these papers form the most useful, current and timely database of information on UK policing anywhere. However, all Authorities produce papers in different ways, and it is a time consuming process to collect them and convert them into a useable source of information. With the importance and responsibilities of Police Authorities growing, it is highly desirable that there is a single focal point for these papers.

Since 1996 we have been collating these papers, converting them to the same format, indexing them and distributing them on a monthly CD. This has proved very popular, and users find the service saves a lot of research time.

Recognising the need for easier and more timely access, we have developed a web based service. Every police force, Authority and organisation undertakes research and monitors what is going on in other forces. We estimate that using our services, there is an efficiency saving of over £4m to be made.

We take each paper, convert to a common format, and split it into separate agenda items. These are then entered on a database, together with a précis of the paper - this usually gives more information than the formal agenda. We also assign key words at this stage - for example ICT, Policing Pledge, Capital Budget Monitoring. Many papers are added before the meeting date. The database became live on 1 November 2009, and has undergone extensive testing.

Using the papers

You can select for viewing either all or an individual Police Authority. You can select individual committees for each Authority. The selection can be between particular dates. You can also select agenda items using the key words. For example, you can select all Authorities that have discussed the Policing Pledge since 1 November 2009, and only the agenda items which have been marked with that key word will be returned.

With over 33m words a year, keywords we add will not include everything. We have built in two further layers of search. One is a simple search on the précis added, or there is a deep search on all words in all items.

The service is powerful, and the ability to use Police Authority Papers in this way has never been possible before.

 For pricing and payment options, CLICK HERE