Common Police Records Management Environment, PRIME-BC

ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: February 19, 2001
Author/Local: Inspector Jim Chu/215-4811

RTS No. 01916

CC File No. 1007

Council: March 13, 2001

TO: Vancouver City Council

FROM: Chief Constable

SUBJECT: Common Police Records Management Environment, PRIME-BC

RECOMMENDATIONS

A. THAT Council receive this report for information and be provided with an update report 6 months after the transition date, March 21 2001, that explains the public safety benefits realized from the new RMS and provides an update on the staff savings achieved.

B. THAT Council approve the purchase of 180 personal computers to ensure appropriate departmental access to the new PRIME-BC Records Management System, at a cost of $436,680; source of funding to be Public Safety capital funding of $360,000 budgeted for CAD/MDT System Upgrade and $76,680 budgeted for Upgrade of Radio Receivers.

GENERAL MANAGER COMMENTS

The Chief Constable recommends approval of A and B.

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS

The City Manager notes that the introduction of PRIME-BC into the Police Department will radically change the way information is handled by the department. The case on which the original decision was based suggested staff savings in the Information Section beyond the 14 positions required to offset the annual costs of maintaining the system. Since only 6 of the 14 positions will be eliminated at the roll out, it should be noted that transitional funding for the remaining positions will impact the ongoing police budgets. These two factorssuggest that a more detailed review of information handling in the departmentwould be warranted once the system has been fully implemented. In addition, the request for 180 computers included in this report will put significant pressure on the limited funding that is currently available to maintain the replacement program for computer equipment in the City. As a result, the City Manager RECOMMENDS the following:

C. THAT the City Manager and Chief Constable report back to Council within 12 months of PRIME-BC being implemented in the Police department on the impact of the new RMS on information handling in the department, that report to include recommendations on the reallocation of any additional savings identified.

The City Manager also notes that Council will be updated on issues related to E-Comm, including the implementation of the new CAD system and the associated emergency dispatch services and the roll out of the regional radio system. As a result, the City Manager also RECOMMENDS:

D. THAT the Police, Fire and Finance departments provide an update report on the implementation by E-Comm of the Computer Aided Dispatch and radio systems and other services, including a review of the costs, risks and opportunities borne by the City.

The City Manager RECOMMENDS approval of A, B, C and D.

COUNCIL POLICY

Council has adopted a policy of life-cycle replacements for microcomputers. Personal computers are generally replaced at the end of their useful life (average of four years) using funding from the Information Technology Long Term Financing Plan. The replacement program is managed by the Information Technology department in Corporate Services.

PURPOSE

This report will provide a status report on the cost savings the Department will achieve, and will also provide a look at the changes that will take place in the Police Department over the next six months. In addition, approval is being sought to replace 180 obsolete computer workstations (486 and low end Pentium processors), with funding from a supplementary capital account set up in 1993 for computer aided dispatch and radio equipment, prior to the establishment of E-Comm.

BACKGROUND

In October 1999, Council approved the participation of the Vancouver Police Department, with other police agencies, in the development of the PRIME-BC shared Records Management System (RMS). The system is delivered under the partnership and technology infrastructure provided by E-Comm and is in support of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP) vision of a common police information system for the province. The problems associated with law enforcement agencies not sharing information are well documented.

The costs associated with the participation of the Vancouver Police Department in PRIME-BC, estimated at $575,600 annually, are to be funded from operating savings within the departmental budget. Council also directed the Chief Constable to report back on the status of the savings just prior to roll-out.

DISCUSSION

1. Operational Overview

PRIME-BC represents the biggest change in how the Police Department operates since mobile radios replaced call boxes. The Department will change from decades-old practices that are based on the sharing of paper reports, to an electronic data capture and access environment. Mobile reporting is a key feature of the new RMS and the capital funding provided in the E-Comm Police user equipment budget will allow the Police Department to replace twenty-year old Mobile Data Terminals currently mounted in patrol vehicles with ruggedized laptop computers. The efficiencies and benefits can be illustrated with the following "as is" and "to be" comparison.

"As is" - A Detective Squad may wait days for a paper report to arrive. Case file books are kept by detective supervisors and are used to log which cases are assigned to which detective. This process makes it difficult to answer questions such as who has a file, what is the status of the investigation, and what cases are overdue for a conclusion report. The current RMS does not support searches for suspects based on descriptors (e.g., find all suspects with a tattoo of a teardrop on their cheek).

"To be" - The new RMS supports the automatic electronic routing of cases to a Detective Squad. The supervisor can assign cases and will receive a notification when a case conclusion is overdue. The new RMS allows searches based on partial descriptions, licence plates, or offence details. Investigators can quickly read case files while sitting at a computer terminal. Narratives can be searched. For example, an investigator with a child sexual assault case may be trying to identify a suspect who lured a child into a secluded area on the pretence of looking for a "lost bunny". The investigator needs to find all of the related cases and would want to search all report narratives for the words "lost rabbit", "lost doggie", "lost kitty", etc. Electronic records can be shared and the first phase of the PRIME-BC projectinvolves three agencies. Port Moody Police went live on PRIME-BC on January 24, 2001. The Richmond RCMP will transition to the PRIME-BC system after the VPD transition.

Several Lower Vancouver Island police agencies and the Organized Crime Agency of B.C. are in the process of formalizing their participation. The City of Victoria Police Chief chairs the IT subcommittee of the BCACP, and he has advised that the BCACP will be initiating a plan to pursue senior government funding to assist local law enforcement with information technology projects.

2. RMS Funding

The costs of PRIME-BC are $693,833 per year ($514 per officer). This levy is based on annual license fees paid to the software vendor, and the amortization of project management and other capital costs over a 10 year period. The Police Department's proportional share is $575,000 (83%), based on sworn officer count. This levy would be reduced if more agencies participated in the project to share in the capital costs, and if senior governments contribute funding. Recently, the Province announced a $500,000 grant to assist in RMS delivery.

Council approved funding the annual RMS cost of $575,000 through staff savings. Council did not make any commitments to fund PC upgrades in the Police Department.

To fund the RMS levy, 14 positions in the Information Section will be eliminated over an implementation period. Six positions will be eliminated on the roll-out date, March 21, 2001. A transition period will occur over the following 6 months as the RMS is phased in. The remaining position reductions will occur when the "Justin" (the new provincial court system) interface is completed, and when other modules, such as the Property Office subsystem, are activated. Development of the "Justin" interface should be complete by the end of the year ($300,000 of the $500,000 provincial grant will fund this interface).

IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

Staff Savings

While there was initial optimism that more than 14 positions could be found, the following impediments have arisen:

· The workload currently experienced by the Information Section is artificially reduced by the lack of accountability in a paper-based system. Currently, police members conclude many incidents on the computer aided dispatch system when they should be submitting reports. Supervisors tacitly allow this to occur since the paper reports take a lot of time to complete. The problem for the Department is that workload and crime occurrences arenot being accurately captured. Mobile reporting will allow the Department to enforce reporting rules, which will increase overall workload, without severely draining street-level resources. Crime rates are likely to increase because officers will be held more accountable for documenting the crimes they encounter.

· Internet reporting by citizens is on the increase. Currently, email reports are being submitted, and soon, online crime report forms will be available. This means that a significant amount of the non-emergency crime report workload has shifted from E-Comm call takers back to VPD staff.

· There are many modules of the Versadex RMS that will be implemented in stages as much as one year away from now. For example, a laptop in a car means that generating an electronic traffic ticket is possible. In fact, a funding partnership with ICBC is being pursued and when this is activated, the work associated with entering 5000 traffic tickets per month into the RMS will be significantly reduced.

· An agreement with the Provincial Corrections Service was entered into for jail functions. They have taken the position that they will use their internal Lockup Management System despite the Department's request to use the new system's jail-booking module. Duplicate data entry of arrested persons will be necessary, unless an interface is funded and developed.

In the fall, the Police Department will update Council on the actual experiences and workload changes resulting from the PRIME-BC implementation.

Computer Needs

In an effort to expand its computing capabilities, the VPD has deployed 180 surplus 486 and low-end Pentium computers in a "thin-client" environment using a network product called Citrix. Though representing a frugal use of old equipment, the current performance capabilities of these machines are unacceptable. At peak usage times, keystrokes can take many seconds to show up on the screen and mouse control is poor. Users cannot view images or attachments sent over email. The dependency on a shared Citrix server causes further problems during a system crash which has now "stabilized" to one every three weeks.
Complicating the deficiencies of the Citrix network are the security requirements resulting from the partnership with the RCMP in the RMS project. Only Windows NT has the security controls that are appropriate for the RCMP and this operating system will not run on the existing Citrix equipment. Therefore, it is not feasible to deploy the RMS application on these 180 Citrix machines. As an interim measure, users will have to share RMS access over existing higher-end computers, creating significant access problems.

As a result, funding is being sought for the replacement of these computers. The VPD has determined that replacement of all of the computers is essential if the Police department is to fully realize the potential benefits of the RMS. Council should be aware that these obsolete computers are not part of the IT computer replacement plan and funding for the eventual replacement of these PC's will need to be addressed in the future.

The $436,680 required to fund 180 PCs can be allocated from Public Safety capital accounts set up for Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and radio equipment prior to the establishment of E-Comm. In 1993, $360,000 was provided for the expansion of new controller and data channels for the City's CAD system. In 1994, $190,000 was provided for the upgrade of eight radio receivers. These requirements became redundant with the advent of E-Comm. It is recommended that these funds be used to purchase the computer equipment required to meet the needs of PRIME-BC. The funding can be provided from the following accounts:

· $360,000 from Capital Order 3000633 CAD/MDT System Upgrade
· $76,680 from Capital Order 30000634 Upgrade and Radio Receivers

PERSONNEL IMPLICATIONS

There are personnel issues that have been highlighted in the report and the affected unions are aware of the changes.

CONCLUSIONS

Council has been a strong supporter of the PRIME-BC project. Mobile reporting means that officers can remain deployable in the community for longer periods. The sharing of information means that more criminals will be identified and "solve" rates will improve, positively affecting public safety. The police partnerships achieved through E-Comm are a reality through the strong City support of the E-Comm initiative. The Police Department is looking forward to the delivery of an update report for Council that will illustrate the efficiencies and service enhancements made possible through Council's investment in the technology infrastructure of the Police Department.

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