Cleveland Police faced the challenge of time-consuming administrative tasks alongside stringent requirements for secure and compliant solutions.
To address this, the force partnered with Simpson Associates and Microsoft to implement a tailored automation solution built on Microsoft Azure AI, Azure AI Document Intelligence, and Azure Speech Services.
This collaboration cut redaction times by up to 50%, significantly improved operational efficiency, and enhanced officer visibility.
“Technology opens up so many avenues for policing. It helps us create processes that flow smoothly, reduce workload and allow officers to be where they’re needed most.”
Glen Ward, Head of Criminal Justice and Custody, Cleveland Police
Cleveland Police, a territorial force in Northeast England, is dedicated to maintaining public safety and reducing crime. When confronted with time-consuming manual processes that hindered its ability to fully fulfil its mission, the force turned to innovation. By choosing to automate its processes, the force sought tools that could free up officers from operational tasks, enabling them to focus more on essential public-facing duties, provide better service to the community, and support investigations more effectively.
In today’s digital age, the volume of information available for investigations is increasing rapidly. This presents a significant challenge within the police sector, as officers are legally obligated to manually sift through all the data associated with a case, highlighting relevant sections and redacting sensitive details. Often, this process is repeated multiple times, leading to countless hours spent on paperwork.
Glen Ward, Head of Criminal Justice and Custody of Cleveland Police, reflects on this: “We used to check all the files with a marker pen. We’d mark the paper, and then it would be passed along.”
Consequently, police officers devote more time to administrative tasks rather than focusing on working with cases. This could potentially lead to delays in investigations and reduced effectiveness in solving crimes, highlighting the need for change.
The Policing Minister of the UK identified redaction as a key use case to address existing challenges. Later, in March 2024, with Home Office funding, the Police Digital Service (PDS), which manages the streamlining of IT solutions for police forces, delivered a multi-supplier national commercial framework, enabling forces to procure automated text redaction tools.
Cleveland Police explored an alternative solution on a major hyperscale provider. However, at that time, the solution did not fully align with the force’s specific security and licensing requirements, nor meet the functional requirements.
Cleveland Police prioritised finding a solution that could ensure sensitive data remains within a secure and controlled environment and reduce the time-consuming administrative side of redaction.
Glen Ward emphasised the importance: “Security is crucial in our work. We don’t want to compromise a victim by allowing data to go out, as it poses a risk to them.”
In addition to security, Cleveland Police sought to make the most of its budget.
By leveraging a cost-efficient, usage-based payment model, it could ensure that resources were allocated effectively to support its critical mission while remaining adaptable to future technology advancements, including SaaS-based solutions.
Feedback from the staff about the system’s efficiency significantly motivated Cleveland Police to seek the best possible solution.
“Our staff were saying it was a problem for them,” shares Glen Ward. “We wanted to make things easier for them, to help them succeed, eliminate manual paperwork, and simplify their workload.”
This feedback prompted the police to explore further and look for the partner.
“By shaving time off paperwork, we can do a better job for victims and spend more time with them. You can’t put a price on that value.”
Glen Ward, Head of Criminal Justice and Custody, Cleveland Police
Cleveland Police set a challenge: achieving its automation goals while ensuring security and cost-efficiency. Simpson Associates, a data transformation consultancy that helps organisations maximise the value of their data, stepped up to the task.
It proposed a bespoke solution based on their redaction tool that was being developed, designed to streamline document processing.
Dave Kerby, Account Director at Simpson Associates, reflects on this: “We conducted a brief AI assessment and identified several key use cases to focus on over the next 12 to 24 months. Redaction emerged as a critical need, prompting the development of a custom solution.”
This innovative tool aimed to enable officers to quickly handle multiple documents, effortlessly highlighting and redacting sensitive information.
Prior to collaborating with Cleveland Police, Simpson Associates had been working closely with the Microsoft team to develop redaction solution RedactXpert. They believed that Microsoft was an excellent match for Cleveland, particularly in the areas Cleveland prioritised: security and cost-efficiency. Consequently, Simpson Associates chose to build the application on Microsoft Azure. The collaboration working with Cleveland allowed Simpson Associates to ensure the product was fit for UK policing. The partnership continues to evolve.
Dave Kerby explains: “The generative AI services that Microsoft offers are very easy to integrate into bespoke applications. The large language models are constantly updated by Microsoft, which enables us to focus on the application itself and ensure that the customer gets the results they need.”
Azure’s flexibility allowed Simpson Associates to deploy the solution swiftly, leveraging built-in services such as Azure Monitor to proactively track performance, optimise reliability, and ensure the application operated with maximum efficiency.
Microsoft solutions showcased to Cleveland Police how sensitive information can be safeguarded with unmatched precision. By leveraging Azure’s security capabilities, the force gained granular control over data access and usage. Services like Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Microsoft Entra ID enabled detailed monitoring of who could view, access, and interact with critical data.
Glen Ward highlights: “Using Azure, our teams can see who has access, who can view it, who has accessed it, and who has read it.”
This comprehensive security framework ensures Cleveland Police can meet stringent data protection requirements while reducing the risk of leaks—critical priorities in the policing sector.
Microsoft also highlighted the potential cost savings achievable with its solutions.
Glen Ward notes: “With Microsoft, you only pay for what you use. It provides the control to see exactly what you’re spending.”
This transparency and cost management ensure resources are allocated efficiently, enabling the police force to invest in other critical areas.
Cleveland Police evaluated all advantages and opportunities introduced and was confident that partnering with Microsoft was the right direction to take.
“We identified key areas of interest: summarisation, transcription, and redaction,” says Glen Ward. “Microsoft’s capabilities were really impressive and perfectly aligned with our needs.”
The initial results validated this decision. By leveraging Azure AI, Cleveland Police implemented advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) models that enabled automated document summarisation and key information extraction. The integration of Azure Speech Services provided transcription capabilities, ensuring seamless processing of audio data into actionable text. Additionally, custom redaction models built using Azure AI Document Intelligence allowed sensitive information to be automatically identified and obscured, maintaining compliance with data protection regulations.
“Instead of spending hours studying documents in detail, we got a system that presents the answers to us in minutes,” notes Glen Ward. “It reads and highlights for us, making our job much easier.”
After transitioning from manual handling of tasks to using automated solutions, Cleveland Police acquired all the tools needed to boost efficiency and productivity.
Dave Kerby explains: “With the new app, Cleveland can potentially reduce the time spent on manual processing and achieve overall time efficiencies within the force."
“Per our estimation, the speed of our work is going to be at least 50% faster,” adds Glen Ward.
This change will allow officers to spend more time on frontline duties rather than administrative tasks, significantly improving operations.
Enhanced redaction efficiency by 50%
One of the significant outcomes of reducing manual tasks for Cleveland Police is the increased visibility of officers in the community.
“That’s the key aspect of policing—being a visible deterrent to prevent crime. When officers are tied up with redaction and paperwork, they can’t be visible,” explains Glen Ward.
By freeing officers from time-consuming administrative tasks, the police force can ensure that more officers are present in the community. This increased presence not only helps in preventing crime but also strengthens the relationship between the police and the community, fostering a more secure environment for everyone.
Glen Ward confirms: “We are making society safer and improving public outcomes when we are more visible."
Thanks to the openness of Cleveland Police to innovation and the dedication of Microsoft and its partner, Simpson Associates, police officers can now be more productive, spending more time with the public and enhancing community safety.
“By shaving time off paperwork, we can do a better job for victims and spend more time with them. You can’t put a price on that value,” says Glen Ward.
Giles Horwood, Managing Director at Simpson Associates, adds, “It’s great that officers can return to the front line because they’re not having to spend so much time on administrative tasks.”
Cleveland Police aims to build a transformative partnership with Microsoft, focusing on the continued exploration of digital technology. By leveraging Microsoft products, the force seeks to enhance its capabilities and drive innovation in law enforcement.
Cleveland Police is currently focused on AI-powered solutions for translation and transcription to address high-stakes scenarios with unprecedented speed.
“For high-risk jobs, we want to leverage all of Microsoft’s resources,” notes Glen Ward. “Real-time translation technology can bridge language gaps when a translator isn’t available, providing the elastic technology we need to meet momentary demands.”
The force is also exploring the Microsoft Power Platform to revolutionise workflows. “We’re looking at how to use Power Apps to simplify case files,” confirms Glen Ward.
By leveraging Microsoft’s cutting-edge technology, Cleveland Police is not only enhancing its own operations but also setting a benchmark for other forces, ultimately making communities safer and more secure.
“Technology opens up so many avenues for policing,” reflects Glen Ward. “It helps us create processes that flow smoothly, reduce workload, and allow officers to be where they’re needed most.”
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“It’s great that officers can return to the front line because they’re not having to spend so much time on administrative tasks.”
Giles Horwood, Managing Director, Simpson Associates
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