Digital transcription cuts police red tape

Officers can now file reports direct from crime scenes

Lancashire Constabulary is using a digital transcription system to reduce paperwork and improve its audit trails.

The system from WinScribe means officers can now file reports direct from crime scenes without having to go to an office to hand write and fax forms.

‘The Voice Forms system is extremely easy to use,’ said Richard Allan, Police National Computer and crime recording manager at Lancashire Constabulary. ‘Up to 30 officers can now dictate into the system concurrently with 15 staff transcribing at any one time.’

Officers on patrol can dial into the system, enter a number that corresponds with the crime type and respond to a series of 30 prompted questions.

The report is then stored in a queue for digital transcription.

Home Office research shows the average UK officer spends 41 per cent of police time preparing files and paperwork.

The process of handwriting and faxing crime reports to the crime input clerks generated inefficiencies in the audit trail with some reports going missing.

Using the facility with a whiteboard system, Lancashire has also been able to improve tracking and management of workloads, ensuring staff are not over or under loaded at any one time.

‘We can now view at the touch of a button how many reports we have logged and what stage they are at, allowing us to even out bottlenecks,’ said Allan.

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