The decisions police leaders cannot defer
The technology investment equation has fundamentally changed for every police force in England and Wales following the release of the Government’s 2026 reform white paper. The proposals point towards stronger national data and technology standards, the development of a National Police Service and fewer, larger force structures, with the precise configuration subject to the independent review. Alongside this, the Police Performance Framework will increase demand for consistent, trusted and comparable data.
For police leaders this creates a dilemma: the future operating model has not yet been determined, but the ongoing pressures remain. Finance, HR, Payroll and Procurement departments must continue functioning. Legacy technology still needs to be supported. Data still needs to be cohesive and trusted. Officers and staff are still losing time to duplication, manual intervention and fragmented processes.
The investment decision therefore is not a straightforward choice between transforming or waiting. It is much more nuanced, with questions around which systems need replacing now, which need stabilising or preparing for migration, and which do not require immediate investment. These decisions are crucial, because a blanket freeze on progress allows technical, process and data debt to grow, whilst unfocused acceleration can be equally damaging – potentially creating new local dependencies which later must be reversed or altered.
But there is a middle ground, with many changes which can be implemented now that both alleviate existing challenges, and align with the likely future direction of policing structures. These centre around outcomes including improving data quality and ownership; reducing unnecessary customisation; strengthening integration capability; and adopting platforms which can operate across organisational boundaries.