Business Systems and Knowledge Modelling Lab

In the last five years Victoria Police has made two major strategic changes in its vision and operations. The first one is rooted in organizational restructuring based on the Local Priority Policing (LPP) model and the second one in rooted in Information Technology (IT).

In its efforts to leverage the benefits of information technology the force has made major infrastructural investments in IT. It has signed a 170 million dollar IT contract with IBM and undertaken a major rollout of IT hardware and software across the force. It has created a new Information Management Department (IMD) in July 1999 in its headquarters.

One of the main aims of the IMD has been to develop a more integrated approach for leveraging the benefits of information technology. In this approach the disparate systems across the force are being replaced by integrated systems for incidence reporting, rostering etc. Major benefits are expected to be derived from this integrated approach. However, it will be useful to cost these benefits in order to effectively justify the investments made and to determine the breakeven point between the investments and benefits.

The focus of this audit however, is to assess the role of information technology for successful implementation of LPP and its realized benefits in terms of cost, time, crime prevention and reporting and other aspects. A number of findings and recommendations have been made in this regard. These findings have been submitted to the Victorian State Parliament.