DATE:

24 June 2013

TO/DEST:

Executive Director, Ottawa Police Services Board

FROM/EXP:

Chief of Police, Ottawa Police Service

SUBJECT/OBJET:

OTTAWA POLICE SERVICE INITIATIVE UPDATE

RECOMMENDATION

That the Ottawa Police Services Board receive this report for information.

BACKGROUND

The policing environment in Ottawa, as well as other cities, is becoming increasingly complex. Police services across Canada are seeing higher expectations from citizens for service and value, while faced with increasing pressure from changing demographics, budgets, growth, and demands for service. The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) is not immune to these challenges, recognizing that it needs to find a response to these complex issues.

This changing environment, combined with increased financial accountability at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government, has the OPS facing opportunities, challenges and pressures that need to be addressed to ensure service to residents at the levels they expect.

The Service Initiative (SI) has been developed as a means of positioning the OPS to respond to these challenges and expectations. The SI has developed a process to assist the OPS in finding efficiencies and savings that will be consistent with the expectations of the 2014 budget, as well as future budgets that will be developed.

DISCUSSION

The vision of the SI is to enhance community safety and value through service. The initiative is about focusing on our policing responsibilities, developing a sustainable policing model, and also looking for areas where services need to be enhanced or improved.

By evaluating the way we do business through the lens of the SI, there are four outcomes the OPS is seeking to achieve:

1) Improved service

2) Money and/or person hour efficiencies

3) Enhanced partnerships

4) Cost recovery or revenue opportunities.

In order to carry out the vision of the SI, five strategies have been designed to form the basis of all activities carried out under this program:

1) Ensuring the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills, are in place to make our community safer.

2) Maximizing partnerships, whether community-based or professional.

3) Ensuring OPS activities provide value for money to our community that can be measured through performance.

4) Using organizational and operational problem solving to deliver the best service possible to the community; and,

5) Employing evidence based decision-making to make certain the OPS is providing the best service to our community.

Organizational Change

SI is intended to be a transformational exercise that seeks to gather information, opportunities, and feedback, from a variety of sources. Internal members, stakeholders, and the people the OPS serves, will all provide input on the ways in which our service can improve.

Over the last several months, a great deal of focus has been placed on engaging the membership of the OPS in a discussion on the general understanding of the SI, and on gathering some preliminary information on their ideas for service enhancement.

Through the consultations, the SI project team has been able to reach out to hundreds of OPS members, sworn and civilian, and in every section. This includes front line and senior officers. The consultations enabled the SI Team to gather feedback on the issues, gaps, and opportunities that exist within the OPS.

SI Plan

The SI is projected to continue to the end of 2015. In the initial stages, the SI will be focused on a current state review of our “Call to Close” processes. The Call to Close review refers to an examination of the current processes involved from the time a call is received from a member of the public, until the time it is concluded.

These processes will be examined from several perspectives with an emphasis on the services the OPS is providing to the public including the perspective of the complainant or the victim. It will focus on the identification of gaps, redundancies, and opportunities for improvement.

Call to Close Review

Within the Call to Close framework there are four core processes that have been identified as key components to a police response: Call for Service, Incident Management, Detention & Disclosure, and Proactive Activities.

Call for Service

This takes into account how the OPS takes in and receives calls for service, with a focus on four main intake areas: the Communications Centre, Call Centre, Front Desk Services, and Community Police Centres. These areas are responsible for assessing the call for service, choosing the appropriate service for a response (e.g. police, fire, ambulance, by-law, etc), and if required, deploying resources.

Incident Management

This is the area that is responsible for a large amount of resources in the OPS. It involves scene attendance by officers, assessment of the call, report generation, management of the investigation, and arrest, if required.

Detention & Disclosure

This process looks at the time a person is in custody, through to the completion of the court process. It encompasses both the movement of people and information through OPS and court systems.

Proactive Activities

Proactive activities account for the work the service does proactively, such as intelligence gathering and crime prevention. The potential in this area is effectively managed, and targeted activities can result in a reduction in the need for reactive calls for service. For example, it has been recognized that some addresses can receive a high number of calls for service from all emergency services. By focusing proactive resources (including other community safety and social service partners), the OPS has had success in decreasing calls for service at these locations.

By examining each of the core processes, we will be able to identify the different touch points a call for service may come across. It will also assist the Service in seeing the areas of overlap and duplication as a call moves through the different processes, as well as help identify areas that we can provide better service to the public. It is expected to be complete in September of this year.

The Call to Close approach has already been effective in identifying potential efficiencies and improvements in other jurisdictions. It is forecasted that this current state review will be complete in the early fall of this year.

After the completion of the Call to Close review, the SI will take the opportunities identified as part of the review and prioritize them for implementation. The prioritization will be based on several criteria including the potential for service improvement, efficiency savings, and overall effectiveness. Implementation will be carried out across the Directorates and is anticipated to begin in January of 2014.

OTHER ONGOING SI RELATED PROJECTS

In addition to Call to Close, SI continues to include three projects: Collision Reporting Centres, Online Reporting, and Online Background Checks.

Collision Reporting Centres

As the Board is aware, the OPS will be introducing three Collision Reporting Centres (CRC) in December of this year. The CRCs, in addition to reducing unnecessary wait times for motorists, report processing time, and traffic congestion, are also intended to reduce costs and provide revenue through improved cost recovery on the distribution of collision reports.

Online Reporting

The Service continues to move forward with a project that allows for enhanced customer service in reporting some crime and disorder incidents occurring in the community, while reducing calls to the OPS call centre. It is expected to be implemented in Q1 of 2014.

Online Background Checks

The Service is currently developing a project to allow requests for police background checks to be filed and approved online. Preliminary work to develop a business solution is underway with implementation targeted for 2014. The OPS processes 48,000 background checks every year. The project is designed to improve customer service and delivery times for people waiting for the checks. Potential efficiencies related to the internal processing have also been identified.

FINANCIAL STATEMENT

The budget for the Service Initiative was identified in the 2013 Budget process and is attributed to account 126111.

CONCLUSION

The SI is an all encompassing review of the OPS and how it delivers programs and services to the residents of the City of Ottawa. It will assist in redeveloping the OPS’s ability to focus on its policing responsibilities within the community and enhance service to the public with their partners, ensuring a sustainable policing model for the future.

The SI is also a key driver in identifying and achieving efficiency targets identified in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 budget years.

The OPS has long been recognized as a leader in policing and we want to continue to build on our foundation of change and evolution.

I look forward to updating the Board further on the progress of the SI in the fall.

(Original signed by)

Charles Bordeleau

Chief of Police

Responsible for report: Inspector Steve Bell