Bexley Borough Business Crime Partnership reduces crime in the area by implementing data sharing technology from Hicom

Bexley Borough Business Crime Partnership reduces crime in the area by implementing data sharing technology from Hicom

Town Safe Bexley Borough, a Business Crime Partnership has been selected by Risk Management and Crime Reduction software specialists, Hicom as one of only three crime partnerships throughout the UK to pilot the National Business Information System (NBIS) extended users’ project.

As part of the new pilot scheme, a fully trained member of London Borough of Bexley’s Anti-social Behaviour Unit will have full access to the data and information stored on NBIS and will work alongside the Town Safe partnership to collate and disseminate information on offenders to assist the Police and local authorities in reducing levels of crime in the area.

Taking on anti-social behaviour

Town Safe Bexley Borough, Business Crime Partnership was launched in 2004 to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour throughout the Borough and create a safer living and working environment for residents and visitors to Bexley. Using NBIS, the Partnership collates information on persistent perpetrators of crime and disorder in the area, which is then used to support appropriate actions such as Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO) and Exclusion Orders.

Prior to implementing NBIS, Town Safe was using the Business Information Crime System (BICS) from Hicom. John Whatling, Town Safe intelligence officer for the London Borough of Bexley explained: “The previous BICS system served a purpose and excelled at what it was designed to do, however its functionality wasn’t what we required moving forward in that it only stored the data for each partnership singularly, which meant that important offender information couldn’t be shared. For example, due to Bexley’s location a number of residents were regularly crossing the border and committing crimes in nearby shopping areas such as Bluewater and Dartford that we simply weren’t aware of.”

Whatling continued: “We selected the NBIS system as a logical progression to what was required within the Partnership moving forward. Since implementing NBIS, we are now able to communicate on a National level, sharing information and data with other partnerships throughout the UK and monitoring the movements of offenders as they move up and down the country. Also, because all of the neighbouring Kent partnerships use NBIS it is easy to keep track on what local offenders are doing, and put measures in place to stop their criminal activity.”

Targeting users in high crime areas

Hicom is currently piloting a project to extend the use of NBIS to users outside of Business Crime Reduction Partnerships, and Town Safe has been selected to trial the scheme. As part of the pilot, Town Safe has recruited and trained a member of London Borough of Bexley’s ASBO team, Christine Harris, to operate the system.

Whatling added: “Many partnerships are often operated by a very small team of people, which means that when times are busy there may not always be somebody available to answer calls and manage enquiries. By allowing a trained member of the local authority to access the system, urgent enquiries can be dealt with quickly and easily as Christine can log onto the system and provide the information and intelligence that is needed. An important part of Christine’s training was to learn and understand the latest Data Protection Act legislation to enable her to decide which enquiries to prioritise and which personnel are suitable to receive data from NBIS.”

He concluded: “The main aim of the pilot project is to provide appropriate external agencies with access to NBIS that they wouldn’t normally have. At the moment we are only trialling this with the London Borough of Bexley ASBO unit, however, moving forward I would also like to provide the local Police force with access as the benefits of the system are immeasurable in helping us reduce levels of crime in the area.”