Finance and Business Planning

Activity-Based Costing (ABC) is a widely used costing system that seeks to place an accurate cost on what an organisation produces.  In policing, it has been developed as a method of calculating the costs of policing activities as part of the Policing Performance Assessment Framework.

For a broad introduction to ABC please refer to the following sources:

Contemporary Cost Management

T Yoshikawa et al

Activity-Based Management: a comprehensive implementation guide

E Forrest

ABC is a critical part of the Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF) and is a requirement of the National Policing Plan.   All forces are required to produce ABC in accordance with the revised Police ABC model for 2003-04 and for future years.

The use of ABC is good management practice and an exercise that many well run businesses undertake. 

The costs of procuring ABC hardware/software depends on which supplier is selected. For example Bedfordshire police spent £50k on hardware/software.  There are opportunity costs in respect of police officer time recording activity and police force staff checking and evaluating the data.  However, we believe that the benefits that can be obtained from this information make the exercise worthwhile.

Not all officers within a police force are required to complete Activity Sampling. The ABC Model requires that all officers and other operational staff working in multi-function units (e.g. CID, Traffic, BCU Response Teams) complete a detailed record of their time. This will be captured through Activity Sampling in most forces. In practical terms, Activity Sampling is likely to require officers to take up to 10 minutes each day during the survey to record their activity. Forces are required to survey their officer for a minimum of two weeks each year. We expect that, in most forces, Activity Sampling will cover about 2/3 of police officers. Two weeks is a small part of the year. We believe activity sampling is justified by the benefits available. We will look closely at how this area of ABC can be improved, for example using information held in command and control systems.

The Home Office database – iQuanTa – contains performance statistics.  ABC will be shared with forces in a similar way when available, from summer 2004.

This is not current Home Office policy.  For an up-to-date view of Home Office policy regarding ABC you can contact Alister Williams, Home Office ABC lead (see section 4 – Contacts). 

From April 2003, all forces are required to submit ABC data to the Home Office once a year, to enable accurate inter-force comparison and to inform decisions about police funding.  ABC data for 2003-04 should be submitted by the end of July 2004.

Reporting formats will be based upon existing formats. Costs should:

• Break down by BCU
• Show non-BCU (National, International etc Policing) separately
• Show Exceptional Items separately
• Show sources of activity data for each unit

There is more detail on this in the Policing ABC Manual of Guidance (ref Appendix P).

 Only a single submission of data to the Home Office is required, in each year by the end of July.  Where available, Activity Analysis data can be submitted to the Home Office in October – December to give an early indication of results. The Home Office may ask forces to do this to help with financial planning and decisions on police funding.

The first submission that you are required to submit is the 2003-04 results, using the final expenditure for 2003-04 and the Activity data and other Management Information that you have collected this year.  This is expected in July 2004.

The budget model, using the 2004-05 budget, is for internal use only (a recommendation only and not for collection).

The Home Office is also likely to write to all forces very soon about a purely voluntary submission of AA data gathered so far this year – this is time information only.  This will be used for preliminary analysis, but not as any basis for comparison (as the units covered etc will not be exactly the same across forces).

ABC data will be used to inform negotiations with HM Treasury for appropriate funding at the national level.

 The Home Secretary is interested in principle in looking at ways in which the police funding system can be informed by current performance and the use of resources.  Activity Analysis has already been used to inform the Funding Formula in recent years.  Thirty-six police forces provided Activity Analysis data for 2002-03.  Whilst using ABC to change the Funding Formula is not imminent, using it will be considered in the future. 

ABC will also be used in the Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF), providing the context for PPAF by helping to illustrate where there is a correlation between results and resources. 

The Treasury feel that the police service is unable to show clearly how the money it receives is used.  ABC data can help us collectively show with much greater clarity how existing funding is used and to make the case for resources much more convincingly.  It will provide evidence for the Home Office, APA and ACPO in negotiations for SR2004, future spending rounds and for annual funding settlements.

More importantly, it is a vital management tool for police authorities and forces to understand where police resources are being allocated and how resources might be used more effectively.

Most police forces are already undertaking Activity Sampling, and lessons learned from experience can be used to reduce the effort needed to carry out Activity Sampling and produce ABC.  Whilst some implementation efforts may be needed, there is a focus on minimising the bureaucracy needed. It is important that ABC is effectively used as a local management tool to justify the effort required.

It is not mandatory to produce data for the National Training Costing Model in 03/04.  The future integration of ABC and the NTCM is an item for the March ABC Project Board and you will be updated on the position for future years as soon as possible.  Trevor Payne is available to support forces in the development of the ABC model and can also be contacted to provide support on the National Training Costing Model.  Please also refer to the ABC website (www.policeabc.co.uk), where recent publications can be found (e.g. the Third Survey results and newsletters).

Activity Sampling is a key input into the measure of frontline policing within PSA2. The definition has been agreed between ACPO, the APA, HM Treasury, Number 10 and the Home Office.  Activity Sampling and HMIC role codes have been used as the basis of the definition in order to avoid imposing a new data requirement on forces and authorities.  The activities that will contribute to the measure were detailed in a letter to forces and can be obtained from the Police Standards Unit.  For more information on ABC in frontline policing, please contact Christopher Doel, Economics & Resource Analysis Unit (ERA) – see section 4 for contact details.

The Home Office are currently liaising with CIPFA on the format of BVACOP.  The aim is to avoid two overlapping, and potentially confusing, formats for financial information.  We hope that ABC will be integrated into the form of accounts over time and we will provide an update when an approach has been agreed.

Forces use a number of methods to collect the data which involve police officers recording their activity over a specified period. Activity Sampling should be carried out where other accurate methods of time recording are not available.  Activity Sampling should be undertaken for a minimum of two weeks every year for each unit/staff group in multi-function roles. Civilian staff in operational roles should also be included (e.g. SOCOs).  The dates and duration of each sampling campaign will not be centrally stipulated, but individual forces should consider when to undertake Activity Sampling.

E.g. if the robbery section carries out 1 activity we can use management information such as the number of robberies on a BCU. However, this results in no information being collected about activities such as Paperwork or Meetings.  If a section carries out more than 1 incident should we do Activity Sampling which includes linked activities and management / supervisory activity being collected?

It is correct that the information required from different units varies in the level of detail expected.  For central multi function units the ABC Model only asks that costs should be divisible between BCUs and Incident Types.  As a result, a Robbery Squad is only required to split its costs across the force’s BCUs.  A central unit that has more than one incident type (e.g. single squad focused on serious crime) is asked to provide information that can split between the incident types as well. There is no requirement for these central units to provide information on other activities such as Paperwork or Briefings.

This is less information than BCU-based officers are required to provide through Activity Sampling.

The rationale is primarily that many forces already undertake Activity Sampling on BCUs.  Central units are a new requirement in most forces and it was felt to be desirable to minimise the additional work required. Furthermore, to produce a costed model this lower level of information from central units is sufficient.

A:  Dorset and Cleveland have used local Command and Control systems for data collection.  Command and Control does not always provide the same level of detail as Activity Sampling.  Specifically, most systems cannot provide both incident and incident-linked activity information. However, it can be used over a longer time period to gain a more balanced view of how time is used and can also be used to validate Activity Sampling statistics.

The information provided through Command and Control has been deemed particularly useful at a local level by those forces that have undertaken longer samples in this way.

The possibility of using Airwave for real-time transfer of codes has also been discussed and is being explored.  However, at present insufficient detail is provided; only the incident is given. Furthermore, no work has been undertaken to determine the reliability of the data gathered.

 In the UK, the following alternatives are available:

• The main non card-based alternative is lightpen data capture, through scanning barcodes and downloading the information into an Access database.  These lightpen systems are made by TMSInsight.  Their system is called TelPARS and is used by the MPS and Thames Valley, among others. We tested this in the recent review of Data Capture products (a summary of which has been distributed to forces and can be found on the website at www.policeabc.co.uk under Data & Reporting > Software.
• Cardiff Teleform has produced an online version of their card, which B-Plan has recently installed in North Wales Police.
• Some forces use some element of Command & Control (Dorset and Cleveland) to record what officers are doing, but neither can use this for comprehensive activity analysis as yet.  There is also significant interest in using C&C from other forces.
• Mobile data terminals – Lancashire, Staffordshire and Sussex are investigating the feasibility of equipping officers, but the extent to which they are using this for Activity Analysis is still to be determined.

Outside of the UK:

• We know that Victoria Police in Australia are developing a system, similar to the Cardiff Teleform online card. They are using an electronic form – this is very much like the cards but with drop-downs, embedded rules (that prevent common errors), etc. This should save some time (easier completion and less errors), but still requires officer completion.
• The online cards are not really a feasible alternative, as yet, to card-based for staff on patrol, unless a mechanism (e.g. PDAs) can be used to allow it to be filled in during the day.   The Home Office would have some concerns with recording information at the end of the shift, which compromises the accuracy of the information they are recording/submitting (although recognising that in practice many officers will do just that with the existing card-based system anyway, this should be discouraged).

Ideally, a time recording system would be used to collect information on central units.  Where this is not available, management information on crime types by BCU should be used.  If this is not available, activity sampling should be used; however the nature of these units is that two weeks is rarely sufficient to give an accurate impression of the work completed.   Most central units will not require detailed Activity Sampling at 15 minute intervals as officers and other staff are often working on longer term cases and operations.  As a result the information required is from a greater period of time, but in less detail. 

Appendices F and G of the ABC Manual of Guidance should help forces to determine the appropriate information for different units.

The split is about 50:50.  It is largely (but not entirely) the larger forces that use a rolling programme. 

Forces that use a rolling programme include Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Dyfed Powys, GMP, MPS, Warwickshire, West Midlands.

What you will need for each unit that is not undertaking Activity Sampling is some management information that can act as a basis for splitting the costs of the units between BCUs and Incident Types. 

You will need total salary costs for the unit, but also information about how their time has been used – e.g. Case Information that shows the number of cases per BCU and per Incident Type – this information should be used to apportion the costs of the unit across BCUs and Incident Types.

Appendix G of the ABC Manual of Guidance should help forces to determine the management information suitable for different units.

The major consideration when choosing the period to sample will be local factors, such as holiday seasons for tourist resorts and a judicious choice is required to maximise the accuracy. It is not necessary that all staff groups and BCUs carry out Activity Sampling at the same time, as long as the resulting data is an accurate representation of policing within each area.  Furthermore, a unit can be examined in more than one period, for example two one-week periods at different times of the year.

For more information on Activity Sampling, please see section 5.4 of the Manual.

Statisticians advise that providing the ten day sample is spread over two one week periods, and are taken at representative times during the year, there is little to be gained by using longer sampling periods. However, if you consider that increasing the period of sampling would materially enhance your results you are free to do so. You will, of course, be sensitive to the trade off between acquiring more refined results and the extra costs incurred. [Appendix I of the ABC manual illustrates the comparative accuracy of using differing sampling periods].

Picking a period of time that is ‘typical’ of police activities is essential.  The major consideration when choosing the period to sample will be local factors, such as holiday seasons for tourist resorts,  and a judicious choice is required to maximise the accuracy.  For this reason, many forces choose to split their surveys and do two one-week sampling periods or 4 half weeks.  Although this is not necessary, rolling studies are often viewed as more representative of BCU activities.

Some forces have found that undertaking a number of different periods of sampling during the year allows them to monitor changes and improvements on a more regular basis, which is often more useful. Although the guidance says 'two weeks' the pattern of collection may (in some cases) be better spread over say 4 half weeks or some other pattern to catch seasonal variations. However, most force areas will find that 2 sample weeks in the spring or autumn will maximise the accuracy of their results. The force should consider these factors when deciding on its collection plan and it is this factor which has the largest potential to impact on accuracy due to the robustness of the two week sample.

To capture the ‘non-typical’ policing activity, special events and major incidents should be analysed and costed separately (see section 5.2.5 of the Manual).

Data during the Activity Sampling period needs to be as accurate as possible given the importance of ABC as a local tool, within PPAF and for funding decisions at national level.

There are several factors which can increase response rates in Activity Sampling:

• ABC is now mandatory.  This has resulted in increased buy-in and commitment from senior officers
• Senior officer commitment, when expressed to BCU management, can help to deliver positive results
• Detailed briefings of BCU Commanders and Liaison Officers have proven essential to creating buy-in
• Production of a ‘Liaison Booklet’ which outlines the key responsibilities of a Liaison Officer; distributed at the start of each campaign.
• Liaison Officer monitoring sheet to show which officers have returned their cards
• Use of duties management systems which allow Liaison Officers to track who should be returning a form
• Use ‘mentors’ from previous years to instruct the new intake of Liaison Officers, maintaining a rolling programme of expertise
• Hold a de-briefing session following the Activity Sampling campaign, to see where improvements can be made in the future

The key characteristics of successful Liaison Officers are a commitment to make the Activity Sampling campaign work well and being respected by local officers.  In most successful cases the Liaison Officer is someone who can command respect from officers. Ideally Liaison Officers should be a business manager, a Sergeant or an Inspector.  It is important that a Liaison Officer is present for the start or end of each shift. 

There is a 90% return rate required on Activity Sampling cards and a 5% tolerance for rejected cards in a campaign.   If these requirements are not attained, you should obtain a ‘top-up’ sample.  It is preferable to re-sample those officers who have not returned cards. This helps to ensure a representative set of Activity Sampling data and acts as an incentive to complete the cards in the initial campaign.  (Ref Manual section 5.4.4)

Each force should confirm with their auditor the length of time for which cards should be retained.  It is anticipated that cards will be required until the Activity Sampling campaign to which they relate has been reviewed by the auditor.  Following the review, an electronic record of the data should be sufficient and cards need not be stored.

Gathering activity information on specialist units is required, in order to produce full ABC for the force.  A two-week Activity Sampling campaign would not be representative of a specialist unit’s resource allocation.  Therefore suitable management information is required, enabling the specialist unit’s staff time/ costs to be split across both incidents and BCUs.  Data on the level of activities is not required.

For more information, please see section 5.2.3 of the Manual.

We have asked that all levels be included as an encouragement to junior staff. Obviously the cards might need to be tailored to these senior ranks to make the information more useful, but that is for each force to determine.

In order to compare police inputs with outputs/outcomes, a mapping between inputs and outcomes has been produced by the ERA for iQuanta crime types only.  This mapping is also central to any analysis and further work on PPAF for relating ABC cost of crime inputs to outcomes.

There is an error in the Manual of Guidance on page 57.  The correct code is PD (as displayed on page 82), not PB.

The officer needs to consider what they are doing at the time. Where the task is related to an incident it should be recorded as such, under either IJ, IL or IX as appropriate (prisoner handover might be best under IJ for example).  Where it is not incident related it might come under a P code (e.g. Briefings / Meetings) or SX, depending upon what is most appropriate.

RJ is the relevant code for dedicated (or almost dedicated) staff.   SF is the best code for your example here.

The overall list of codes stands as it is. If you have any problems with these please pass them through ACPO for consideration by the ABC Project Board (please contact Alan Williams, Bedfordshire Police – see section 4 for contact details).  Changes to the ABC Model will be considered on an annual basis within the Annual Data Requirement.

Time should be recorded as what they are travelling to do.  Therefore, Dealing with Incident if they are on their way to an incident; Briefings/Meetings if on their way to a meeting etc. It is whatever caused the travel.   

It is a sexual offence and therefore should be included.

A Major Incident is defined (for the purpose of this model) as being where an incident room is set up and officers are abstracted from their normal duty and deployed to the incident and/or the incident is staffed using a dedicated specialist squad.  Please refer to section 6.6 of the Manual.

t is important to capture details of staff time and corresponding costs for situations that use a large proportion of force resources.  Firstly, force management should be aware of the resources a large incident or event is consuming.  Secondly, major incidents often represent material costs, which would otherwise skew the results of ABC data.  These can be highlighted within ABC by costing them separately.  Therefore it is necessary to cost both major incidents and special events.

The minimum level of detail required is the number of staff, their costs per Cost Centre per rank, and the number of hours spent on the particular incident or non-incident-linked activity.  For more information please see sections 6.5 and 6.6. of the Manual.

An event is a specific happening that requires special policing arrangements, which are set down in an operation order.  Normally the main objective of event policing is the maintenance of public order and ensuring public safety.  Common categories include sporting events, large musical events, demonstrations, VIP visits, and celebrations.

Where operational orders are created, good practice is that resources involved are costed to allow a review of operations after the event.  Therefore information on the cost of operational orders should be available.

Treating VIPs as a special event is fine.  This should be recorded under the National Policing role code and the appropriate category of VIP specified (refer to section 6.5.4 of the Manual).

The Home Office position is that this is not mandatory for ABC in 03/04 as 03/04 is a learning and development year. 

For 04/05 it will be mandatory that cost centres accurately reflect organisational structure and sources of activity data.  Thus if a BCU has more that one discrete unit, we would expect to see more that one cost centre per BCU.  For example, if a BCU is split by Proactive, Response, CID and Support units, then there should be four cost centres to reflect this structure.

If ABC is to form the basis of future statutory accounts (currently being explored), CIPFA requires that cost centres are split to reflect the organisational structure, as described above.  It is also crucial that you have this level of information to support your local needs in analysing the cost of operational units.

ascade costing is incorporated into the ABC Model in order to simplify the costing process. Many costing processes include ‘circular costing allocation’.  For example, the costs of the IT Department are allocated across the organisation, including to other support departments such as HR. After this allocation of IT costs, the costs of HR are allocated across the organisation.  Some HR costs are allocated to the IT Department to reflect the costs that IT has incurred.  These costs then need to be allocated back out to the users of IT.  This circular process has little value.  Therefore, the ABC Model sets out a specific order for the allocation of support costs.  IT costs will be allocated across the organisation, including to HR, before HR costs.  Later in the cascade, HR costs will be allocated across the organisation.  However, no HR costs will be allocated to IT as the IT costs are ‘higher up’ the cascade.

Section 6.18 of the ABC Manual of Guidance sets out the order for the allocation of Business Support costs.

Using an average cost for support staff may skew figures if there are multiple grades of staff in each BCU support team.  As with police officers, separate groups are required for each grade (refer to 6.4.1 of the Manual).

All Business Support costs are allocated across BCUs using the cost drivers in Appendix H. Sustaining Overheads are also allocated to BCUs, in proportion to the Direct Costs plus Business Support costs for each BCU. Corporate and Democratic Core is not apportioned across BCUs.

The principle of the ABC Model is to capture the cost of policing required as a result of crime and other incidents within a specific geographical area. As the primary reason for the policing activity referred to within this question was in BCU A, this is where the cost should be recorded. This is where the crime was incurred, therefore it is appropriate to apply the costs to that BCU. 

This is referred to in Manual of Guidance Appendix L.  Corporate Accountancy is the accountancy work focused on the organisation as a whole (e.g. reports to the mgt board, work for police authority etc).

What the model is really looking for is a reasonable split between the finance work focused on supporting the delivery of operations – e.g. BCU support and advice  - and that focused on force level information  - e.g. final accounts, police authority info etc.

We expect you to be able to have a reasonable basis for this split, but it does not need to be 100% accurate (given the overlaps in roles etc). 

Each of the Activity Codes and Role Codes fits into one of the four PPAF Domains.  Appendix N of the Manual demonstrates how each incident and non-incident linked activity fits into one of the four domains, or are categorised as Operational Support.  Reporting templates for submission can be found in Appendix P.

The allocation of activities to Domains is set out within Appendix N of the ABC Manual of Guidance. This seeks to allocate activities to the most appropriate Domain to give an indication of where police are using resources.

Visible Patrol is a single activity code captured through Activity Sampling. It can be argued that Visible Patrol relates to both reducing crime (Domain 1) and promoting public safety (Domain 3). However, the time recorded as Visible Patrol cannot be split in a meaningful basis. Therefore, following consultation, it was felt that Visible Patrol related more directly to reassurance and public safety than to reducing crime. Therefore, Visible Patrol is allocated to Domain 3.

Call Handling relates to both crime and non-crime incidents. It would therefore be most appropriate to split the cost of Call Handling between investigating crime (Domain 2) and providing assistance (Domain 4). However, prior to the ABC Conference of February 2003 the ABC Migration Group surveyed forces to find out whether this split could be made. A large number of forces stated that they could not produce information splitting calls between crime and non-crime incidents. On this basis all costs have been allocated to Domain 4 as the majority of calls for service relate to non-crime incidents. This will be revisited in the near future as more recent work examining non-crime incidents suggests that this data should be available for all forces.

It should be noted that allocating each of the activities to a single Domain is a simplification of policing. There are a high number of relationships between activity and policing result. It is important that any user of ABC data is aware of the simplified split across the Domains.

Catering falls under Business Support.

The first (Business Support) category is recruitment for specific posts. The latter is general recruitment of police officers (primarily recruitment of probationers). The rationale for the difference is that general/probationer recruitment cannot be clearly apportioned to different parts of the business, but is part of sustaining the business into the future - hence Sustaining Overheads.

he domains which the output codes refer to are as follows:

• Domain 1 = Reducing Crime
• Domain 2 = Investigating Crime
• Domain 3 = Promoting Public Safety
• Domain 4 = Providing Assistance

As set out in Appendix J, an employer’s pensions charge should be added to the staff costs. This should be undertaken in accordance with FRS17.  The Current Service Cost calculated as part of FRS17 should be used within the staff cost calculation.  The difference between the Current Service Cost and the total annual pensions charge should be shown within the template of Appendix O, which reconciles the ABC data back to the Net Budget Requirement.

It is unlikely that the Home Office will be able to fund consultancy.  However, no changes will be made to the model for 2003-04.  In the future, no changes will be made without full consideration of the ABC Project Board, on which ACPO (through Alan Williams) and the MPS (Helen Dean) are represented.  Our aim is for minimal changes (if any).  The ABC Project Board will be replaced with a Steering Group of practitioner reps in the future (potentially one year from now), bringing these decisions closer to the practitioners.

There are two software reviews:

1. Review of data capture and AA products – this has been completed and a summary sent to all forces.  Please contact us if you have not received this.
2. Review of costing software – this has recently been completed and the report will be reviewed by the ABC Project Board in January.   A summary of the results will then be sent out to the forces following this.

 Unfortunately, the Home Office is unable to consider funding an Escrow at present.  If a supplier is no longer able to supply forces (which is unlikely) they will be able to either:

• Continue using the software using other forces to assist each other; or
• Obtain another product

It is probable that if fundamental changes to the Model were required (as with this year’s revised Model), the Home Office would test software, as it is doing at present.  However, if changes are simply around clarifying and improving the working of the model for the forces, e.g. changes to activity codes, no further software review process would occur.  No fundamental changes to the model are envisaged at present.

The Home Office is looking at the links to NMIS.  However we are not looking to develop other national ABC products, although suppliers such as SAP might be interested in supplying forces if approached.

This paper was issued in November to all forces by the PSU.  It is a guide to self-inspection for forces.  It is not mandatory, nor is it linked to the final audit (on which you will receive a separate communication in early 2004 – see below).  However, it is intended to provide a guide to possible methods by which forces can check the accuracy of their ABC data.

The QA process will be communicated to forces next year, according to the following timeline for development:

• Testing of Specification (in a small number of forces): Dec 03
• Development of Audit Guide: Jan/Feb 04
• Audit Pilots: April 04

Following Board approval, the guidance will be distributed to practitioners.

The Audit Commission is in the process of testing a final approach to the Quality Assurance work.  These comments have been passed onto the Police Standards Unit to feed into this process.

We are aware that further guidance is required in this area.  A Home Office workshop was held on the uses of ABC data and as a result, this data will be integrated into iQuanta when it is available from Summer 04.

New training materials developed will also focus on this area in particular.  Support from practitioners has been requested in finding practical examples to share in this training.

You can download the ABC Manual of Guidance from the publications section of this website. Copies of the manual for 2003-04 have been sent to all authorities and forces. The Manual of Guidance gives you detailed technical guidance for carrying out ABC.  Other guidance and contact details of ABC practitioners within other forces are available on the website, as well as an ‘Ask a Question’ function.  The Home Office has also made Trevor Payne available to support all the forces in their implementation of ABC.  Trevor can be contacted at: trev1703@aol.com.

Contact has been made with all forces regarding regional practitioners’ groups.  All regions have now held their first meeting.  There are also plans underway to make information on RPGs available via the ABC website.   Alister Williams will also provide a link for communications between these groups.

Alister Williams, Home Office ABC lead, will provide this link and should be included on communications within Regional Practitioners’ Groups, software user groups etc.  In the future, the ABC Steering Group will also support this.  The intention is also that this national group will evolve from the current project board, and be composed of representatives from each of the regional groups.

There are no firm dates for a conference in 2004, however, we do have tentative plans for a conference in September 2004.  This date was chosen because the submission and QA for 2003-04 will have been completed. This should provide a good basis for feedback.

Regarding feeding in points of view, our hope is that the new regional groups, which Alister Williams is attending, can provide a more regular forum for providing feedback via him to the national group.

This BCU Commander specific training, which was previously to be released in CD-ROM format, is now also available through the NCALT portal.  The ABC training can be found under Senior Leadership training, Costing; alongside other useful performance training.   For more information on accessing the NCALT portal/ obtaining the CD, please contact your force training manager.

• Alister Williams, Home Office ABC Lead:  alister.williams2@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
• Christopher Doel, ERA: christopher.doel@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
• Alan Williams, ACPO ABC Lead:  contact via:  debbie.southerden@bedfordshire.pnn.police.uk
• Nicholas Stevens, Accenture:  nicholas.stevens@accenture.com
• Trevor Payne: trev1703@aol.com