Finance & Business Planning
Back to Data and ReportingData Collection and Analysis
This page provides some of the essential principles of data collection and analysis.
Key Principles
- The Model defines the minimum requirements for code definition, data capture and the costing methodology - deviations from the methods supplied within should be in order to produce results with greater accuracy
- There is a common set of codes into which direct costs should be divided (see Complete List of Activity and Role Codes)
- The sub-division of standard codes is encouraged, but any data collected under new codes must be capable of being re-aggregated to enable consistent comparisons
- Activity Sampling is only necessary where other Management Information for accurately dividing costs across codes is not available
- Where Activity Sampling is required, staff should record what they believe they are doing at the time, regardless of what the final outcome may be
- Activity Sampling records what staff are doing, not how they are doing it
There are two different types of data required for producing the ABC Model: activity data (including management information) and financial data.
In order to cost policing activities effectively, it is important to be accurate about where resources are spent.
To this end, operational staff time from BCUs and central operational units should be divisible between the standard activity codes discussed in Methods for Collecting Data for Operational Staff in More on Data Collection and Analysis, and in Complete List of Activity and Role Codes.
ABC includes every cost of policing in a force, and the treatment of non-operational staff is covered in 'Non-Operational Staff' in More on Data Collection and Analysis. It is also able to identify those costs that are incurred in the course of running the organisation that do not directly contribute to local policing efforts.
Detailed guidance to practitioners on the data collection and analysis aspects of implementing ABC is available in Chapter 5 of the Manual of Guidance.
In order to compare police inputs with outputs/outcomes, a mapping between inputs and outcomes has been produced by the ERA. This mapping is also central to any analysis and further work on PPAF for relating ABC cost of crime inputs to outcomes. This can be used to provide guidance on the how the ABC activity codes relate to iQuanta crime types for activity sampling purposes, and also to enable you to report ABC data accurately.
Mapping Quanta Crime Types
