Communal Information System
to be revamped
The largest flagship system of the Force, namely the Communal Information System (CIS), comprising Formation Information Communal System, Regional Information Communal System, Traffic Operations and Management System, CIS Supervisory Function and Pawned Identifiable Property Sub-System, has been working in close partnership with frontline staff since 1997. Thanks to the support of the participating Policy Wings and individual officers, the Consultancy-led Business Process Reengineering cum Feasibility Study Report was completed with high-level business requirements in June last year.
Mr Ma elaborates on the CIS revamping programme
at the Legislative Council Finance Committee meeting
Assistant Commissioner (Information Systems) Ma Wai-luk said that since the new CIS (known as CIS2) is an IT project of a gigantic scale, it is only prudent to ensure that the government funding will be value-for-money and meet the business needs of the Force now and into the next decade. He added that the Force would use the CIS2 to drive operational process redesign.
In the CIS2, it is envisioned that quite a number of new features and enhancements will be injected. While meeting user requirements and general public expectation on service quality, Mr Ma assured that the CIS2 would be "people-centric" and "procedure-driven", which is supported by a web-based infrastructure, more powerful search engine, large data management and storage capacity, and a set of up-to-date information security features. Frontline officers can look forward to the following consequences:
* Enhanced operational efficiency;
* Improved time and cost efficiency;
* Enhanced working with other law enforcement agencies; and
* Improved public satisfaction.
Key new features
Mr Ma envisaged that the CIS2 would lead to reduction of the workload of report room staff, crime investigators and other supporting staff, and hence reduction of complaints against police. The followings are the key new features:
* Establishment of an e-Report Centre manned by police officers will bring a positive impact in terms of efficiency and user-friendliness. Members of the public can make non-life-threatening and non-time-critical reports over the Internet. Besides providing better services to citizens, it will enhance information exchange with other government departments.
* Serve as the single authoritative source of case-related information by consolidating other smaller systems, standardising codes and indices and defining the boundary with the 3rd Generation Command and Control Communications System. This will help data retrieval and statistical analysis.
* Facilitate automation of work processes and control with built-in business rules and workflow logics which will bring more consistent services across all Formations and a clear access profile.
* Support effective management and planning through streamlined detainees management and property management. Operational data will be accurately recorded which will in turn provide information on Force resources planning and allocation.
Looking to the challenges ahead, Mr Ma put emphasis on the tendering processes as well as the importance of satisfactorily completing the "Data Standardisation Exercise" and "Procedure Compliance Review" as integral preparation paving the way to the redevelopment project. While the former is led by a service consultancy on a contract, the latter is being conducted internally by 10 working groups. Apart from two working groups that are set to review more technical workflows, each of the remaining eight working groups is headed by a Senior Superintendent from different Regions and major Formations. Mr Ma said that in the reviewing processes, the operational experience and knowledge of end users in the end-to-end business process are invaluable, and hence they are being engaged as early as possible. For improving communications among the working groups, a dedicated database has been created in Lotus Notes to capture all correspondence and documents related to "Procedure Compliance Review".
Summing up, Mr Ma assured that the CIS2 will fully support the Commissioner's four strategic directions, in particular that for supporting frontline officers by leveraging on advances in technology to facilitate varying means of public reporting to police. The CIS2 is also designed to guide procedure compliance, support investigation work, and facilitate decision-making and supervisory control.
Mr Ma appealed to frontline staff to forward suggestions and ideas on CIS business process or workflow improvement to Major Systems Division, Information Systems Wing, via established channels. The tendering processes for the new system will be completed in 12 months and the new system will be progressively rolled out in the following four years.