@Multizone

Patchy and uneven adoption

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the attitudes in different constabularies (and other public services) to the use of real time social network tools has varied from outright opposition from some senior officers to positive engagement by others.

There is a growing body of evidence to provide greater clarity on this matter. The most recent list of current policing ‘Twitterers’ can be found via the Twitter page of Nick Keane from the NPIA’. There are two lists, one which lists ‘Police Forces who tweet’ and the other listing individual, or small groups of police staff. The former shows that only 18 Police Forces have informed the NPIA Twitterers of their Twittering presence – this does suggest that about half of the forces are at best ‘disinterested’ in Twittering and its implications.

The other list presents 93 Twitterers actively interested from this policing community – of which 84 can be identified in terms of the force of which they are part. Multizone have analysed this list to see if there are any discernible patterns – in terms of geography or rank. 28.5% of all Twitterers are from the West Midlands Force – which is perhaps not surprising as their ACC is the ACPO lead on this matter. Two other forces who also appear active are Sussex (13%) and Leicestershire (12%), the remaining 43% are divided between the other 15 Police Forces on the list. Clearly this does indicate a very patchy and uneven use of Real Time Social Network tools in England.

Analysis

Our analysis of ‘Twitterers’ by rank or role, is very interesting. It is not possible to identify by rank 10 out of the 93 Twitterers who have informed NPIA of their interest. The breakdown of the remaining 83 is shown in the following chart.