The ACPO lead on business crime, Assistant Chief Constable Paul Broadbent of Nottinghamshire Police, has expressed his support for an intelligence and information-sharing hub, supported by business, retailers, partnerships and police, where everyone can make a contribution and help to identify offenders and reduce crime.
ACC Broadbent said: ‘ACPO recognises the value of retail and business crime partnerships at all levels and appreciates the value of the data and intelligence that partnerships possess. It is also clear that these individual pockets of data could be hugely enhanced if there was a greater willingness to share and exchange this data more widely.
‘Historically individual partnerships have not always exchanged data and as a result this has had a limiting effect on its possible value and impact. The possibility of a not-for-profit hub that sees partnerships and intelligence sharing bodies feeding this data into a common hub would greatly enhance the value of such data and provide a more coordinated and consistent response to retail and business crime nationally. As such, proposed cooperation between retailers and a proposed retailer-driven data sharing hub would be encouraged.
‘It is not uncommon in the current climate for independent and neighbouring partnerships to fail to recognise the true value of their intelligence by not exchanging it with others. That apparently insignificant registration number in one arena may be the golden nugget of information that allows another partnership to secure a prosecution and prevent crime in another.
‘I am very keen to see and assist to explore the development of a national data share model such as the Nation Business Crime Solution and would encourage partnerships and intelligence bodies to maximise the value of the data they hold by working in partnership with other like minded bodies to help reduce crime affecting us all. Furthermore there are also great mutual benefits in retailers and businesses collaborating to determine alternate methods of crime disposal.’
Meanwhile the retail security contractor Cardinal Group has joined Association of Business Crime Partnerships (ABCP) as an associate member. The Essex-based firm provides manned guarding, retail officers, store detectives, loss prevention consulting and training. Cardinal has launched the National Business Crime Solution which is now in pilot phase with 25 retailers on board trialling it.
This project is seeking to create a national response to level two, high value travelling criminals so that retailers, partnerships, police and other business sectors have access to, those behind the project say, a much more systematic and intelligence-led response to business crime.
Jason Trigg CEO of The Cardinal Group and sponsors of the National Business Crime Solution said: “The NBCS is about bringing a national solution and combined approach to business crime driven from both bottom up – local and regional – and top down – national. ABCP is the leading player in addressing localised business crime and ABCP partnerships are key stakeholders in the landscape of tackling business crime. We are looking forward to a brighter future working together and in partnership – collaboration is the only way forward. As is the strap line for the NBCS says – to share is to participate, to participate is to drive change.’
