Over recent years sharing of intelligence by police forces and the security services has become increasingly important and in the wake of a range of Government initiatives there is no doubt that that the intelligence picture across the UK has improved.

My concern however is the gap that ‘covert intelligence’ leaves in this brave new world of intelligence sharing. At the highest level, intelligence sharing in respect to terror threats is dramatically improved. However at every level above the GPMS restricted level a huge amount of useful information sits untasked and unavailable to authorities across the UK.

Whilst I understand the need to keep sensitive information secure I feel that the UK is still suffering from the twin hangover of retaining sensitive information because: we are yet to fully grasp the ideal of sharing unless there is a reason not to and because of the perceived burden of desensitising and disseminating intelligence.

I feel a little of the poacher turned gamekeeper here, because over the second half of my police career I was responsible for the very things I am highlighting here. As an informant controller I presided over a system that contained a vast amount of intelligence that was never acted upon. Given that informants are employed to provide ‘hard to obtain’ information, this is clearly a significant gap. I accepted that that the information that is acted upon or shared is generally the most important or relevant intelligence, however the gap still remains. If suspect A was seen driving a car with registration No ABC 123 by a beat officer it would be placed into the forces primary intelligence system and shared with others. However if that information was provided by an informant I would be far less confident that it would be shared.

How many forces or agencies disseminate intelligence obtained from surveillance operations? How much legacy data obtained in major or sensitive enquires remains unshared, even following prosecution when the information effectively becomes ‘public knowledge’.

Technology allows organisations to create a simple but secure work flow process which enables information no matter what the source, to be safely aggregated with ‘restricted’ intelligence to provide a complete intelligence picture of what is known, not just by a single agency but nationally.
We still await a holistic approach to the management, sharing and use of information especially that contained in covert and sensitive databases.

In order to achieve this there needs to be a shift from the more traditional hiving off and siloing of information. The technology is there, now we just need attitudes to catch up – a step that will transform intelligence across the UK to better deal with today’s realities.