Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what criteria they used to decide the order in which police forces in England and Wales were given permission to implement Single Online Home websites.

27 forces are currently live on the Single Online Home (SOH):

England

1. Cheshire
2. City of London Police
3. Cleveland
4. Derbyshire
5. Essex
6. Gloucestershire
7. Greater Manchester Police
8. Hampshire
9. Kent
10. Leicestershire
11. Lincolnshire
12. Merseyside
13. Metropolitan Police Service
14. Northamptonshire
15. Staffordshire
16. Surrey
17. Sussex
18. Thames Valley Police
19. Warwickshire
20. West Mercia
21. West Midlands
22. Wiltshire
23. North Yorkshire

Wales

24. Dyfed Powys

25. Gwent

26. North Wales

27. South Wales

Additionally, British Transport Police is also on the Single Online Home.

The Programme is regularly assessed by the Home Office for performance and assurance purposes. Through the 27 forces currently on Single Online Home, online services are available to 61% of the population in England and Wales. The platform has recorded just under 2.9 million visitors and 175,450 online reports in January 2021. In the same month, just under 418,000 visitors were redirected to relevant third-party services, providing a better service for the public to support their queries and reducing non-police demand on police forces. In a survey of users, the Single Online Home was shown to be a preferred way of contacting the police (76%) as a more relevant and convenient mean to meet the needs of the public.

All 43 forces in England and Wales have committed to onboarding the Single Online Home. Up to 10 forces will join in 2021/22 and it is expected that all forces will be on the platform by the end of March 2023.

Forces are not mandated to join the Single Online Home, but as an NPCC national programme the expectation is that all 43 forces in England and Wales will join the platform. The onboarding schedule was developed between the Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme and forces via Statements of Intent where forces provided their commitment to join and what dates worked for them. This enabled forces to factor in other local change initiatives and resource constraints and the Programme to plan for working with different force infrastructures and developing technical fixes to ensure connectivity.

The Single Online Home already provides services to support victims in reporting crime incidents online. This includes a Domestic Abuse online reporting pilot which was launched in October last year. Designed in consultation with forces, ACC Louisa Rolfe, the NPCC Domestic Abuse Lead, and external charities, the service is victim focused and provides victims with a discrete reporting mechanism to access the support they need at a time when Covid-19 presents heightened risk. Following its success, it will now be rolled out nationally from May 2021. A pilot service of Sarah’s Law (child sex offender disclosure scheme) also went live with 6 forces on 23 February 2021 ahead of national rollout while other services due to be developed and piloted in 2021/22 include reporting of Anti-Social Behaviour, rape and sexual assaults, and bribery and corruption.

Governance is overseen by the Home Office’s Strategic Change and Investment Board (SCIB) and reporting is provided by the Digital Public Contact Programme.