Ethics advisor Montell Neufville praises new Beds, Cambs and Herts police data tool for boosting public trust and transparency

However, the Joint Protective Services (JPS): the special operations unit covering armed policing, roads policing, and dog units, has broken this cycle. Overseen by one of the few independent scrutiny panels in the country, managed by Att10tive, the JPS has implemented a pioneering solution.

For the first time, the panel has been provided with an interactive data dashboard. This tool directly addresses long-standing concerns by providing transparent, accessible, and real-time information. By transforming complex statistics into clear insights, Att10tive and the JPS are setting a new national standard for police transparency and public accountability.

Community Scrutiny and Transparency. The facilitator of the JPS panel is Montell Neufville who is one of the countries best known police ethics advisors has welcomed this new data reporting tool designed to improve transparency and accountability in policing. He said “We have been asking for data transparency for more than two years and we know things in policing takes a long time. The credit for this goes to the new police boss who has taken over command of the police division we oversee is Superintendent Kash Hussain”

The JPS panel known as the country’s most innovative scrutiny panel has done a lot to build trust and confidence between communities across three counties and the police. Managed by Att10tive Social Enterprise, the panel brings together a wide range of community members from diverse backgrounds who are then trained to review police practices, focusing particularly on use of force.

A major concern for scrutiny panels has been the disproportionate use of force against members of the public, especially those from Black and Asian communities, with police leaders often unable to account for this disparity.

The newly introduced interrogatable dashboard directly addresses these concerns by presenting clear, accessible data on who is using force, under what circumstances, and against whom. This transparency will allow senior leaders and the community panel to investigate what particular police units and even officers are doing.

Panel Response; Montell Neufville, Chair of the JPS Scrutiny Panel, praised the implementation of this new dashboard: “I am pleased with the work police leaders and staff have done to make the information accessible. This has been something we have been requesting for a long time. All of my panel welcome this innovation”

One panel member Tony McFarlane added: “I am impressed with the data sheets presented. Very concise and easy to use, giving so much information on one sheet.”

Superintendent Kash Hussain, the force lead, said: “Our aim is to ensure we take active steps to increase trust and confidence within our communities on our use of force powers. The nature of policing means on occasions, only when proportionate, legal, accountable, necessary and ethical our officers have to use force to keep people safe. By investing in the transparency of our reporting to the community and taking their feedback and learning, we will increase that confidence, not only for the public but also for our officers.”

Impact on Policing and Communities; The JPS scrutiny panel meets online every three months to scrutinise police use of force across the three counties, ensuring that armed policing, road policing, and dog units operate with fairness and accountability. By introducing this new toolkit, police leaders have taken a significant step toward restoring public trust in Cambridgeshire and enabling community representatives to hold policing to the highest standards of transparency. The panel’s work has already been recognised as a model of best practice nationally.

Call for Community Involvement The introduction of this new data toolkit marks a milestone in the panel’s mission: ensuring that policing across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire is not only effective but also equitable, transparent, and accountable to the communities it serves. For further information or to get involved visit Att10tive.com or email [email protected].