Stop the scroll, explore the roles: Attracting digital and tech talent to Northamptonshire’s Police and Fire & Rescue Services
Clare Chambers (Chief Digital Officer - Digital and Technology, Enabling Services for Northamptonshire Police and Fire & Rescue Services) explains why a digital and tech career with police and fire is a great option for those keen to make a difference.
We've had a bit of fun with our current recruitment campaign to get ourselves noticed.
One of our communications team called it 'Stop the Scroll', to get people to stop as they're scrolling through social media or jobs listings and notice what we have available.
I came to this role because someone suggested it to me. I wouldn’t have considered looking at individual police and fire websites for jobs in digital.
I had a short period in the private sector at the beginning of my career but since I moved to the public sector I've stayed there ever since. It feels like I'm giving back to my community.
I don't think it's widely known that there's a really good technology career on offer in police and fire. We've got an enormous amount of work on our plate and we're really keen for people to understand what we do. We don't get huge numbers of applicants for our roles and we want to get the word out there, not just in Northamptonshire but across the country.
We've had huge interest since the new campaign started. We've had so many responses. It means people weren't aware and it took something like this to highlight it.
The biggest win for us is that we're in a fairly unique position supporting both the police force and the fire service.
We're doing something a bit different. There are probably only three or four police and fire collaborations across the country and we're one of them. There aren't many people who can say they work for an organisation that covers two of the three blue light services in their county.
One of the difficult things in some public sector teams is to see the impact you have on the public. We're paid using taxpayers' money and we're there to support frontline officers or firefighters who deliver the services they do to the public.
That golden thread is really important. If anything we're doing doesn't somehow contribute to savings or efficiencies for the frontline or making things better for the public, then we shouldn't be doing it.
We've saved just over £2million in taxpayer money in total across both organisations in the two years since I’ve been in my role. And that's in a fairly small county. There are some things we can do once for both organisations rather than having to duplicate and that is absolutely the right thing to do.
We, as technologists, are experts in our field. Police officers and fire fighters are experts in their field. Our challenge is to get the balance right between what the organisation wants and what we know will work for them.
I've said to my team a number of times that we're in it together as part of that golden thread. If we have a solution that we know has worked elsewhere or that we know will make a difference, we need to prove that golden thread back to the frontline.
One of those tangible areas of work for my team includes cyber security. That means making sure all the organisations we support have up-to-date software and the appropriate cyber security protection. By working jointly, we save tax payers money because we’re doing the work once, and protecting two-thirds of the blue light organisations in the county so they can do their work in a safe and secure way.
We're also looking at process automation. It's not about getting rid of roles. It's about making things easier for people who are doing a really hard job out on the frontline. We want to implement technology to make things easier for them.
There are many advantages of working for a public sector organisation. Doing something for your community ticks a lot of boxes for people. You're doing good for your society and your county if you work for an organisation like ours.
We have all sorts of roles. From a technical perspective, that means everything from desktop PC engineers right up to senior infrastructure and solutions architects. We've also got non-technical roles including project managers, project support officers and business analysts.
The difference working for an organisation like ours compared to a large private company is that you get to touch on so many different types of technology. That won't float everyone's boat but for some people, it's much more interesting you could be dealing with a Windows server and the next minute you'd be looking at telephony aspects. You learn about a really wide range.
We've structured the department to try to give people progression.
Our staff can see a path into the next role in their career.
They can take ownership of their own progression because the job descriptions are all there.
They can see what they need to be able to do to take that next step.
We've got a lot of people who started as desktop engineers, going out and fixing computers, and they've moved into a more senior infrastructure role working with servers and networks.
There's been progression into solution design and from there we've got people who have moved into our enterprise architecture team. It's not just a technical path either. Project officers can become project managers, then a programme manager right up to a portfolio lead.
People do have an affinity with particular ways of working. If you're a logical, structured person then a systems analyst is a good role for you. If you like life to be a bit more unpredictable, a support role is probably the place to be because you just don't know what's coming round the corner sometimes.
We invest in people's development, including formal training courses, leadership coaching and developing presentation skills and stakeholder management. For technologists now, it's not just about spinning up servers. You have to be customer-focused, how to speak to customers and stakeholders at all levels.
One of the things I'm really passionate about is women in technology.
Although we don't have as many as I'd like, we do have women in technical roles in our department.
I really want to encourage girls who are at school or university to think about a technical role.
It's still seen as a male environment. It's better than it was but it's still not good enough.
You don't have to been working on a PC in your back bedroom for years. You just have to have an interest in digital, and understand that technology touches our lives in so many ways.
We have some really interesting opportunities to help support Northamptonshire’s blue light services, we’re enjoying the challenge of getting them noticed and seeing the response from people.
Want to join the IT Crowd?
To read more about the kind of roles offered, visit the Northamptonshire Police website.