Ahead of his BAPCO 2024 discussion on the potential impact of tech on the emergency services, Partner at Positive Momentum, Jeff Parris discusses potential transformational solutions for public safety.

For Jeff's discussion on 'tech de-construction', he says that he has "enlisted the help of some world leading experts from several different technology areas.” This is to “get their perspective on how developments in their world(s) can, and maybe will, be impacting the emergency services today and in the immediate future.”

According to him, these areas include telecommunications, system integration, devices, big data, and managed services. Some questions that may be considered during his session include “how might developments in 5G - and also consolidation and sharing in radio access networks - make an impact on the emergency services here in the UK and wider afield?"

He hopes his session will highlight the importance of collaborative working between industry and users, the foundation of which he says is trust. He adds that "industry must also be realistic about what emergency services can afford, and what is going to be able to generate the biggest return in productivity and do so quickly". That is, without bureaucracy getting in the way.

On the topic of financial challenges meanwhile, Jeff believes that "continually strained public finances" will be one of the biggest difficulties for the emergency services, who are "continuing to be asked to do more." He suggests that "the only answer to this can be productivity improvements. That is, doing more with the same resources or even less." He recommends the Policing Productivity Review, commissioned by National Police Chiefs’ Council for more insight. 

Staying on the subject, he adds: "There is often too much talk of how technology can achieve X or Y. But we must also test if X or Y represents an improvement in outputs for the emergency services and the public they serve. Only if it means that a firefighter, police officer or paramedic can achieve more can it really be judged to be helping. And by ‘more’ I don’t mean more quantity at the expense of quality."

This notion of productivity feeds into the changes Jeff hopes to see in the sector. This starts with "an honest examination and agreement on what we want the emergency services to stop doing," he says. He also acknowledges that as demands continually increase, "the ‘stop doing’ happens not by agreement, but simply by higher priorities taking over." 

Looking ahead to the next five years, Jeff recognises the significance of generative AI, but doesn't believe its role beyond 'low level' tasks should be overestimated. This is due to the critical nature of what the public safety does.

He explains: “At present, AI must be ‘checked’ even for a relatively low task like say, drafting an article for a journal or magazine. I can’t see AI being let loose in more critical areas without significant oversight, and then you are back to the point above. That is, has the introduction of AI improved productivity or not?”

For Jeff, the most transformative potential technology is "the sharing and use of data." He continues: "Technology has marched on in many areas and rich sources of data do exist. However, there are still significant parts of the emergency services where the networks or ‘plumbing’ doesn’t easily permit the safe sharing and storage of data amongst users who have a legitimate need.” Therefore, data could play a fundamental role in improving productivity.

Speaker biography

Jeff has extensive industry experience, starting out at BT, where he was responsible for satellite communications infrastructure. He ran the world’s first trials of satellite telephone communications for passengers on long haul aircraft. 

He subsequently oversaw several international joint ventures, including with Singapore Telecom, Norwegian Telecom, France Telecom, Motorola, Nokia, and Northrup Grumman. He led the team that secured the Government contracts and then, with others, designed and delivered Airwave to the Emergency Services. For the last 10 years Jeff has been a Board Advisor, Consultant and Executive Coach.

BAPCO 2024 session: ‘Tech de-construction: what is going on in the world of tech that will impact the emergency services today?'. [6th March 12.45pm] For more information on BAPCO 2024 - which takes place 6-7 March -, click here.