Linking Intelligence. Accelerating Action.

To strengthen collaboration in tackling serious and organised crime across force boundaries, the NWROCU and its constituent forces transformed their collaborative approach by introducing cloud-based access for intelligence sharing, case management, and resource prioritisation.

The North-west Regional Organised Crime Unit (NWROCU) is a collaboration of the six north-west police forces of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales, providing a dedicated regional response to serious and organised crime (SOC). The NWROCU is one of 10 (including London) regions across England and Wales who collectively make up the ROCU network, helping to coordinate the response to SOC at a local, regional and national level. This network is supported by specialist capabilities that can be deployed as needed, and ROCUs work with partners such as the NCA, Border Force, Home Office Immigration and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to tackle serious and cross-border crime such as drug and firearms supply, human trafficking and modern slavery, as well as evolving threats such as cyber and economic crime.

What needed to change

UK police forces operate across a wide range of policing systems, some shared and others specific to individual forces or regions. Often this creates challenges when working at regional or national scale, particularly around the sharing of sensitive information.

Within this landscape, the NWROCU needed a single, effective way to identify and assess risk, as well as track and manage active organised crime groups across six police force boundaries. In practice, the existing process fell short in several key areas:

• Officers had to access multiple disconnected systems to gather the information needed for each assessment, creating significant operational overhead.
• Data then had to be manually re-entered into separate policing databases, adding hours of avoidable effort and increasing the risk of inconsistency.
• Information spread across systems made it difficult to standardise the process or generate meaningful insight from the data being collected.
• Managing data security across multiple policing organisations, and maintaining the integrity of that data throughout its lifecycle, added a further layer of complexity.

This reality prompted a move toward a more streamlined, joined-up solution.

The way forward

As the deployment progressed, it became clear the ROCU had broader ambitions for what Fusion could do. That is where Infomentum came in as the recommended partner to help realise them, supporting the final stages of go-live before taking on the development of the portal, case management solution, and integration work.

Access was expanded first. Using Salesforce Experience Cloud, a secure portal was delivered for other forces and partners, enabling controlled data sharing across organisational boundaries and creating a foundation for the secure exchange of information and intelligence at a regional level.

Building on that, a bespoke case management solution was developed for Asset Confiscation Enforcement (ACE)
investigations, introducing more efficient workflows, stronger cross-force collaboration, and the enhanced insight needed to support a marked increase in both case volume and throughput.

The final layer was integration. Using the MuleSoft API integration layer, the solution was connected to NICHE, the
forces’ records management system. This eliminated double keying, automated critical processes, and reduced manual handoffs, laying the groundwork for connected data and accelerating the move toward smarter, more joined-up operations.

How we made it work

Drawing on National Standards and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Salesforce solution architects worked closely with subject matter experts from the NWROCU to design a cloud-based solution within Salesforce Core.

This grounded the build in operational reality from the outset, ensuring the architecture reflected how the ROCU actually worked rather than how a process might look on paper.From there, the Infomentum, ROCU, and Salesforce Services teams came together to expand the NWROCU's digital ecosystem across Salesforce Core, Salesforce Experience Cloud, and MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform. This technology stack provides a secure, reliable foundation for connecting complex law enforcement data and systems, with a scalable, API-led architecture linking the NWROCU Salesforce platform to key policing systems and accessibility features for enhanced collaboration with law enforcement partners. 

Delivery followed an agile approach, with short sprints run alongside ROCU subject matter experts allowing the team to develop bespoke workflows that genuinely supported how operational teams worked day to day. Incremental delivery built confidence in the technology at each stage, with stakeholder feedback shaping what came next and generating appetite for further development. By the time the foundation platform was established, the ROCU were well placed to leverage their technology investment further, implementing additional use cases and bringing about efficiencies that extended well beyond the original scope.

Proof in the numbers

Through this digital transformation the NWROCU has enhanced the security of its data, enabled improved collaboration, and provided efficiencies in staff handling times leading to improved productivity.

Results achieved so far include:

• Reduced the processing time by 1 hour 15 minutes per referral, recovering 5.3 working days per month across the region, freeing teams to focus on higher-value work.

• Cut asset confiscation enforcement (ACE) order duration from 43 weeks to 9 weeks within 6 months of implementation.
• Accelerated confiscation order realisation by 70% in the first 6 months, delivering faster financial justice outcomes.
• Streamlined and connected the ACE process across the region, with all tracked metrics trending positively since go-live.
• Unified data into a single accessible platform, giving the ROCU real-time insights across all levels to drive better decisions and keep communities safe from harm.

The Infomentum team have been amazing to work with. Over the last 3 years we have worked in partnership to deliver our digital transformation roadmap. With their guidance and support we have been able to dramatically increase productivity in our casework, gain improved operational insights from our data, and work more efficiently through automating a number of our number of manual processes. The team are helpful, knowledgable and consistently deliver excellent results for us across our business.
- Jen Jackson, Head of Enabling Services & Digital Lead at NWROCU

Momentum gained

The FUSION platform is driving real operational change. Reusable technology gives the NWROCU the flexibility to adapt and respond quickly and effectively as service needs change. With connected data at their fingertips, NWROCU leadership can make faster, evidence-based decisions while teams deliver more effective interventions.

This initiative shows what practical digital change looks like in a law enforcement  environment, where reliability, security, and speed shape access and responsiveness to help improve service delivery.  

Once the core platform had been delivered, the NWROCU identified the opportunity to extend the use of the platform across a number of additional key business areas supporting demand triage, case management. A programme of work to integrate with local force RMS systems is delivering additional efficiencies with the synchronisation of data of case and nominal data in Fusion.

What's next

The NWROCU continues to build on its digital strategy since launch, with the Infomentum team working alongside them to prioritise integration enhancements aligned to their strategic objectives. Connecting local and national systems has already unlocked opportunities to automate more functions, reduce double keying, and generate quicker insights through better joined-up data. Development is also underway to integrate with the Police National Database, automating data entry and saving many hours of effort each day, while improving the quality, timeliness, and completeness of the national intelligence picture.