Warwickshire Police is considering a new online portal for members of the public to track the progress of crimes they have reported. 

Chief superintendent Mike Smith detailed the proposals during an address to Stratford-on-Avon District Council's overview and scrutiny committee, a panel of councillors that had a one-hour session on various topics related to policing on Wednesday (May 28).

One of key areas of focus was the force's contact centre, which Superintendent Smith oversees.

He explained that the idea is still being developed with a view to how it would work and the "significant" costs involved but predicted it would "take a significant number of calls out of the control room".

The news was caveated with a warning that it was "not straightforward", particularly when linking it to the force's records management system which is in the process of being replaced.

"Once you have reported it you can't go back on and see what has happened to your investigation," said Superintendent Smith. 

"The old adage that resonates with me is if you order a parcel from Amazon, you never phone Amazon to see where your parcel is, you just go online and you can look."

Acknowledging that policing is "too different" to wheel out an Amazon-style solution due to the "infinite number of things that could happen with the investigation", he still sees a way for such a tracker to serve a purpose.

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"It is more complex but the basic concept of being able to go online and see where your investigation is once it is reported to us is sound and somewhere we want to get to," he continued.

"We have meetings with various suppliers in the coming months as to what that could look like in Warwickshire. A number of technological suppliers in this space have started to develop some very good products.

"The challenge with it – and this is why we can't promise timescales at this stage – is you have to link that into your records management system. There are millions of records and to interface any public-facing portal with that is quite significant in terms of cost.

"We are in the process of changing our records management system… the aspiration is to move as quickly as possible to a position where the public can track their crime online."

Committee chair Cllr Andy Crump: "One of the biggest frustrations with members of the public is reporting something without seeing the progress.

"If the online portal is a way forward, that would certainly help."