Project Servator Evaluation Study 2018/19 Report Prepared for the National Project Servator Team / Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) Professor Paul Baines University of Leicester / Cranfield University December 2019 TOGETHER, WE’VE GOT IT COVERED Contents List of Figures iii List of Tables iii List of Terms and Abbreviations iii 1.1 Introduction and Study Evaluation Methodology 1 1.2 The Object of Study: What is Project Servator? 2 1.3 Findings from the Interviews 3 1.3.1 Degrees of Evaluation Formalisation 4 1.3.2 Measuring Effectiveness 5 1.3.3 Use of Metrics and Effectiveness Measurement 6 1.3.4 Project Servator: Aims and Objectives 13 1.3.5 Deployment: Asset Use and Frequency 14 1.3.6 Use of Paid, Owned, Earned Media (POEM) 16 1.3.7 Enablers of Effectiveness: Best Practice 18 1.3.8 Weaker Practice and Lessons Learnt 19 1.3.9 How Could Project Servator Be Improved? 20 1.4 Summary 21 1.5 Recommendations 22 Appendix 1: About the Author 24 Appendix 2: Project Servator Timeline 25 i Project Servator Evaluation Study 2018/19 Report Prepared for the National Project Servator Team / Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) Professor Paul Baines University of Leicester / Cranfield University TOGETHER, WE’VE GOT IT COVERED ii List of Figures Figure 1.1 Measurement of Effectiveness Approaches 5 Figure 1.2 Number of Deployments Undertaken by Project Servator Police Forces in 2018/2019 7 Figure 1.3 Number of People Engaging With Key Messaging During Project Servator Deployments in 2018/2019 8 Figure 1.4 Number of People Stopped and Searched During Project Servator Deployments in 2018/2019 9 Figure 1.5 Number of Arrests During Project Servator Deployments in 2018/2019 10 Figure 1.6 Number of Intelligence Reports Made During Project Servator Deployments in 2018/2019 10 Figure 1.7 Physical Police Assets Used in Project Servator Deployments 15 List of Tables Table 1.1 Types of Metric in Use by Project Servator Phase 6 List of Terms and Abbreviations ACT Action Counters Terrorism (UK Government NPoCC National Police Coordination Centre communication campaign) NPST National Project Servator Team (based at the ANPR Automatic Number Plate Recognition City of London Police) (software used in cars for detection purposes) PCSO Police Community Support Officer ASB Anti-Social behaviour PNC Police National Computer BIRA British Independent Retailers Association POEM Paid, Owned and Earned Media CCTV Closed Circuit Television QA Quality Assurance (process used by NPST to CTSA Counter Terrorism Security Advisor evaluate force Project Servator performance) CNC Civil Nuclear Constabulary REF Research Excellence Framework (periodic UK government higher education CoLP City of London Police institution research evaluation exercise) CONTEST Counter-Terrorism Strategy (UK Government’s SAR Suspicious Activity Reporting counter-terrorism strategy) SCaN See, Check and Notify (UK government CPNI Centre for the Protection of National security campaign for business) Infrastructure SiSiS ‘See it, Say it, Sorted’ (UK government GMP Greater Manchester Police communications campaign) MDP Ministry of Defence Police TINYg Terrorist Information New York Group (global Met. (MPS) The Metropolitan Police Service terrorist information network) NCTPHQ National Counter-Terrorism Police WMP West Midlands Police Headquarters WYP West Yorkshire Police NIRSC Northern Ireland Region of Shopping Centres NPAS National Police Air Service (England & Wales only) iii 1.1 Introduction and Study Evaluation Methodology This report outlines the findings of an evaluation study undertaken to assess the effectiveness of Project Servator deployments and communications during the year from March 2018 to March 2019, specifically focusing on public and community audiences. The study was undertaken using 16 depth interviews with Project Servator co-ordinators for all the police forces that had undertaken Project Servator deployments between 2013 and 2018, and a series of informal discussions with the National Project Servator Team (NPST), which oversees Project Servator activities, based within the City of London Police (CoLP). The interviews were conducted in January and February 2019. The remit of the evaluation of Project Servator pertains to both the deployments and the supporting communications. The study was jointly funded by Cranfield University and the UK Government’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) and conducted by Professor Paul Baines at the University of Leicester (see Appendix 1 for a biography of the author). The in-depth interview conversations with each 4. To what extent did you meet your objectives? co-ordinator lasted between 22 and 60 minutes and were 5. What campaign media did you use and why? What undertaken by telephone between 18th January 2019 and campaign media did you not use? Why? Friday 8th February 2019 with representatives from all 16 forces that had launched or were in the process of trialling 6. What worked best in your Project Servator campaign? Project Servator on or prior to December 2018. Several of 7. What worked less well in your Project Servator these interviews were with officers responsible specifically campaign? for Project Servator policing in airports. In total, around 13 hours of interview conversations were transcribed. 8. How could the campaign be improved? Informal interviews were undertaken with three members The methodological protocol for the study underwent of the National Project Servator Team responsible for data ethical scrutiny at the University of Leicester in December analysis, the quality assurance process of evaluation visits, 2018. The following elements were noted. and national communications, either at the City of London Police headquarters or by phone in February 2019. During • All participants were asked to provide their informed each depth interview, the following questions were asked consent to show their willingness for the interview to of Project Servator co-ordinators: take place and all provided this. All participants were briefed on the objectives of the research study prior to I. Did you undertake a formal campaign evaluation interview. Participants were reminded that they could exercise? If yes, can you provide me with a copy end the interview whenever they wished. of this please? If no, did you informally determine whether or not your campaign was effective? How • All comments from interviewees were anonymised. did you do this? If not, why not? • Recording of interviews: participants were asked for 2. What lessons did you learn from the campaign? their consent to allow the interview to be recorded for the purposes of transcription. 3. What did you set out to achieve? Were these objectives formalised? 1 1.2 The Object of Study: What is Project Servator? Fifteen UK police forces and one British Overseas Territory police force implemented ‘Project Servator’ (Servator is Latin for ‘watcher/observer’) between 2014 and 2018 including the City of London Police (CoLP), British Transport Police (BTP), Police Scotland, Merseyside Police, Royal Gibraltar Police (RGP), Bedfordshire Police, Ministry of Defence Police (MDP), Greater Manchester Police (GMP), North Yorkshire Police (NYP), Sussex Police, The Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), Avon & Somerset Police, Essex Police, the Metropolitan Police, West Midlands Police (WMP) and West Yorkshire Police (WYP). Project Servator operations are ongoing and a number of new forces are trialling Project Servator in 2019. For a detailed timeline of how Project Servator has developed since it was first set up in 2012, see Appendix 2. Project Servator uses a range of policing tactics to promoted using media press releases, articles in reassure the public, encourage suspicious activity and traditional, electronic (e.g. websites), and social unattended item reporting, and otherwise disrupt media (Twitter and Facebook), digital and physical criminal/terrorist activity. It involves the use of highly posters in A-frames and shop windows, handbills visible but unpredictable deployments of specially trained (distributed by police officers), and internal officers and other police assets and incorporates the advertising techniques (e.g. intranet articles on following components: police websites). Safer Neighbourhood Teams and Community Liaison Officers are also briefed as are i. a mixed deployment of both specially trained the business community, including the security uniformed and plain clothes officers, the former industry and property owners. For a more detailed of which may or may not be armed, and dogs, overview of Project Servator, horses, vehicles, closed circuit television (CCTV) see: https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/ and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) servator/. technology, in locations that could be attractive targets for terrorist or criminal activity and engagement with the general public to help inform and reassure – encouraging vigilance and reporting of suspicious behaviour; ii. the intervention involves staging unpredictable operations to disrupt would-be criminals and terrorists, partly by integrating information collected from the public, community, CCTV, uniformed and plain clothes officers; iii. to reinforce suspicious activity reporting, and to deter would-be hostiles, the campaign is 2 3 1.3 Findings from the Interviews The two key public-facing elements of Project Servator include (i) unpredictable police deployments and (ii) the supporting communications campaign. Each of these two core