Staffordshire Police Force is extending a business intelligence (BI) platform it says has already helped it significantly cut crime through better-targeted resources.

The platform, which generates reports to show operational effectiveness in key areas, is about to be extended to case preparation and custody systems.

The force bought the BI platform 18 months ago to view information from its Command and Control, crime, human resources and firearms applications.

Staffordshire Police information systems development manager Ron Bentley said: "We set our policing plan objectives for the year, and so different crimes have a different focus year on year."

The force replaced many legacy systems with Business Objects' BI software suite and WebIntelligence toolset.

The suite provides integrated information query, reporting and analysis to more than 500 users, providing a consistent view of information across the organisation. The one platform has also consolidated and minimised BI training and maintenance costs.

"Now, when divisional commanders come in each day they look at the [BI] reports for the last 24 hours and detect whether there has been any trend increase in [key crime] areas," said Bentley.

He added that the software had helped to significantly reduce four key crime areas.

In 2003 there was an 11.5 per cent drop in nuisance crime, a 5.6 per cent drop in public order offences and burglaries, and a decrease of 5.4 per cent in vehicle crime.

Staffordshire was also among the top five best performing forces in England in the first of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary's baseline performance assessments last month.

In this year's first quarter, Staffordshire's overall recorded crime dropped by nine per cent on the same period last year, while its detection rate rose by 2.5 per cent to 34 per cent.

Some one million residents live in the Staffordshire region and 2,300 officers deal with an average of 330,000 incidents each year.