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Last Notes

2026-10-16 02:50:32 GMT

Thank God for the FOI Act: Strategic Insight Unit releases in the open
My time in the Metropolitan Police Strategic Insight Unit (SIU) remains a career highlight. The team did (and continues to do) lots of excellent, operationally relevant and robust research, the likes of which we need plenty more of in the world. So it was an ongoing disappointment of mine that so little of the work managed to make it through the byzantine structures of Met Police hierarchy and into the public domain. I’d vaguely assumed, much to my disappointment, that much of this work would never see the light of day.
Well, it turns out I was wrong! Someone recently pointed out that some of it had been released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request on WhatDoTheyKnow, so I tasked my AI agent with collecting all the relevant releases and backing them up here.
It’s excellent research, and I hope someone finds it useful. And next time someone moans about how much of a pain FOI requests are, remember that they can do some real good. I’m certainly glad they’re still around.
Place-based and operational evaluations
Town Centre Uplift Analysis (November 2022) — examines the effect of 19 Town Centre Teams across London. Finds a consistent increase in recorded drug offences across its two comparison approaches; results for other outcomes are mixed or small, and the report cautions against strong causal claims.
Precision Stop & Search pilot evaluation (26 February 2024) — evaluates a targeted stop-and-search pilot in nine wards in Lambeth and Barking & Dagenham, including training, community engagement, trust, crime and compliance strands. The report is marked “Internal to MPS only.” The MPS later published a public Proof of concept evaluation (1 October 2025). London Assembly follow-ups record the publication, explain why the report omitted some drug-outcome breakdowns, and link to the MPS Stop and Search Dashboard for some publicly available outcomes.
Operation Coniston short report (February 2024) — short version of a randomised trial of supervisor reviews of body-worn video from stop-and-search encounters. Covers search data, supervisor assessments and officer/supervisor views. The full report has since been released.
Knife Crime Prevention Orders impact evaluation (April 2023) — trial-based analysis of reoffending. Low uptake and few actual orders left too few observations for a confident causal estimate; the report finds no statistically significant difference in reoffending rates.
Positive Action workshop evaluation (May 2021) — randomised evaluation of workshops for minority ethnic and female direct-entry detective candidates. The report finds increased assessment success among candidates offered the workshop, with larger reported gains for minority ethnic candidates.
Other SIU research and analysis
Factors associated with strip-search in MPS custody suites — statistical analysis of 403,208 arrests from 2019–2021, examining factors associated with custody strip-search, including offence type, location and ethnicity. The analysis is limited to strip-search after arrest.
Factors associated with missing-person high-risk grading (May 2023) — analyses how risk grades relate to contextual factors and subsequent harm, including differences by ethnicity.
Ethnic disproportionality at the point of internal misconduct allegation (November 2023) — mixed-methods research on possible drivers of disproportionality in the misconduct process. The report notes significant data limitations and is marked “Official Sensitive – Do not share.”
Misconduct research recommendations (November 2023) — companion paper setting out high-level potential interventions and the need for further development and coordination.
Rapid Community Polling assessment: ZenCity — assesses the MPS trial of online community polling. The SIU reports problems with respondent retention and representativeness, and does not recommend renewing the ongoing “Blockwise” service in its current form.
ZenCity methodology report (April 2024) — compares ZenCity polling with MOPAC’s Public Attitude Survey. Finds that the voluntary online sample is not a sound measure of London-wide trust and confidence trends.
Six ways to improve case-file quality (January 2021) — qualitative research and descriptive analysis of barriers to good case files, with recommendations for supervisor feedback, review processes and targeted support.
Original request and related records
WhatDoTheyKnow request: Research by the Strategic Insight Unit since 2021 — request, correspondence and ICO-related updates.
MOPAC decision: Grip funding, PCD 1596 — funding decision and programme context, not an evaluation report.
MOPAC decision: Home Office Hotspot Response Fund, PCD 1650 — funding decision covering hotspot patrols, problem-oriented policing and analytical support, not an outcome evaluation.
London Policing Board meeting record, February 2025 — records MPS discussion of its hotspot-policing randomised trial and subsequent evaluation work.
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https://andreasthinks.me/posts/siu-research-releases/