Dr Paul Dawson1
1MOPAC
Paul is currently Head of Evidence and Insight – an internally based analytics unit at the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) with the aim of conducting a wide ranging programme to the benefit of crime, justice and policy making in London.
In London, the Mayor acts as the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), a democratically elected position with an office that has a statutory duty to set and manage the policing budget and ensure effectiveness in policing practice.
The session will introduce the Evidence and Insight team – the research analytics unit based within the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). With a staff of over 30, the team has the aim of generating a wide array of evidence based insights – from pan London surveys, data analysis and visualization to large-scale evaluations – all to support policy making, oversight of the police and ultimately seek to make London safer.
The session will document the journey of the team and their transition from the Metropolitan Police Service to the PCC Office in 2014 and use this as a springboard to offer wider reflections upon the craft of evidence based working from this unique perspective.
Biography:
Dr. Paul Dawson holds a varied career incorporating practical clinical psychological experience with mentally disordered offenders, doctorate level study, alongside 19 years of government/policy (Home Office, Metropolitan Police Service, MOPAC) research analytics covering many different analytic crafts (i.e., surveys, performance insights, evaluation and social research) – all to develop and harness insight to promote improvements.