Mantis has been hosting hugely successful roundtables for its clients for years. It’s something we excel at – and, over the years we have brought together Government, industry, pressure groups and national media to discuss topics as wide ranging as Universal Credit, digital safeguarding in schools and the funding of care for older people.

The success of these roundtables for our clients relies on us tapping into issues that are at the forefront of public and political debate, securing the attendance of those leading the changes (and sometimes those that are actively opposed to it) and bringing that all back to the issues our clients are helping customers overcome.

We are lucky here at Mantis, our clients have always been at the cutting edge of public service reform – so we have had some fantastic discussions over the years.

Our most recent, with Chorus Intelligence, on the ethics of police data analytics and disclosure was a right corker.

We were brought in by Chorus, in 2018, to deliver a campaign to increase brand awareness amongst high ranking police personnel and key influencers, as well as demonstrating Chorus’ credentials as both a thought leader and a key partner to law enforcement, as they face new and heightening challenges from violent crime to county lines.

Working in close collaboration with Chorus’ Marketing Manager and its senior team, Mantis developed the discussion subject and secured the attendance of ten key influencers, including the Shadow Policing & Crime Minister*, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), UK police forces, the college of policing, ethics and policy experts and tech companies.

On the day, the debate was chaired by our Client Services Director, Eleanor Willock, a veteran of the Mantis roundtables and never one to turn down the opportunity to get into the thick of the discussion and conduct a room of very cool people, all in the lovely surroundings of the Soho Hotel.

The discussion was lively and produced some truly original thinking from those at the very heart of policy and change in policing.

One of the central take-aways came from the need for acceptance that police funding will never recover to the levels many feel it should; and that by putting more officers on every street corner, we will not solve every problem the police is currently grappling with.

The answer actually lies in the development of more intelligence-led policing, with data at the heart of investigations. Data has to be shared across police force borders and between public agencies in order to benefit from the possibilities of predicative and preventative policing.

There were many other fascinating observations on the day, but you will have to wait for the press coverage from the opinion articles currently in the works from Chorus and the roundtable attendees to find out more.

In the meantime, there is nothing more to say than it is an absolute privilege to put these roundtables together for our clients and get a front seat as future public sector policy is shaped before your eyes.

*unfortunately, on the day of the roundtable the Shadow Policing & Crime Minister was called to Parliament to ask an urgent question, so we focused on change and policy points to help her shape her thinking