According to a new report by think tank Parliament Street, the UK police forces have spent a total of £1,320,341 on cybercrime training courses in the last three years. The new Policing and Cybercrime policy paper, which launched today, also revealed that a total of nearly 40,000 police staff and officers have undergone training across the UK.
North Wales Police topped the list with £375,488 spent on cybercrime training for officers and staff between 2015 and 2017. This included a dedicated five-day 'Main Stream Cyber Training' course for 147 key staff, totaling £160,000. There was also a one-day cybercrime input course for all new Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP) recruits for 183 officers which cost £29,900. An additional £52,300 was spent on a similar course for 68 CID officers.
West Mercia and Warwickshire Police submitted a joint response, totally £125,633, followed by Lincolnshire which stated it had spent £119,834. This was followed by West Midlands Police on £91,200 and Police Scotland on £83,121.
Patrick Sullivan, CEO of Parliament Street, said: “In terms of detail, Norfolk and Suffolk police forces provided information on their combined spend of £71,100. This included sending 3,882 staff on a Cyber Crime and Digital Policing First Responder (MCCT1/NCALT) course. 147 staff members were sent on a digital media investigator course costs £6,500. £15,000 was also spent on an open source level 2 course for 87 members of staff. South Yorkshire Police sent 71 officers on its Sy-Mainstream Cyber Crime training program. Other courses it offered included on entitled Sy/Hp-Cyber Hacking Inside The Minds Online Criminals.
“The lowest level of spending came from the Port of Dover Police, a small organization, which said none of its staff had been trained and no budget had been used for cybercrime training.”
While the report highlights an increase in spending, concerns remain that UK police forces are not spending enough on equipping themselves for cybercrime. Out of the total 198,684 officers and staff that are employed by the police forces, approximately less 20% (less than 40,000) have been trained over the past three years.
Hal Hodson, technology correspondent, The Economist, commented on whether the police forces should spend more: “If [the amount quoted] is for a small station in Yorkshire, no. If it’s the Met’s budget for the year, definitely.”
Compared to the £20m being pumped into 6000 secondary schools to train them in cybersecurity, this amount does seem low.