New Digital Pen Ticks All the Right Boxes for Safety and Security

In a first for local government in Western Australia, the City is arming its CSS patrol officers with new digital pens that will allow them to record all incidents directly into a computer system, which will save a significant amount of time and money for the CSS.

Mayor Russell Aubrey said the digital pens were another example of the City of Melville and the CSS leading the way in the local government arena. “The City of Melville is always keen to embrace new technology that will make our products and services more efficient for residents and ratepayers,” he said. “The new pens will streamline the incident reporting system, ensuring there will no double handling of incidents reports, no lost forms and that all reports comply with the State Records Act.  It will make this award-winning service even more effective for our community”

Worthy of one of the state-of-the-art gadgets in a James Bond movie, the pens feature a camera at the tip of the pen that records what the officers are writing and this can be transferred directly into the computer system. The pens also allow officers to take a photo of the scene of an incident, which can be linked with the electronic incident report.

The City of Melville was introduced to the digital pens by Optus and the West Perth-based Colleagues Information Systems. Colleagues Director Kay Hargreaves said the pens allowed users to communicate both digitally and on paper simultaneously. “There is no need for re-entering written information or notes into a computer at a later stage,” she said. “The digital pen interacts with paper printed with a unique grid reference that enables the pen to know which form is being used, what is being written and when it was actioned.”

The City of Melville’s CSS, which operates throughout the cities of Melville and Cockburn, has nine officers on duty at any one time to provide a visible security presence, patrol the streets, respond to safety and security issues such as anti-social behaviour, and provide maintenance reports on the City’s infrastructure within the area.

CSS Manager Ashok Mehra said about 25 to 35 incident reports were filled in each shift. “At the moment, the forms are handled by four people, including the shift team leader and administration staff, within the process of getting typed into the computer, scanned and archived,” he said. “This creates delays in the reporting system and means there is the potential for reports to be lost. The digital pens allow the reports to be automatically entered into the computer and archived at the time the patrol officers fill in the report. The result is a more efficient use of resources, allowing skilled CSS staff to spend more time focusing on important issues and strategies.”

Mayor Aubrey said there was the potential for the digital pens to be used by other Council service areas, including Health and Planning and Development. “Anyone who fills in forms can benefit from the digital pens,” he said.