On March 18th, the Canadian Association of Police Governance (CAPG) and Zencity hosted a webinar bringing together police leaders from Canada and the UK to discuss a critical shift in policing: how community engagement data is reshaping strategic planning, building trust, and driving accountability.
The panel featured Brian Harker and Gina Daus from the Edmonton Police Service, Assistant Chief Constable Dennis Murray from Thames Valley Police, and Blair Gibbs from The Police Foundation (UK), moderated by CAPG CEO Stephen Reid.
Here are the biggest insights from the conversation.
The Annual Survey Is No Longer Enough
For years, police agencies relied on annual perception surveys to gauge community sentiment. The problem? By the time the results came in, the moment had passed.
Both Edmonton Police Service (EPS) and Thames Valley Police described moving to continuous, real-time citizen perception data — a shift that fundamentally changed how they plan and operate. Instead of a single yearly snapshot, leadership teams now track how sentiment shifts week to week and neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
As Brian Harker, EPS Director of Strategy and Innovation, put it: the old model told you where you’d been. The new one tells you where you’re headed — in time to course-correct.
Pairing Data With Deep Community Relationships
Real-time data reveals the what. But understanding the why requires something technology alone can’t provide: relationships.
EPS maintains five Community Advisory Councils — including an Indigenous-led council, a council focused on sexual orientation and gender identity, an Elders Council, and a newly launched Youth Advisory Council for ages 16–22. These groups don’t just advise on paper. They meet regularly with EPS leadership, participate in learning events (including hands-on use-of-force scenarios), and feed directly into the strategic planning process.
Gina Daus, EPS Director of Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights, emphasized that the councils aren’t symbolic. When members provide input, EPS follows up to show what happened with their feedback — closing the loop and reinforcing that community voices genuinely shape direction.
When Rising Crime Is Actually Good News
One of the most striking insights came from Brian Harker: EPS expects reported crime to increase as trust grows.
The logic is straightforward. When communities don’t trust police, crimes go unreported. As trust builds, people become more comfortable coming forward. The challenge is communicating that narrative — if crime stats spike without context, it looks like failure. Having trust data running in parallel makes it possible to tell the real story: more reporting is a sign that the relationship is working.
“Explain Your Data or Reform It”
ACC Dennis Murray offered a principle that resonated across the panel: if you can’t explain your data, you need to reform how you’re collecting or presenting it.
He gave a vivid example from stop-and-search practices. On the surface, one London neighbourhood appeared to have the worst disproportionality in the country. But once two days of carnival activity were removed from the dataset, it became one of the lowest. Without that analytical overlay, agencies risk fixing the wrong problem.
Thames Valley now publishes data alongside narrative context — explaining not just the numbers, but what they believe those numbers mean and what actions they’re taking as a result. It’s a model of transparency that goes beyond simply releasing stats.
Strategy That’s Not Felt on the Ground Is Worthless
Perhaps the most candid moment came when Murray described the evolution of Thames Valley’s race action plan. In its early years, the plan was recognized nationally as a model. But when community sentiment data came back, it told a different story: the communities it was designed to serve weren’t feeling the impact.
That disconnect drove a fundamental pivot — away from high-level strategy and toward tactical, ground-level actions focused on what people actually experience in their interactions with police. It’s a powerful example of how community engagement data can serve as a reality check on internal assumptions.
Building Toward a National Standard
One of the biggest challenges in both Canada and the UK is comparability. Every police service asks different questions in different ways, making meaningful benchmarking nearly impossible.
Murray, who serves as the UK’s National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for Trust and Confidence, is working to pilot a national sentiment survey with a standardized core question set. The goal isn’t to create a competitive league table, but to establish a shared baseline — what he called a “single version of the truth” — that allows agencies to learn from each other and track national progress.
Trust as a Performance Metric, Not a “Nice to Have”
Across the panel, one theme was unmistakable: trust and confidence is no longer a side project. It’s becoming a core performance measure.
Thames Valley now includes a dedicated trust and confidence section in its formal performance meetings. EPS is embedding community perception data into every stage of its 2027–2030 strategic planning cycle. And both agencies are making that data accessible — to leadership, analysts, and frontline officers who want it.
This represents a cultural shift in how policing success is defined. Crime stats still matter. But they’re no longer the only measure that counts.
Looking Ahead
The panelists agreed that the pace of adoption for digital engagement tools will only accelerate. Communities are becoming more diverse, expectations for transparency are rising, and the old methods of gathering public input simply can’t keep up.
As Blair Gibbs noted, the ability to sample more frequently, reach people where they are, and serve surveys in multiple languages was unthinkable even 20 years ago. Now it’s becoming essential infrastructure for any police agency serious about evidence-based policing.
The conversation continues at CAPG’s annual conference in Edmonton this August, where community engagement and strategic planning will be a featured topic.
——
Zencity Supports 400+ organizations in hearing from more voices, understanding community priorities, and taking confident, data-backed action. The platform helps agencies navigate moments of change, inform strategic and annual planning, and strengthen everyday communication with residents.
Let’s chat about how we can work together to power your agency with community voice.
