Developing the SAPS website for optimal service delivery

2 Online presence for SAPS

Investigation into the establishment of the SAPS website in the late 1990s produced few results. No documentation was recorded at the SAPS itself. The SAPS Internet Policy document (SAPS 2000) makes little mention of the SAPS website, although it does reflect indirectly on it. This document which was compiled “to ensure the correct usage of the Internet within the SAPS”, states that the Internet “aims to open a window into the SAPS for the public to establish shared trust and to enhance communication by –

promoting public involvement through sharing the responsibility of crime prevention;
supplying information;
supplying crime related information and
education; and
adhering to general requests from the public” (SAPS 2000).

Promoting greater involvement by the private sector in rendering assistance to the SAPS would portend well for the future. If the system of cooperation between the community and the SAPS could be made to work successfully, this could add a further vital contribution towards mobilising all available resources in the battle to prevent and combat the incidence of crime.

The Government Communication and Information Systems (GCIS), which was established in 1998, in 2000 encouraged government departments to establish an online presence in the form of a website (GCIS 2000). The SAPS website, which was already in existence, was thus a forerunner in terms of government online communication.

In 2001 an audit undertaken by GCIS into existing government websites indicated various shortcomings in the SAPS website regarding content, organisation, navigation, design and layout (GCIS 2001). Various factors pointed to the need for the effectiveness of the SAPS website to be assessed; one of the main reasons being that some of the information furnished was not regularly updated. There were a number of concerned and dedicated officials who submitted information for publication from time to time. However, the task was not clearly allocated to specific staff, and various persons at different offices worked at it, when their other tasks permitted.

The task of streamlining and keeping the contents and structure of the SAPS website up to date has been and is complicated by the fact that in terms of legislation, the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is responsible for establishing and maintaining all government websites. SITA is the IT service agency for the South African government. Its stated aim is to “develop the powerful Internet platform” (Blom & Willers 2001).

SAPS staff members are responsible for providing the content. SITA then places it on the website, and updates the design, structure and navigation. This ‘remote control’ of the website – the SAPS headquarters, where the content is gathered, is situated in the Pretoria CBD, while SITA is on the outskirts of Pretoria – complicates the process, especially regarding the time factor and the proximity of role-players.

Yet there can be no doubt as to the importance of the World Wide Web for the SAPS, or any police agency for that matter, in carrying out its functions and rendering service to its clients today. Commander Dave Pettinari of the Pueblo County Sheriff’s department sums it up neatly “... if you come to work without the Internet it will be like a patrolman coming to work without his patrol car. The Internet will be that critical in accomplishing our mission by virtue of more efficient and timely access to information” (in Reynecke & Fourie 2001:31).

The SAPS website, as all other communication tools, must be assessed in terms of its service delivery, which is required of it as a government communication medium (cf. GCIS 2001). However, if it is to meet the information needs of its online users it must also be an effective website, and, specifically, an effective police agency website.

There is no dearth of literature on the requirements of effective websites in general. However, information as to what makes for an effective police agency website specifically could not be found in secondary sources.

Given these factors, it was decided to undertake an investigation into possible guidelines for an effective police agency website (cf. Sonderling 2003). In the study undertaken, this was done by examining primary sources – firstly, the needs of users of the SAPS website and, secondly, other police agency websites. From this, guidelines to improve the existing SAPS website could be compiled.