Case Study: Western Australia Police achieves $2M+ savings and major frontline efficiency with IdeaScale

Giving ownership of innovation to a workforce that covers 2.5 Million Square Kilometers

Western Australia Police polices the world's largest single geographic jurisdiction—2.5 million km² across Perth, regional towns and remote areas—and faces rising demand that could outstrip resources. To drive efficiency and locally focused reform, WA Police launched Frontline 2020 and created a Continuous Improvement Team (CIT) to capture ideas from its 8,000-strong workforce and reduce red tape.

Using IdeaScale, the CIT launched a Frontline Innovation Portal to crowdsource, triage and fast-track ideas, backed by outreach, incentives and a stage‑gate process with subject-matter review. The program engaged 4,851 users (60% of staff), generated 1,600+ ideas and 11,000+ comments, moved more than 1,100 ideas to completion, delivered legislative and process changes that saved thousands of frontline hours (including 46,000 hours from a detention change and 8,000 from streamlined reporting), and produced estimated savings exceeding $2M while boosting morale and collaborative problem-solving.

Western Australia Police

Stephen Brown

Deputy Commissioner