footing the bill - policy exchange

Footing the billReforming the police service

Barry Loveday and Jonathan McCloryEdited by Gavin Lockhart

Fo

oting

the bill

Barry Lo

veday and

Jonathan M

cClo

ry, edited

by G

avin Lockhart

Po

licy Exchang

e

£10.00

ISBN: 978-1-906097-14-1

Policy ExchangeClutha House

10 Storey’s GateLondon SW1P 3AY

www.policyexchange.org.uk

The first publication in this series, Fitting the Bill, showed that thequality and efficiency of local policing would be improved bydelegating budgetary and human resources control to localcommanders, and by an overhaul of the performance measurementregime. This research is no less important or ambitious.

Drawing on field work from the Antipodes and interviews withserving officers and policy makers in England and Wales, Footingthe Bill investigates the challenges police face in containing costs,and in balancing protective services, counter-terrorism andresponse policing. Barry Loveday and Jonathan McClory suggestways to address the funding shortfall; deliver neighbourhoodpolicing and a more effective and efficient service; balance thedemands of local policing with cross-border crime and terrorismand find an appropriate role for the private security industry.

The authors discuss ways in which the police service could bemore effective and efficient even with declining central governmentfunding. Some of the recommendations – such as reform of theoffice of constable, giving more staff powers of arrest, search andseizure, lifting the cap on council tax increases and reducing thenumber of police ranks – will be controversial.

px footing the bill cover HDS.qxp:Layout 1 16/1/08 16:17

Policy Exchange is an independent think tank whose mission is to develop and promote new policy ideas which willfoster a free society based on strong communities, personal freedom, limited government, national self-confidence andan enterprise culture. Registered charity no: 1096300.

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Charles Moore (Chairman of the Board), Richard Ehrman, Theodore Agnew, Richard Briance, Camilla Cavendish, Robin Edwards, Virginia Fraser, Lizzie Noel, George Robinson , Andrew Sells, Tim Steel, Alice Thomson, Rachel Whetstone

Footing the bill Reforming the police service

Barry Loveday and Jonathan McClory

Edited by Gavin Lockhart

px footing the bill - HDS v3.qxp:Layout 1 16/1/08 16:11 Page 1

About the authors

Barry LovedayReader in Criminal Justice Administration,University of PortsmouthBarry Loveday is a member of the LocalGovernment Association’s advisory group oncommunity safety, co-author of PolicyExchange’s Going Local: Who Should RunBritain’s Police? and Fitting the Bill: Localpolicing for the 21st century. He is the authorof Size Isn’t Everything: Restructuring Policingin England and Wales.

Jonathan McCloryResearch Fellow, Policy ExchangeIn 2005 Jonathan graduated with adegree in Economics and Politics fromthe University of Michigan. Jonathancompleted an MSc in International

Public Policy at University CollegeLondon in 2006. He has previous workexperience at the American Consulate inHamburg, Germany. This is Jonathan’ssecond major publication for PolicyExchange.

Gavin LockhartHead of Crime and Justice Unit, Policy ExchangeGavin has responsibility for healthcareand crime and justice research at PolicyExchange. He studied Sociology atEdinburgh University. After graduating in2002 with a first-class degree, Gavinworked as a management consultantbefore joining Policy Exchange in August2006.

© Policy Exchange 2007

Published byPolicy Exchange, Clutha House, 10 Storey’s Gate, London SW1P 3AYwww.policyexchange.org.uk

ISBN: 978-1-906097-14-1

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2


www.policyexchange.org.uk • 3

Contents

Acknowledgements 2Executive Summary 3

1 Introduction 62 The impending funding crisis 83 Fighting on two fronts: neighbourhood policing and serious cross-border crime 174 “Resilience” and Workforce Modernisation 235 The sky did not fall: lessons from Antipodean workforce modernisation 276 Public-Private Partnerships and Private finance initiatives 347 Recommendations 38

Glossary 41Appendix 1: AFP Work Value Study 43


Acknowledgements

Policy Exchange thanks the BernardSunley Foundation, the Tresillan Trust andReliance Security Management for theirgenerous support for this project.

We would like to thank the govern-ment ministers and police teams who wel-comed the researchers in Australia andNew Zealand, and the Reform Team atWellington Police Headquarters who wereespecially generous.

A special thanks should go to those whogave their time for interviews with ourresearch team:

� Ian Miller: Australian Federal Police� Jeff Rolfe: Australian Federal Police� Alan Sean Scott: Australian Federal

Police� Keith Bryett: Former head of human

resources for Northern TerritoriesPolice, Australia

� Michael Wood: Principle Advisor,Police Act Review, New Zealand

� Greg O’Connor: President, NewZealand Police Association

� Peter Harvey: Police Act ReviewTeam, New Zealand Police HQ

� Anna McKenzie PhD: Police ActReview, Police National HQ, NewZealand Police

� Ian Georgeson: National FinanceManager Office of the CommissionerNew Zealand Police;

� Rufus Hallam-Eames: FinancialAnalyst, Office of Commissioner, New Zealand Police; Dr Murray Sim Axist: Consulting New ZealandLtd;

� Hamish McCardle: SuperintendentProject Manager Police Review Act,Office of Commissioner, New ZealandPolice.

� Inspectot Peter Cowan: AreaCommander Wellington CentralPolice Station, New Zealand Police.

Finally the research team would like tothank Philippa Ingram, Richard Carter, DrBob Golding, Ben Ullmann and all thosewho commented on drafts of this report.

4


Executive Summary

The first publication in this series, Fittingthe Bill, showed that the quality and effi-ciency of local policing would be improvedby delegating budgetary and humanresources control to local commanders,and by an overhaul of the performancemeasurement regime.1 The report was wel-comed by opposition parties and policeassociations.2 This research is no lessimportant or ambitious.

Drawing on fieldwork from theAntipodes and interviews with serving offi-cers and policymakers in England andWales, Footing the Bill investigates the chal-lenges police face in containing costs andbalancing protective services3, counter-ter-rorism and response policing.4 BarryLoveday – an expert on police reform - andJonathan McClory suggest ways to addressthe funding shortfall; deliver neighbour-hood policing and a more effective andefficient service; balance the demands oflocal policing with cross-border crime andterrorism and find an appropriate role forthe private security industry.

The Government’s impact on levels ofcrime has been unimpressive: the mostrecent British Crime Survey statistics showthat for every 100 crimes there were onlythree convictions.5 An independent audit,Ten Years of Criminal Justice under Labourby the Centre for Crime and JusticeStudies at King’s College London conclud-ed that the Government’s “record on itsvarious overall crime reduction targets is atbest mixed; at worst, its crime reductionclaims are misleading”.6 The Home Officeitself suggests that a “large performanceshift” will be needed to meet its target onfrontline policing.

Yet since 1997 £70 billion has been spenton the police and there has been a remarkableincrease in police numbers. From 2000,Labour began to increase expenditure on

criminal justice significantly: about £2 billionmore was paid to the police service in 2004-05 than in 1998-99. Although this increase infunding was accompanied by a barrage of tar-gets and commitments, it is not clear what hasbeen achieved for such a huge financial outlay.An internal analysis carried out by the PrimeMinister’s strategy unit recently stated thatincreased spending on the police “appearsunrelated to changes in productivity” and that“there is still little chance that a crime will bedetected”.7 The latest ComprehensiveSpending Review anyway makes clear thatsuch levels of investment will not continue.

The authors of this report suggest waysin which the police service could be moreeffective and efficient even with decliningcentral government funding. Theseinclude:

� A clear commitment to workforce mod-ernisation, including steps to removepotential and real cultural opposition toreform (eg the police federation’s oppo-sition to police community supportofficers) and adequate preparation andplanning for changes in personneldeployment

� Greater locally driven, long-term collab-oration between forces

� More private provision of policingservices

� Increased freedom to raise funds locally

Some of the recommendations – such asreform of the office of constable, the intro-duction of transferable powers of arrest,search and seizure, lifting the cap on coun-cil tax increases and reducing the numberof police ranks –will be controversial. Butthe police are resting on foundations estab-lished in the 19th century; the time hascome for fundamental reform to create aservice that is fit for purpose.


1 Loveday B and McClory J,Fitting the Bill: Local Policing forthe 21st Century, PolicyExchange, June 2007

2 Annual Review 2007, PolicyExchange, January 2008

3 Commonly referred to as Level2 and 3 crime, protective servicesencompass counter-terrorism;serious, organised, and cross-border crime; major crime (requir-ing senior investigating officers);civil contingencies; and emer-gency planning

4 Response policing refers topolice officers responding tourgent calls on an ad hoc basis

5 Police Funding, Home AffairsSelect Committee, Fourth Reportof Session 2006-07, 10 July2007, paragraph 15

6 Ten Years of Criminal Justiceunder Labour: an IndependentAudit, Centre for Crime andJustice Studies, King’s CollegeLondon, 2007

7 Economic and Fiscal StrategyReport and Financial Statementand Budget Report, HM Treasury,London 2006 pp 148-149


1Introduction

Since July 2006, when the Home AffairsSelect Committee spelt out the financialpressure that police forces in England andWales would face in the very near future,there has been growing concern within theservice.8 Towards the end of last year, thePolice Federation, which represents rank andfile officers, called on the Home Secretary,Jacqui Smith, to resign after she delayed pay-ment of a 2.5 per cent pay rise fromSeptember to December. She reneged on thelegally binding arbitration process on police

pay in order to save 0.3 per cent of the annu-al police budget.9 The dispute was a reminderthat the method of determining police pay isnot only inflexible and outdated, but alsothat the police establishment has resistedattempts to reform, despite adequateresources to do so.10 The unfortunate devel-opments regarding the police pay rise reflectboth the Government’s mismanagement ofthe police service, and their doubts surround-ing police performance. We argue that policyshould focus on improving police effective-ness, and outline ways to achieve this, as wellas the potential pitfalls.

Funding shortfallPolice forces in England and Wales haveenjoyed the full financial support of theGovernment over the past ten years; with

year-on-year increases meeting the budget-ary demands of the majority of forces. Butthe Comprehensive Spending Review(CSR) settlement for 2007-08 to 2010-11is much less generous and, according to theAssociation of Police Authorities (APA)and the Association of Chief PoliceOfficers (ACPO), will result in a reducedstandard of service delivery.11

Increased demand for efficiency andeffectivenessAccording to the National Policing Plan(NPP), published in 2002, 63.6 per cent ofpolice time was spent on frontline duties,though this included activities such as thepreparation of case files for prosecution.12

Figures from the Home Office PoliceService Report, on the other hand, suggest-ed that, on average, police officers spentonly about 15 per cent of their time on vis-ible patrol.13 And a 2001 study found thatarresting someone – from petty criminal toserious offender – kept an officer off thebeat for an average of three-and-a-halfhours.14

Collaboration An extended period of growth in publicfunding of the police has led to a culture ofcomplacency, inhibiting the developmentof modern working practices and the effec-tive deployment of resources. The HomeOffice backed down in 2006 from its planto merge the 43 police forces of Englandand Wales into 13, allowing barriers to effi-cient police service delivery to remain. This

6

8 Police Funding, Home AffairsSelect Committee, op cit

9 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7144666stm

10 Ten Years of Criminal Justiceunder Labour: an IndependentAudit, Centre for Crime andJustice Studies, op cit


12 The National Policing Plan2003-6, Home Office, 2002 p 37

13 Ten Years of Criminal Justiceunder Labour: an IndependentAudit, Centre for Crime andJustice Studies, op cit

14 Diary of a Police Officer, PoliceResearch Paper 149, HomeOffice, 2001

“ An extended period of growth in public funding of thepolice has led to a culture of complacency ”


cultural environment, and its accompany-ing structural deficiencies, is underminingpolice performance at a time when forcesmust balance the demands of neighbour-hood policing, fight serious crime that maycross force boundaries (Level 2 crime) andoffences that cross national borders,including terrorism (Level 3 crime).15

In the absence of mergers, achieving thedesired balance of resources will requirecollaboration between forces and this,together with the correct strategic balancebetween local policing and cross-bordercrime fighting, must be taken into accountwhen developing reform policies. It is asmuch a financial matter as a strategic one.

Neighbourhood policing In our 2007 report we argued that theneighbourhood policing initiative (NPI) iscritical to improving public safety and thatthe bottom-up structure of neighbourhoodpolicing teams creates an organic, commu-nity-focused style of policing.16 But theprogramme requires considerable invest-ment and will fail without a steady andenduring financial commitment.

Private policingThe creation of a host of private and com-munity-based organisations designed toprevent crime, improve law and order,deter criminality, catch law-breakers,investigate offences and resolve conflict haseroded Government’s monopoly on polic-ing.17 These groups include private securitycompanies, neighbourhood watch organi-sations, volunteers and city wardens.

Where statistics are available, they showthat the private security industry is growingfaster than public policing.18 In the majorityof developed countries, private police nowoutnumber public police; in Britain andCanada there are twice as many private secu-

rity guards as police provided by the State.19

The increase in the number of private polic-ing firms and employees is reflected in a shiftin public perception of private security; ithas proved itself as a necessary supplementto the state police service.20

Report layoutChapter two analyses the difficult financialsituation that police forces face. We arguethat modernisation is essential. Increasedefficiency and cost reductions will berequired if locally focused policing is to bebalanced with consideration of thedemands of Level 2 and 3 crime. Chapterthree discusses how to balance neighbour-hood policing and serious cross-bordercrime fighting. Chapter four investigatesresilience and the implementation ofworkforce modernisation.

In Chapter five we turn to case studiesfrom Australia and New Zealand. TheAustralian case study examines how reformof the rank structure changed the country’spolice resulting in the creation of theAustralian Federal Police and the excellentprogress made in the integration of policeofficers and civilian staff. The second casestudy discusses New Zealand’s substantialreview process and forthcoming PolicingAct, which will reform recruitment andworkforce practices. We use these overseasexamples to suggest ways in whichEngland and Wales could adopt successfulmodernisation.

Chapter six argues that police forcescould achieve greater cash savings throughpublic-private partnerships, the contract-ing out of services, increasing roles forcivilians and greater privatisation.

Chapter seven sets out our conclusionsand outlines a course of police reform thatwould give forces the financial flexibilitythey need in the face of reduced govern-ment spending.

15 Delivering a Step Change inPolice Productivity, Home Officeunpublished paper, 2006

16 Loveday B and McClory J,Fitting the Bill: Local Policing forthe 21st Century, PolicyExchange, June 2007

17 Bayley D, “The Future ofPolicing,” Law and SocietyReview, vol 30, no 3, 1996, pp585-606

18 Ibid

19 Johnston L, The Rebirth ofPrivate Policing, Routledge, 1992

20 Shearing C, “The RelationBetween Public and PrivatePolicing”, in Tonry M and Morris N(eds) Modern Policing, Universityof Chicago Press, 1992

Introduction



2 The impending funding crisis

Summary Although there has been considerableinvestment in the police service, it is diffi-cult to assess accurately how effectively thespending increases of the previous ten yearshave been deployed. The Government’srecord on crime reduction is mixed at best.There is substantial room for improvement

in the handling and deployment of policeresources. Poor use of resources, rapidlyrising police costs and pension commit-ments will exacerbate problems arisingfrom the 2007 Comprehensive SpendingReview. This agreement, outlining policefunding from 2007 to 2011, has usheredin a new era of financial restrictions during

8

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Figure 2: Police community support officers

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Figure 1: Police officer numbers


which Home Office funding will increaseby only 1.1 per cent annually in real terms.

Resource trendsOne of the most striking features of polic-ing in England and Wales in the past tenyears has been the steady increase in fund-ing. In 1996-97, total gross police revenueexpenditure amounted to £8,578 million.A decade later the figure was £12,015 mil-lion.21

What have increased expenditurelevels achieved?The total number of police officers andnon-sworn staff rose from 180,000 in1997 to 227,000 in 2007. During thatperiod 33,000 non-sworn staff were addedto the police workforce.22 Figure 1 showsthe expansion of police officer numbersfrom 1990 to 2006. Figure 3 shows theexpansion from 1995 to 2006, and reportsthe sources of funding that have con-tributed to the expansion.23

Since 1995 domestic burglary and vehiclethefts have fallen by 59 and 60 per centrespectively.24 But according to a recentreview by the Centre for Crime and JusticeStudies, Labour’s record on crime reductionhas been unimpressive.25 Its performance onviolent crime has been particularly poor.

Police statistics for recorded crime showed a21 per cent increase in violent crime between2002-03 and 2005-06. However, the BritishCrime Survey reported a 14 per cent decreasein violent crime over the same period.26

From 1998 to 2006, there was a 20 percent increase in offences brought to jus-tice.27 This figure implies an improvementin police performance, however these fig-ures include a significant number of warn-ings, cautions and penalty notices for dis-order. In the year to March 2006, 5 percent of such offences were official warningsfor cannabis possession, 25 per cent werecautions and 8 per cent were penaltynotices for disorder.28 In other words, thenumber of convictions as a proportion ofoverall police interventions remains low.The most recent Home Office statisticssupport this assertion: for every 100 BritishCrime Survey estimated crimes, there wereonly three convictions.29 As it stands, thebest assessment of Labour’s record on vio-lent crime is mixed to poor, with differentstatistics painting contradictory pictures.

Where does the money come from?Each of the 43 police forces of England andWales is based loosely around county bound-aries and their administration is balancedbetween central control and regional autono-my. A complex mixture of national and local

21 Police Statistics 2004-2005Actual, CIPFA, London 2006, p 4(data adjusted using December2006 deflator)

22 Police Funding, Home AffairsSelect Committee, op cit, p 4

23 Council tax is not depicted inthe 1995-96 column because thered section represents new coun-cil tax since 1995. The darkerblue section is money from thecrime fighting fund, which wasestablished to boost recruitmentand allowed chief officers torecruit 9,000 extra officers, fromMarch 2000

24 CCJS, Ten Years of CriminalJustice under Labour: anIndependent Audit, Centre forCrime and Justice Studies,, 2007,p32, citing Walker A, Kershaw Cand Nicholas S, Crime in Englandand Wales 2005-2006, HomeOffice, London 2006, p 85

25 Ibid

26 A recent article published byCivitas highlighted the method-ological discrepancies within theBritish Crime Survey, includingcapping the number of crimesthat could be recorded againstindividual victims. We note thatthe national crime recording stan-dard (adopted in 2002) has bothincreased the apparent level ofviolent crime and made interna-tional comparisons difficult

27 Police Funding, Home AffairsSelect Committee, op cit, p 7

28 Ibid

29 Ibid, paragraph 15

The impending funding crisis


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Figure 3: Sourcing of funding for police officer increases


funding, derived from a combination oflocally levied police precepts and centralgrants from the Home Office, mirrors thestructural arrangement of the service.

Central grants are divided into a num-ber of individual categories, such as stan-dard spending, capital spending, specialpolice grants and central support services.(Some have time limits and forces areexpected to continue providing servicesfrom the general grant once specific fund-ing is withdrawn.) The police reform andresources directorate at the Home Office is

responsible for managing police grantfunding. The breakdown of funding variesby police force and each is given a specificgrant allocation in accordance with thepolice funding formula. The percentage ofrevenue derived from police preceptsranges from 18 to 50 per cent.

Local fundingThe funding trend for local police preceptshas followed a different year-on-year pathfrom that of overall funding. As Figure 5

Footing the bill

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30 House of Lords, Hansard,HL2673, 31 January 2006, seewww.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60111w07.htm

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Figure 4: Percentage of police force budget funded by council tax

Police authorities are responsible for securing funding, determining budgets for their forces and

charged with administering "efficient and effective police forces". They raise revenue by levying pre-

cepts on council taxes from district councils and unitary authorities, which are added to council tax

bills. In addition, police authorities receive specific grants from the Home Office, calculated on the

police funding formula, which uses a range of socio-demographic factors to assess the relative needs

of each authority. Grant allocations also take into account a police authority's ability to raise revenue

via the police precept.30

Police authorities are corporate bodies that comprise local authority councillors, three local magis-

trates and five independent co-opted members. They have the power to appoint or dismiss the chief

constable and senior police officers. In theory, these independent bodies consult widely with local peo-

ple to find out what they want from their police. They then set local policing priorities based on citi-

zens’ demands and targets for their achievement. Following the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act

1994, police authorities were required to publish a three-year plan outlining the strategic priorities and

a report at the end of each year. Police authorities are also responsible for monitoring their own per-

formance targets, ensuring the force achieves best value, overseeing complaints against the police

and disciplining senior officers. Despite this broad range of duties, their most important functions are

establishing budgets, raising funds and distributing resources.




reveals, the proportion of police expendi-ture financed through council tax preceptremained broadly constant from 1997 to2002. However, in 2003 it jumped almost7 per cent to just over 20 per cent.

Funding: 2007-11Central funding grants from the HomeOffice are set to fall. And given the dispar-ity between police precepts per person invarious police authorities, some forces willbe much harder hit than others. Policeauthorities will naturally want to raisepolice precepts to cover the shortfall.However, the Government has capped the

average increase of council tax for 2007-08, at 5 per cent.31, 32 Although there is noofficial cap on police precept increases,police authorities face a de facto capbecause of the 5 per cent limit on counciltax increases. Figure 6 illustrates the realincrease of police expenditure funded bycouncil tax and central government overten years.

At a recent round-table discussion of theAssociation of Police Authorities, JimSmith, chairman of the Surrey PoliceAuthority, argued that the formula thatdetermines funding grants for police forcesfavours metropolitan areas over shire coun-ties. Surrey, for example, is funded at the

31 A guide to the LocalGovernment Finance Settlement,Department for Communities andLocal Government, 2006, p 11

32 Police Funding, Home AffairsSelect Committee, op cit, para-graph 41

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Figure 6: Cumulative funding increases

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Figure 5: Cumulative funding increases


level of a rural force, although it receives anextra 15-20 per cent London weighting.34

The APA concluded that, in order to com-pensate, central government shouldremove the cap on local authority counciltax. Surrey is not alone. Julie Spence, thechief constable of Cambridgeshire, hascriticised the funding formula for takinginsufficient account of population increas-es due to immigration.35 Speaking inSeptember 2007 she said: “We’ve beenshort-changed for a number of years, los-ing money as the population continues togrow. The profile of the county haschanged dramatically and this simply isn’t

taken into account when the governmentallocates funding.”36

Police cost increasesWithout efficiency savings, inflation andrising costs within the police servicemean that an annual increase in spendingof 5 to 7 per cent will be required toguarantee a constant level of service. Thefollowing diagrams illustrate the increas-ing cost of policing and the factors thatdrive it.

Figure 7 charts the increasing cost ofpolicing against the rate of inflation as

Footing the bill

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33 The table represents thenational level of inflation in realterms and each police authoritywould have a different proportionof council tax to governmentfunding

34 “Funding Fallout”, PoliceProfessional, 9 August 2007, p 25

35 “Police chief fears migrantimpact”, 19 September 2007,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7001768.stm

36 Ibid

Table 1: Police budget 1997-08 to 2007-0833

Year Budget Council Tax Government

1997-98 6,431,675 785,007 5,646,668

1998-99 6,658,841 818,439 5,840,402

1999-2000 6,851,534 933,903 5,917,631

2000-01 7,100,984 1,026,958 6,074,026

2001-02 7,427,050 1,121,697 6,305,353

2002-03 7,712,292 1,239,223 6,473,069

2003-04 8,078,937 1,391,487 6,687,450

2004-05 8,420,878 1,628,580 6,792,298

2005-06 9,143,157 2,054,593 7,088,564

2006-07 9,650,892 2,335,291 7,315,601

2007-08 10,148,523 2,487,540 7,660,983

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

1995/96 1998/99 2001/02 2004/05

RPI - All Index

Police Service

Inflation

%

Figure 7: Police cost increases against RPI




measured by the retail price index (RPI).Theoretically, the two should move in tan-dem, but specific items, such as police pen-sions, have driven up costs. Between 1998

and 2007, the cost of police pensions hasmore than doubled, a trend that can onlyworsen as more and more police officersretire. (Numbers leaving the police rose

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Figure 8: Police service expenditure on pensions

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Figure 10: Proportional spend of the police budget (actual)

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Figure 9: Proportional spend of the police budget (percentage)


from 5,849 in 2000 to 8,773 in 2006.)37

Figure 8 shows the expenditure on policepensions from 1998 and the expectedfuture expenditure up to 2013.

Key factors contributing to thebudget shortfall Police use of resourcesThe Home Affairs Select Committeereport of July 2007 was critical of thepolice service for not making the mosteffective use of funding.38

Figure 11 plots the actual increases inpolice budgets (light blue line) againstthose increases adjusted for police costs(dark blue line), illustrating how risingcosts of policing can lead to real budgetreductions, even if the budget increases innominal terms.

A 2006 Treasury report stated: “Theway that police forces manage both budg-ets and people remains short of best cur-rent practice in both private and publicsectors.”39 It went on to explain that “therelationship between value for money andoperational performance as two sides ofthe same coin is too often not under-stood.”40

It recommended areas where changecould deliver greater efficiency: using man-

agement and performance data better;spreading best practice (adopting privatesector management techniques); identify-ing skills required and introducingimproved levers and incentives for bettergovernance.41

Last year, the Audit Commission estab-lished a board to assess police use ofresources. It found that 33 per cent of forceswere performing “adequately” and 65 percent of forces were performing “well”.42 Onlyone force received an “inadequate” rating,but none achieved a rating of “strong per-formance”.43 The report concluded that “theability of police authorities and forces toassess and improve value for money at a localand neighbourhood level remains underde-veloped.”44 The commission recommended:45

� Making better use of activity data,such as information on police officertime, to assess how resources are beingapplied to activities within local areas

� Working with partners to improvedata and financial performance man-agement systems, to understand valuefor money at a local level and to directresource to priority areas in the bestway

� Using benchmarking and performancedata to review resource use and deter-

Footing the bill

14

37 Ten Years of Criminal Justiceunder Labour: an IndependentAudit, Centre for Crime andJustice Studies, op cit, p 54


39 Delivering a Step Change inPolice Productivity, HM Treasuryunpublished paper, 2006

40 Ibid

41 Ibid

42 Police Use of Resources2005-2006, the AuditCommission, March 2007

43 Ibid

44 Ibid

45 Ibid

1995/0

6 -

1996/0

7 -

1997/9

8 -

1998/9

9 -

1999/0

0 -

2000/0

1 -

2001/0

2 -

2002/0

3 -

2003/0

4 -

2004/0

5 -

2005/0

6 -

70 -

60 -

50 -

40 -

30 -

20 -

10 -

0 -

-10 -

Actual Increase

Adjusted for

Police Cost Inflation

Cumulative budget increases, actual and inflation adjusted

%

Figure 11: The effect of increases in police costs on funding increases


mine the best method for provision ofservices

� Developing mechanisms to assess anysavings to be made and to ensure valuefor money from partnerships and col-laborative working

The inefficient use of police resourcesstems from a wider failure to develop asystem of benchmarking the effectivedeployment of resources and gauging theindividual productivity of police officersand non-sworn staff. Efficiency and effec-tiveness are the two most importantmeasurements of the performance of bothpublic and private organisations. Effectiveorganisations are those which meet thechallenges they are confronted with andwhich satisfy demands for service andsolve problems.46 An effective police forceconverts its resources into successfuldetection, prosecution, deterrence andpublic reassurance. Efficiency, on theother hand, is defined in terms of cost perunit of delivery and efficient organisa-tions are those which convert inputs intooutputs with the minimum necessaryorganisational effort.47, 48

There are two categories of HomeOffice efficiency savings targets: cashableand non-cashable:

“A cashable gain is where resources, equiva-lent in magnitude to the level of the improve-ment, could be extracted and redeployed else-where. Non-cashable improvements are thosewhere it would be more difficult to extractresources but where improved efficiency andeffectiveness can be measured in terms of theircash equivalent cost.” 49

An example of cashable savings could be areduction of time spent on sick leave, put-ting more officers on the frontline withoutincreasing salary costs. An example of non-cashable savings could be securing a betterprocurement deal, for example buyingCCTVs more cheaply than before.

In 1999 the Home Office introducedthe first efficiency savings targets for allpolice authorities, setting an initial goal of2 per cent of annual net revenue expendi-ture. The current target is 3 per cent (ofwhich 1.5 per cent should be a cashablegain). According to the APA and ACPO,police authorities have delivered an aver-age efficiency gain of 2.7 per cent (1.1 percent cashable) over the period 1999 to2004.

The Government has announced that anyfunding shortfall in the ComprehensiveSpending Review settlement “will have to bebridged by efficiencies that release cash orincrease capacity from which additionaldemand can be met”.50

Pensions crisisThe system for financing police pensionschanged on 1 April 2006. Under the newpolicing pension system, police authoritiesno longer pay pensions out of their operat-ing accounts but out of a separate pensionsaccount, into which officers’ contributionsare paid, in addition to a new employer’scontribution. If there is a shortfall in anyyear it is topped up with a grant from cen-tral government; if there is a surplus it isrecouped by the Home Office. Althoughthe system removes some of the pensionsburden from police authorities, it is divert-ing Home Office resources from meetingoperational costs.

Police pensions are funded on a pay-as-you go basis. Almost all current pensioncosts result from historical legacies: forceswith a more mature workforce thananother will have a higher level of costs.The only elements of pension costs thatare under individual police force controlare ill-health pensions and injury awardsexpenditure, where there is some varia-tion between forces, reflecting the rela-tive ability of management to controlthem. Information on the costs of ill-health pensions and injury awards is cur-rently not collected, although HM



46 Skogan W, “Efficiency andEffectiveness in Big City PoliceDepartments”, PublicAdministration Review, vol 36, no3, 1976

47 Ibid

48 Police Standards Unit, PolicePerformance Monitoring, HomeOffice, London 2003

49 Efficiency Technical Note,Home Office, 2005, p 1



Inspectorate of Constabulary is expectingto do so shortly.

Implications for policingA recent APA and ACPO survey of chiefconstables from 17 forces found fourwho could quantify the potential impactof the funding deficit. They predictedthat average manpower cuts would beequivalent to about 74 police officers;two of them further suggested that therewould be reductions of some 30 non-sworn staff.51

According to the APA, since 80 per centof police budgets are dedicated to main-taining staffing levels (funding staff pay), areduction in funding will lead to cuts inpersonnel. In July 2007, Bob Jones, chair-man of the APA, did his best to calculatethe probable effects of the impendingfinancial shortfall by estimating the dropin overall police officer numbers acrossEngland and Wales. “Depending on howyou actually choose that mix…you couldbe talking about a move [from the currentnumber of 141,000 police officers] downto 135,000-136,000.”52 This would be areduction of about 4 per cent.

Tony McNulty, Minister of State forPolice, has acknowledged that budget cutsover the next few years will result in cuts inpolice officer levels. Given this admission,the Department for Communities andLocal Government should reassess its posi-tion on the 5 per cent cap on annual coun-cil tax increases. It will need to assess eachpolice authority’s financial needs on a case-by-case basis, particularly in light of theimpending financial crunch.

According to evidence that ACPO andthe APA submitted to the Home AffairsSelect Committee, “analysis of policebudgets has consistently shown that thepolice service needs annual net resourceincreases of at least 5 per cent includingRPI in order to stand still”.53 The table

below reveals the extent of the projectedfunding shortfall.

The APA claimed that an 8 per centfunding increase was necessary to meet thedemands for the financial year 2007-08,but the final Comprehensive SpendingReview settlement for 2007-08 promisedonly a 4.69 per cent increase. As a resultthe recruitment of police community sup-port officers (PCSOs) has been scaledback. The Labour Government has alsoreduced the proposed numbers of centrallyfunded PCSOs from 24,000 to 16,000,undoubtedly to the detriment of neigh-bourhood policing teams.

The APA also gave evidence to theHome Affairs Select Committee that thefunding gap had already resulted in “use ofreserves, deferring and rescheduling plans,holding posts vacant, temporary reduc-tions in service, applying cash limits fromthe centre, not supporting partnerships,and accepting lower quality at the mar-gin”.54

ConclusionThere is a startling lack of a clear, compre-hensive modernisation agenda to stem theeffects of the police funding shortfall. Thepolice service has reached a critical junctureat which the case for a programme of mod-ernisation has never been more pressing.

51 Sustainable Policing: the Casefor Resourcing the Police Service2008-09 to 2010-11, ACPO andAPA, November 2006, p 30


53 Sustainable Policing, ACPOand APA, op cit, p 34

54 Police Funding, Home AffairsCommittee, op cit, paragraph 40

16

Footing the bill

Table 2: Gap in police funding

Gap in £m

CSR year Optimistic Realistic

2007-08 380 391

2008-09 582 656

2009-10 718 831

2010-11 633 966


55 Singer L, ReassurancePolicing: An Evaluation of theLocal Management of CommunitySafety, Home Office, November2004, p 27

56 Innes M, “ReinventingTradition? Reassurance Policing,Neighbourhood Security andPolicing”, Criminal Justice, vol 4,no 2, 2004, p 154

57 National Police ImprovementAgency, “What is NeighbourhoodPolicing?”http://www.neighbourhoodpolicing.co.uk/

58 The national intelligence modelis designed to help senior man-agers formulate strategic direc-tion, make tactical resourcingdecisions and manage risk


3 Fighting on two fronts: neighbourhood policing and serious cross-border crime

SummaryThis chapter discusses the challenge of bal-ancing neighbourhood policing and seri-ous-cross-border crime. Neighbourhoodpolicing seems to be effective and theGovernment should recognise its impor-tance. Much has been made of collabora-tion efforts between police forces to closethe gap in protective services, yet most ofthese efforts remain at a developmentalstage. Collaboration has great potential forproducing efficiency gains and cost-savinginitiatives.

Challenges of neighbourhood policingWhat is neighbourhood policing?The introduction of neighbourhood polic-ing marked a shift in police priorities andthe deployment of resources from responsepolicing to community engagement andcrime-prevention. The initiative isdesigned to improve public confidence inthe police, to minimize fear of crime andreduce crime itself.

One of the goals of neighbourhoodpolicing is “reassurance”, a vague term thatthe Home Office has defined as plannedpolice engagement with the public throughhigher levels of visibility and accessibility.55

In other words, people are reassured whenthey feel that a sense of order prevails andsecurity is present.56 The programme alsoemphasises the importance of public confi-dence in the police for the perceived legit-

imacy of the service. There is also anemphasis on three primary mechanisms:targeted neighbourhood foot patrols, com-munity engagement to identify neighbour-hood priorities and a joint problem solvingapproach.

The neighbourhood policing initiativehas created neighbourhood policing teamsthat are responsible for patrolling a givenarea on a regular basis, forming lasting rela-tionships with the community they serve.According to the Home Office, “Eachpolice force is working with partners andcommunity members to define these neigh-bourhoods which may vary from force toforce. A neighbourhood is usually a geo-graphic area, which is of a size that bestserves the needs of the local communitiesreflecting the people that live within it.”57

These teams usually comprise a mix ofpolice sergeants, police constables, PCSOs,community wardens, special constablesand volunteers. They are designed to workin close contact with other agencies withinlocal crime and disorder reduction partner-ships – the bodies created to promote pub-lic safety.

The development of neighbourhood polic-ing in England and Wales: chronologyDuring the 1990s, police strategy was builtaround the national intelligence model andintelligence-led policing.58 While the policeservice still follows this model, it has beensupplemented by a revived community-


based approach. The shift in emphasis wasthe result of Labour’s national reassurancepolicing programme.

In terms of policy formulation, theneighbourhood policing initiative gainedmomentum after HM Inspectorate pub-lished Open All Hours.59 This reportassessed the visibility, accessibility and thereassurance capacity of police on the street.It came on the heels of the neighbourhoodmanagement programme which was“aimed at tackling quality of life issues at acommunity level”.60

Between 2002 and 2004, theGovernment laid the foundation for neigh-bourhood policing with a number ofsmaller projects including the togethercampaign, the community engagementproject and the safer neighbourhoods pro-gramme.

In October 2003, the police standardsunit of the Home Office officiallylaunched the national reassurance policingprogramme to develop 16 trial sites involv-ing eight police forces including Surreyand the Metropolitan police. It was a pre-cursor to neighbourhood policing andbrought reassurance policing into the poli-cy mainstream.

In April 2005, the neighbourhoodpolicing programme was officially

launched; however, it remains in a nascentstage. It wasn’t until the national recruit-ment campaign of community supportofficers in August 2006 that neighbour-hood policing looked as if it would get offthe ground.

Does it work?Similar schemes are also relatively new inother parts of the world. The Chicagoalternative policing strategy programme isthe only one that has been subject to rigor-ous evaluation. The review was encourag-ing, showing that local policing initiativescan be sustained over time. Initial reviewsof the national reassurance policing pro-gramme show improvements in public per-ception of the police service throughneighbourhood policing. These resultswere achieved without any changes in offi-cer staffing levels, but through more effi-cient use of their time.

Community-based policing has beensuccessfully implemented elsewhere inAmerica on a smaller scale. A study of twocities: Flint, Michigan and Newark, NewJersey illustrated the effect on the percep-tion of citizens of increased, visible neigh-bourhood foot patrols. In Flint, 70 percent of citizens interviewed said that theyfelt safer as a result of increased police

59 Open All Hours: a ThematicInspectionRreport on the Role ofPolice Visibility and Accessibility inPublic Reassurance, Home Office,2001

60 “What is neighbourhood man-agement?”, Department ofCommunities and LocalGovernment website,http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/page.asp?id=577

18

Footing the bill

The Chicago alternative policing strategy (CAPS) employs officers on long-term assignments in spe-

cific parts of the city’s 279 beats. Keeping dedicated officers on a beat allows more sustained inter-

action with the community. Officers are expected to spend most of their time responding to calls and

working on prevention projects in their assigned areas. Rapid response units are assigned to excess

or low-priority calls, so that the police do not spread themselves too thin on the beat.

Each officer has been trained in a five-step problem-solving process. Emphasis is also placed on

city partnerships and the programme relies on the CAPS implementation office, which is composed of

civilian community outreach workers and non-profit community organisations.

Localism is an important feature of CAPS. In 2000 a new planning and management process made

the districts themselves responsible for identifying local priorities, planning strategies and executing

them.

The lessons to note from the success of CAPS are: the autonomy enjoyed by the 279 beat officer

teams; the community involvement (beat meetings and CAP implementation office); public awareness

of the CAPS programme (just over 80 per cent of residents surveyed); and the positive impact on pub-

lic confidence in police.


patrols, especially when the patrolling offi-cers were highly visible and well known toneighbourhood residents.61

However, the track record of previouscommunity-based policing programmes inEngland and Wales is poor. Local trials ofsimilar programmes showed a failure todeliver and there have been difficultieswith police agencies implementing prob-lem-solving strategies on numerous occa-sions. Problem-solving policing advocatesattending to the patterns and causes ofcrime and disorder in order to preventthem. Intelligence is gathered throughcommunity engagement so that the under-lying causes of crime can be identified anddealt with pro-actively. An “evaluation” ofa neighbourhood policing trial in theMetropolitan Police Force during the1980s found that the trial had never takenplace.62 A more recent pilot project, at NewEarswick in Yorkshire, failed to deliver thepromised increased police visibility, thusdamaging police credibility.63

The only robust review of neighbour-hood policing – a 2006 review of thenational reassurance policing programme –was positive overall. This work underlinedthe importance of foot patrols targeted onhotspots of crime, community engagementand collaborative problem-solving inreducing levels of crime.64 Potentialimprovements were also identified – themost interesting was increased public par-ticipation in setting the priorities of thepolice.

What does neighbourhood policing cost?It is difficult to ascertain the full cost ofneighbourhood policing; it is likely thatsome areas will need more resources thanothers and these should be adjusted on anad hoc basis. Building the capacity toimplement neighbourhood policingrequires improved training to instil thefoundations of problem-solving policing.

Additional resources need to be dedicat-ed to neighbourhood policing teams. Ken

Livingstone, the Mayor of London, recent-ly allocated an additional £44 million tocover the expected full cost of neighbour-hood policing in London for 2007-08.However, this supplementary grant is only1.6 per cent of the £2.8 billionMetropolitan Police budget.

All the evaluations of neighbourhoodpolicing have identified the need for sus-tainability and the challenge of maintain-ing a long-term commitment to the initia-tive – a problem in some US pilot sites. Itsimpact on resources is bound to be feltunder a tighter Comprehensive SpendingReview settlement. In England and Wales,the Government’s failure to fulfil its prom-ise of 8,000 additional PCSOs could bethe first in a series of setbacks.

Serious-Cross Border Crime: theneed for collaboration The protective services gap: a new directionThe new threats of the 21st century havechallenged the traditional model of polic-ing in Britain. The attempted car bomb-ings in London and Glasgow, the Suffolkmurders, and human trafficking are allexamples of the new terrain police findthemselves in. HM Inspectorate ofConstabulary discussed the changing land-scape of serious crime in a 2005 report,Closing the Gap, which identified areas ofweakness in the police’s ability to deliverprotective services.65

Since the Government decided not toproceed with its planned police forcemergers, it has been looking to collabora-tion between forces to fill the gap in pro-tective services. The details are being devel-oped by the Home Office in partnershipwith ACPO, APA, HM Inspectorate andthe national policing improvement agency(NPIA). The programme will developmethods for assessing priorities when deal-ing with threats. Other goals include settingminimum standards for protective services,requiring police authorities to demonstrate

61 Silverman E and Della-GiustinaJ, “Urban Policing and the Fear ofCrime”, Urban Studies, vol 38, no5-6, 2001, pp 941-57

62 Irving B, Bird C, Hibberd Mand Wilmore J, NeighbourhoodPolicing: A Natural History of aPolicing Experiment, PoliceFoundation, 1989

63 Crawford A, Lister S and WallD, Great Expectations:Contracted Community Policing inNew Earswick, Joseph RowntreeFoundation, 2003

64 Tuffin R, Morris R and Poole A,An Evaluation of the Impact of theNational Reassurance PolicingProgramme, Home Office, 2006

65 Closing the Gap, HMInspectorate of Constabulary,2005

Fighting on two fronts: neighbourhood policing and serious cross-border crime



efforts of collaboration and the develop-ment of monitoring and inspectionregimes to assess forces against ACPOstandards and protective service needs.

We believe that collaboration should betaken further and also encompass a widerange of police support issues, such as pro-curement of police resources and sharedservices (for example, custody centres).Bob Golding, former assistant chief con-

stable of Warwickshire, has highlighted thepotential efficiency gains of greater collab-oration in support services and procure-ment, which would lead to cashable sav-ings for forces desperate to bridge thefuture funding gap.66

Collaboration in 2007The process of instilling a culture of co-operation and collaboration between forces66 Interview with Bob Golding,

Policy Exchange, 19 July 2007

20

Footing the bill

Figure 12: The spectrum of collaboration

No Collaboration

Mutual support

Ad hoc collaboration

Lead Force

Legally binding

collaboration

Strategic alliance

Federation (Service

Driven)

Merger Voluntary

Centrally coordinated

collaboration

Directed Sharing

Federation (centrally

driven)

Merger imposed by

Home Sec.

Limited in scope

One off Venture

Specialist lead force

One off venture

Covers several areas of

collaboration

Creation of a separate entity

Complete interoperabillity

Central guidance / shaping

for the ‘greater good’

Home Secretary Compels

joint working / sharing

Creation of a separate entity

Complete interoperability

Commitment not always

tested

Set up to deliver specific

benefits

Example: City of London &

fraud investigation

Forces liable to financial

penalty if agreement

breached

Bottom up: Locally driven,

Long term

Reverse delegation / legal

obligation

Authorities make applica-

tion to Homer Sec

Incentives to secure ‘buy in’

Sec 23(5) Pol Act

Centrally driven for ‘greater

good’

H/Sec uses powers under

S. 32 PA

No guarantees

Not legally binding but may

be subject to an M o U

Regional Lead Force:

Provides a platform for fur-

ther collaborative ventures

Separate governance and

funding

Sec 32(3)a Pol Act

Example: Mutual

aid through PNICC

Example: Central

Motorway Police

Group (W. Mids)

Example: West

Mids & CTSU

Example: 3

Counties Police

Investigation

Centres (PFI

Custody)

Example: British

Airways & Oneworld

Example: Regional

Crime Squads

(1964)

Example: NHS

Shared Business

Services Ltd

Example: Creation

of FireBuy Ltd

Example: National

Crime Squad (1998)

Loca

lly d

rive

n

Pos

sibl

e en

able

rs: I

ncen

tivis

m, f

undi

ng s

trea

ms,

per

form

ance

indi

cato

rs

Pos

sibl

e ba

rrie

rs:

Exi

stin

g le

gal

fram

ewor

k en

able

s co

llabo

ratio

n bu

t do

es n

ot e

ncou

rage

it.

(Lim

itatio

ns o

n du

ties

of P

olic

e au

thor

ities

to

secu

re s

ervi

ce in

it’s

are

a (S

ec 6

of p

olic

e ac

t)


67 Based on an unpublishedACPO document on collabora-tion, 2006

Fighting on two fronts: neighbourhood policing and serious cross-border crime


is moving at an unacceptably slow pace.Because the idea itself was an afterthoughtfollowing the failed 2006 police forcemergers, the implementation process hasbeen disjointed.

Collaboration exists in various formsacross a spectrum and each stage can beillustrated by examples from either thepolice service or private industry. The spec-trum of collaboration is illustrated by fig-ure 12. Table 3 gives a more detailedaccount of collaboration.67

Collaboration can be driven in twoways: locally or centrally. We believe local-ly driven, bottom-up efforts of collabora-tion are likely to be the most successful. Ofcourse, central government maintains animportant role; by setting guidelines andpromoting best practice, the Home Officecan, and should, encourage efforts of col-laboration, without forcing mergers.

The first stage of collaboration is mutu-al support, which carries no formal com-mitment or guarantees of support. An

Table 3: Details of collaboration

Type of collaboration Advantages Disadvantages

No collaboration Involves minimal risk and limited change; retains established Risk is randomly distributed; the status quo

arrangements for governance fails to maximise efficiencies

Mutual support

Ad hoc collaboration Can be established to meet a specific need; success Has to be set up from scratch; liable to fall apart when

can be measured interests cease to be mutual

Lead force Staff and function remain the responsibility of the lead force; Loss of sovereignty; may lead to de-skilling

clear accountability - command and control

Legally binding collaboration Tends to be more enduring in long term Requires considerable expertise to set up an agreement;

mistakes can be costly; inflexible

Strategic alliance Plenty of examples in private sector May inhibit collaboration outside the alliance

Federation (voluntary) Provides a viable long-term and durable solution Complex; requires the active participation and involvement

of all forces and authorities; once federated services

functions cannot be reclaimed

Merger (voluntary) Achieves full interoperability and integration Significant costs and risks; long-term venture

Centrally co-ordinated collaboration Creates corporate memory; facilitates sharing No guarantee that forces and authorities will commit

of good practice and ideas

Directed collaboration and sharing Home Secretary takes action for greater good Limited in scope

Federation (directed) Erodes the tripartite system of accountability;

mergers unlikely in current political climate

Merger (directed)


example of mutual support would be thepolice national information and co-ordina-tion centre. The next step is ad hoc collab-oration, which is delivered on a case-by-case basis for a one-off venture of co-oper-ation. Moving further across the spectrum,collaboration could entail the creation of aspecialist lead force, responsible for a spe-cific service over a given geographic area,such as the Serious Fraud Office. The nextprogression would be a strategic alliancebetween forces.

Compared to other options of collabo-ration, strategic alliances offer the bestrange of benefits. A strategic alliance coversseveral areas of collaboration betweenforces, delivering more than an increasedcapacity for protective services.Commitment in strategic alliances, thoughnot legally binding, is not prone to falter,as it is driven locally over the long-term tothe benefit of all parties. The bottom-upnature of strategic alliances also provides aplatform for further collaborative ventures.Unfortunately, the sole example of thisdegree of collaboration is the shared servic-es programme for the South West devel-oped by the forces of Avon and Somerset,Devon and Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire,and Gloucestershire.

The Home Office is running pilot pro-grammes to promote collaborationbetween forces:

� Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire,Merseyside, and North Wales areestablishing a joint team to tackle seri-ous and organised crime

� Derbyshire, Leicestershire,Lincolnshire and Northamptonshireare co-operating on a joint witnessprotection programme

� Essex and Kent are developing a sys-tem of strategic command for air andsea ports

� Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire areestablishing joint crime units

� Humberside, North Yorkshire, South

Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are cre-ating a policy unit for undercover offi-cers

� Surrey and Sussex are drawing togeth-er protective services into an integrat-ed specialist operation

Poorly managed collaboration can be dam-aging. The central motorway patrol group,involving four forces, has suffered fromdisputes concerning procurement, con-tracts and human resources. Warwickshirepolice force recently withdraw from thisscheme due to financial reasons. Seniorofficers are concerned about some forensiccollaboration schemes and even the count-er-terrorism units that were subject to arecent review by the Office of GovernmentCommerce.

Improved collaboration with otheragencies (fire and ambulance services, theCoastguard Agency, local authorities,health bodies, the Environment Agency) isimportant for incidents that are covered bythe Civil Contingences Act 2004 (an avianflu epidemic, for example). However,Gloucestershire police’s investment in acommon control room with the fire servicewas undermined by national decisions toset up regional fire control rooms.

Conclusion Home Office efforts to develop a pro-gramme for collaboration between forcesare being carried out too slowly and in apiecemeal fashion. Moreover, the vastmajority of collaboration programmes arefocused on protective services only. Weenvisage a broader system more akin to aset of strategic alliances, in which collabo-ration leads to efficiency gains throughjoint procurement and shared services, aswell as best practice in terms of employ-ment frameworks and human resourcespolicies. But these programmes need bothup-front investment and appropriatelytrained staff.

22

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4 “Resilience” and workforce modernisation

SummaryGiven the challenges of sustaining neigh-bourhood policing under a tighterComprehensive Spending Review, imple-menting workforce modernisation careful-ly and considerately is more importantthan ever before. It involves risks as well asinitial investment but, if employed correct-ly, should provide a substantial increase inefficiency savings. We believe that a com-prehensive programme of workforce mod-ernisation is needed and that it shouldinclude items that tap the potential cost-savings of public-private partnerships.

What is workforce modernisation?The goal of workforce modernisation is tocreate a more cost-effective service throughthe efficient deployment of personnel. Thisimplies matching specific skills to particulartasks, rather than depending on police con-stables to fill catch-all roles, a much moreexpensive practice. According to the HomeOffice, “Workforce modernisation is a termused to describe a range of initiatives thatseek to improve performance, efficiency andfrontline policing. One key element is forforces to make the best use of staff, particu-larly new roles introduced under the PoliceReform Act.”68 It is important to note thatworkforce modernisation is not the same as“civilianisation”.

What is “resilience”?As police forces shift from employingcatch-all to specialised staff, attention must

be given to the concept of “resilience”.Essentially, this is the capacity of an organ-isation – enough staff with enough skills –to perform in the face of unforeseen andstrenuous events. A study commissionedby the national policing improvementagency (NPIA) discussed various defini-tions of the concept. The most transfer-able, from an international strategy for dis-aster reduction, defined resilience as “thecapacity of a system, potentially exposed tohazards, to adapt, by resisting or changingin order to reach and maintain an accept-able level of functioning and structure.”69

A report by HM Inspectorate in 2006argued that “the service and forces need todefine and specify a level of operationresilience, linked to preferred policingstyle, in order to manage risk and experi-ment creatively with the mix of staff with-out threatening core responsibilities”.70 Itadmitted that it did not know what theappropriate number of police would be toensure this.71

Resilience risksModernisation poses risks in threecatagories: planning, implementation andintrinsic.72

One aim of modernisation is to matchstaff skills to the task at hand. Alreadynon-sworn personnel instead of officersare being used to gather evidence. Theyare equally capable of fulfilling the role,and at a reduced cost.73 However, plan-ning is necessary to make sure that

68 Best Value Review ofWorkforce Modernisation,Bedfordshire Police Authority,March 2006, p 5

69 International Strategy forDisaster Reduction, Terminology,http://www.unisdr.org/eng/library/lib-terminology-eng%20home.htm

70 Modernising the PoliceService, HM Inspectorate ofConstabulary, op cit, p 99

71 Ibid

72 Maintaining OperationalResilience, National WorkforceModernisation Programme, NPIA,2007

73 Operational Resilience,National Workforce ModernisationProgramme, NPIA, unpublished2007



74 Operational Resilience, NPIA,op cit

75 Ibid

76 Ibid

77 Ibid

enough staff with the required authorityand skills are available when a situationchanges. Planning risk can be understoodin the context of smarter use of resourcesin pre-planned operations. For example,community support officers with limitedlegal powers could be used to man cor-dons, and the risk of their being unable todeal with an escalation is minimised byhaving a contingent of fully warrantedofficers available nearby.

Implementation risks are transitionaland arise during the process of modernisa-tion, when the number of officers is beingreduced and additional specialised non-sworn staff are recruited. In order to offsetthe risk due to loss of experienced staff andthe hiring of untrained personnel, forcescould employ retired officers in non-swornstaff roles, which would bolster skills dur-ing a period of transition.

There are a number of individual skillsand powers which are required but it isimpossible to know in advance when, whereor in what quantities they will be needed.There is an intrinsic risk that these skills willnot be available when needed. This appliesparticularly to:74

� Tasks that require specialists, eg use ofweapons, specialist equipment or ani-mals

� Tasks that may require the power ofarrest, eg stop and search and breath-testing

� Tasks where the need for a wide rangeof skills and powers are inherentlyunpredictable, eg public order (riot)policing

Drivers of resilience riskThe NPIA has identified four situationsthat require resilience. The first, day-to-daypolicing, covers contingencies where theman-power demands are known. Plannedoperations, the second type of situation, areone-off and could require specialists andcritical resources, such as armed response

units. Previous experience of policing bigfootball matches or large demonstrationscan be used to assess the level of staff andskills required for adequate resilience.75

The third category is foreseeable situationsthat remain unpredictable in terms of whenthey occur.76 Examples include protests atanimal testing facilities, nuclear or chemicalleaks at refining-processing plants and floodson major rivers. To prepare for such eventual-ities, a solid basis of collaboration and mutu-al aid agreements between forces is crucial.

The final category covers events that areunpredictable in terms of where and whenthey will occur, and on what scale. Theseevents tend to involve the police at aregional or national level and wouldinclude a terrorist attack or an aircraftcrashing on a motorway.

Different types of situation require dif-ferent degrees of collaboration. Figure 13indicates where responsibility lies in differ-ent situations. The first, and largest area ofpolice responsibility, will be covered atforce level. Beyond the force level, there arepre-planned operations or foreseeable situ-ations where neighbouring forces wouldcollaborate. The regional bar encompassesevents needing multi-force collaboration.Finally, national collaboration covers

24

Footing the bill

Unpredictable

situations

Foreseeable

situations

Pre-planned

operations

Day-to-day

policing

Natio

nal

Regio

nal

Neig

hb

ouring

Forc

e

Figure 13: Resilience risk77


unforeseen events that require co-opera-tion and assistance from forces across thenation.

Individual forces must be ready for thefirst three types of events: day-to-day polic-ing, planned operations and (to someextent) foreseeable situations. An individualforce can rely on neighbouring forces toprovide assistance for events that need moreresources than day-to-day policing. By thesame token it must be able to assist itsneighbours when called upon. This meansthat national resilience calculations must beoverseen by staff at a national level.

Maintaining resilienceThe NPIA has outlined steps to help policeforces to maintain acceptable levels ofresilience in these four situations as theymodernise. The first step is to defineacceptable day-to-day service standardsand determine resources that are requiredto meet these standards. The statement ofrecommended practice (SORP) frameworkis useful in helping to define the requirednon-sworn staff, officers and resourcesrequired to maintain minimum standardsof acceptable resilience.78 This requiresmaking observations of current demandson skills and resources, as well as identify-ing trends. An example, given in the NPIAdocument, is establishing a minimum serv-ice standard for attending to burglary: Ascene-of-crime examiner should attend allreported burglaries within 12 hours.79 Toensure resilience in meeting this standard,police forces need to know the current(and predicted) trends in burglaries,matching their staffing model to coincidewith demand. Moreover, forces need totake into account the length of time anexamination takes, as well as travel time.

The second step is to identify servicesthat can be downgraded, or even suspend-ed, in a crisis. Essentially, this means estab-lishing situations that weigh heavily onpolice resources and personnel, such as aterrorist attack or large-scale disaster, and

then determining what services can bedowngraded or suspended in the event ofsuch occurrences. The third step is thedevelopment of mobilisation plans forcrises. This goes beyond planning howmany constables and sergeants will beneeded in a large-scale disaster, and focus-es on how every different set of skills with-in the force (civilian and otherwise) canbest be deployed. According to the PAConsulting report, planning for specificeventualities would establish a more accu-rate baseline of the resources that are likelyto be needed.80

The fourth step is checking that forcelevel plans are adequate at regional andnational strategic levels as well. Chief con-stables need to address the risk to resiliencenot only at Basic Command Unit (BCU)and force levels but, where collaboration isnecessary, on regional and national levelstoo. Collaboration is a key component ofmodernisation and so resilience must beconsidered across force borders.

Resilience and workforce modernisationThe final step is to establish an accurateminimum requirement for each individualskill and police power in day-to-day polic-ing, in particular types of pre-planned oper-ations, and during a large-scale crisis (takingdowngraded service into account). Thiswould provide a baseline of the requiredresources.81 Once this is established, relevantskills and powers should be translated intoroles and staffed accordingly.

Simultaneously meeting the challenges ofincreased resource demands arising fromneighbourhood policing, addressing the pro-tective services gap and implementing aneffective programme of workforce moderni-sation depends on understanding resilienceand how to prepare for the risks involved. Itis imperative that the police service contin-ues to explore the issue of resilience andestablishes a consistent understanding andapproach to dealing with the risks of everysituation faced by forces.


“Resilience” and workforce modernisation

78 Operational Resilience, NPIA,op cit

79 Ibid

80 Ibid

81 Ibid


ConclusionWe argue that full workforce modernisa-tion is needed now. If the police service isto deliver an adequate level of perform-ance against a backdrop of decliningresources, workforce modernisation willneed to push ahead at a pace. We areextremely encouraged by the 11 work-

force modernisation pilot sites that arerunning, but there is still a significant cul-tural resistance to reform within thepolice service. The level of understandingof resilience is inadequate and recommen-dations for risk management must beincorporated into programmes of mod-ernisation.

82 “Police staff undervalued”, 17June 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2997130.stm

83 Job Evaluation: ReviewInstigated by the Police Authority,Devon and Cornwall PoliceAuthority, 2006, http://www.depa.police.uk/je_rev/index.htm

26

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Cultural resistance to workforce modernisation

An independent survey of non-sworn staff working in Scotland’s eight police forces found that,

although working flexibly to accommodate change and modernisation, they were “held back by old

fashioned lack of status, lack of managerial support, low pay, unequal pay, and discrimination”.82

According to the survey:

� 50 per cent of non-sworn police staff did not feel valued by the police service

� 63 per cent believed that there was still a status divide in the service between non-sworn police

staff and police officers

� 76 per cent reported that workload levels had increased

� Less than half of non-sworn police staff had a personal training plan

� 66 per cent stated that stress levels had grown

In response to the survey, Unison argued that the employers needed to ensure that non-sworn staff

received training support, professional status and adequate salary to tackle the increase in duties

undertaken.

The experiences of non-sworn police staff in Scotland are similar to those in England and Wales,

where the status divide between non-sworn police staff and police officers is the subject of continu-

ing debate. The low status accorded to non-sworn police staff was revealed within the Devon and

Cornwall Constabulary in 2004, when the chief officer team embarked on a job evaluation exercise

before the introduction of performance-related pay. Responsibility for the evaluation was delegated to

a chief superintendent who, like the team he led, had no knowledge of evaluation methods or any

technical expertise in this complex area of management. The same officer was also required to retain

his day-to-day responsibility for the policing of South Devon.

The announcement of pay cuts for hundreds of non-sworn police staff, and the staff walkout that

followed, highlighted the cultural barriers that continue to operate within the police service. Despite the

complexity of the job evaluation and its potential for a highly damaging, a subsequent report for the

police authority noted a lack of interest and involvement by senior management in the project’s

progress and implications.83


5The sky did not fall: lessons from Antipodean workforce modernisation

SummaryExamples of clear engagement by policeservices in workforce modernisation arelimited. This chapter considers the mod-ernisation and police reform processembarked upon in the Australian FederalPolice (AFP) and the New Zealand Police.Both have a range of criminal justiceresponsibilities and operate in commonlaw jurisdictions.

The AFP is one of eight police forces(six state and two territory jurisdictions) inAustralia. It has introduced ten-year fixedterms of employment for all staff, whohave become employees of the commis-sioner – a significant change those previ-ously employed as sworn officers.

In New Zealand, reform of police legis-lation has been underpinned by changes toorganisational structures and police pow-ers, which are included in the forthcomingPolice Act 2008.

Australian Federal PoliceContextThe AFP operates at federal level as well asbeing responsible for one of the two territo-ries. It was created nearly three decades agoout of a number of separate police jurisdic-tions – the Australia Capital TerritoryPolice, Commonwealth Police, theAustralian Customs Service and the Bureauof Narcotics. All of these bodies had intelli-gence and security responsibilities, and in

the case of the Commonwealth Police thisincluded protection for the Prime Ministerand other government officials.

The force has 6,400 personnel. Its respon-sibilities are to enforce Commonwealth crim-inal law and protect national interests fromcrime in Australia and overseas; to provideintelligence and security at a national andinternational level including domestic air-ports; and to police the Australian CapitalTerritory. The AFP’s senior officer holds therank of commissioner.

Programmes of reform have been criti-cised in Australian academic circles foroveremphasising the economic values ofefficiency and cost containment.84,85 Twocritics also claimed that “the move toreconstruct police services as corporateentities was resisted vigorously by seniorpolice officers, rank and file police andtheir unions. Nevertheless, the restructur-ing of several police jurisdictions includedthe introduction of … strategic planningand performance management.”86 But ourinterviews with senior police officers sug-gest that the benefits of unification, espe-cially the flexible use of staff, greaterexpertise and broader career opportunitieswithin the service, have been realised.

ChronologyIn the late 1980s, as a result both ofincreased involvement with law enforce-ment abroad and of pressure from theAustralian Government, the AFP

84 Dixon J and Kouzmin A, “Thecommercialization of theAustralian public sector: compe-tence, elitism or default in man-agement education?”,International Journal of PublicSector Management, vol 7, no 6,1994, pp 52-73

85 Mulgan R, “Academics, publicservants and managerialism’’,Canberra Bulletin of PublicAdministration, No 78, August,1995, pp 6-12

86 Fleming J and Lafferty G,“New management techniquesand restructuring for accountabili-ty in Australian police organisa-tions”, Policing: An InternationalJournal of Police Strategies &Management, vol 23, 2000, pp154-168



87 Structural Efficiency, AFPunpublished document,1991

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embarked on an unprecedented pro-gramme of internal reform as the organisa-tion was encouraged to modernise work-force practices.

Reforms included a reduction in thenumber of police ranks (1988); the align-ment of police support staff with policeranks to create a unified force; and grant-ing the commissioner chief executive sta-tus (1990). The Police Act 1990 retainedthe traditional appointment regime, pre-scribed in the Australian Federal PoliceRegulations of 1979, whereby police offi-cers were appointed to a position withina rank – initially constable. (Promotionwas an appointment to a position withina higher rank.) In 1995, further reformlead to the creation of a flexible team-based structure. A year later all ranksbelow deputy commissioner were abol-ished and AFP employees became “feder-al agents”.

Reduction in police ranksSenior AFP teams quickly realised that thetraditional police structure, characteristicof many common law jurisdictions, wasone of the barriers to efficient policing.This structure was autocratic, centrallycontrolled, highly regulated, and hierarchi-cal. Moreover, there was limited mobilitybetween law enforcement agencies and alack of recognition of non-policing qualifi-cations.

In response to the shortcomings of thetraditional police structure, the AFP estab-lished a review of rank structure in 1988.This review argued that the AFP rankstructure – consisting of 11 ranks – wasunsustainable: “The existing … levels fromconstable, up to and including assistantcommissioner, are excessive, resulting in alack of distinction between management,supervisory and operative levels. This hasled to confusion, ineffective decision-mak-ing, and reluctance to accept responsibili-ty.”87 As a result the rank structure was cutto five ranks, as illustrated in Table 4.

In 1996 all ranks below deputy commis-sioner were abolished and members of theAFP were reclassified as federal agents.This change was designed to allow theAFP to reward the skills of the individualrather than the value of the job they occu-pied. Previously, employment arrange-ments under two legislative provisions(and 22 pay awards) had prevented theeffective deployment of personnel, due toan overcomplicated payment structure.By simplifying payment awards, the AFPhas made more cost-effective use of per-sonnel. It also allows a greater degree ofequality between sworn and non-swornstaff than is seen in England and Wales,which encourages more efficient use ofthe entire workforce.

The introduction of a unified workforcecan only be achieved after careful prepara-tion and evaluation. In the early stages, theGovernment commissioned a managementconsultancy to study the benefits of mod-

Table 4: 1998 career structure review

Previous ranks Revised ranks

Constable

First Constable Constable

Senior Constable

Sergeant

Senior Sergeant Sergeant

Station Sergeant

Inspector

Chief Inspector Superintendent

Superintendent

Chief Superintendent Commander

Assistant AssistantCommissioner Commissioner


88 There was no evidence of anycollapse in morale or motivationwhen membership was widenedto include all civilian staff

89 Appointment to team leader orco-ordinator is based on compe-tence, not rank or seniority. Ateam leader is responsible foreffectively managing a team of upto ten members. Team co-ordina-tors act as advisers, facilitatorsand resource providers to clustersof teams. They are also responsi-ble for managing the training anddevelopment of team members

90 Structural Efficiency, AFPunpublished document,1991

The sky did not fall: lessons from Antipodean workforce modernisation


ernisation, including on rates of pay. Oneof the indicators of value was flexibility.

The “Work Value Study” identified pro-fessional skills and areas of expertise. Thestudy proposed nine bands of pay, eachgrouping together equivalent functions,whether performed by sworn or non-sworn staff.

Fixed-term contractsThe 1988 review had also challenged theassumption that policing was a life-longcareer, an idea that encouraged the employ-ment in clerical positions of burnt-out offi-cers awaiting retirement, that demotivatedyounger employees and increased sicknessbenefits. Fixed-term appointments wereintroduced, coupled with new personnelpractices such as promotion on merit ratherthan seniority alone, lateral entry and flexi-ble starting salaries.

Commissioner as chief executiveIn 1990 the commissioner was given chiefexecutive status with the power to hire andfire all staff. The office of constable wasabolished and all competent and qualifiedemployees were declared to be members ofthe AFP, employed by the commissioner.Members could also be declared to be of aparticular rank (sergeant, superintendent)for the purpose of exercising powers specif-ically assigned by law to that rank.

This move, which allowed managementto address poor performance, was support-ed by the AFP Association because it rep-resents the interests of both sworn staff andnon-sworn staff.88 The commissioner isalso able (under the 1901 InterpretationAct) to unilaterally decommission an offi-cer, ending that officer’s status as constable.This power can be exercised on medicalgrounds, in which case the officer willassume a non-operational role.

A unified workforceIn 1994 the AFP decided that flexibleteams – composed of police officers and

civilian staff – were the key to effectivepolice investigations. In common withmany forces, AFP employees range fromtraditional police patrol officers to highlyskilled civilians such as forensic scientists,forensic accountants, information technol-ogy personnel and scene-of-crime officers.

To improve the use of human resourcesthe AFP abolished its existing operationaland support teams and replaced them withteams whose size and composition is dic-tated by the task in hand. Each team isresponsible for assigning tasks to teammembers, the supervision and conduct ofinvestigations and the use of allocatedresources.89

Overcoming cultural barriersWorkforce modernisation is not only amatter of instituting new pay structures orteams, cultural barriers also have to be sur-mounted. As the AFP noted: “employeeswere working side by side undertaking thesame duties, but subject to different classi-fication systems, rates of remuneration,terms, conditions of employment and dis-ciplinary regimes. These inequities were adisincentive to building multidisciplinaryteams and a cohesive corporate identity.

“Effective deployment of employees,which is at the heart of the unified work-force concept, depends upon flexible atti-tudes to the demarcation of work. Thedevelopment of purpose designed teams ofspecialists, targeted to a specific criminalinvestigation was made unnecessarily diffi-cult by union attitudes on who shouldwork with whom and who should leadoperations – police or civilians.”90

Within the AFP, police officers are nowreferred to as “members” (sworn officers)exercising all the traditional powers of con-stable. Working alongside them are non-sworn staff, designated as “staff members”.(All personnel in the AFP can apply to bea member; when a member takes up a non-sworn police role, he relinquishes his mem-bership status.)


91 Interview with Agent Millar,AFP HQ, Canberra, July 2007

92 The public response to allaspects of the reform programmehas been carefully documentedand fully publicised. See also thebackground information availableat: http://www.policeact.govt.nz

93 Policing Bill 2007, NewZealand Parliament, 18 December2007

94 Public views on policing,Police Act Review, August 2007,p 21

95 Issues Paper 3: Employmentarrangements, Police Act Review,August 2006, p 3

96 At 30 June 2007 there were8,114 sworn members, comple-mented by 2,771 non-swornmembers, Annual Report for yearended 30 June 2007, NewZealand Police, October 2007,p 98

97 Police Act Review - Paper 3: Amodern police workforce struc-ture, Office of the Minister ofPolice, September 2007, p 3

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The office of constableThe office of constable has traditionallybeen viewed as the bastion of police inde-pendence and operational freedom; how-ever it also encourages retention of the sta-tus quo and existing police culture. In theAFP it has been abandoned as a barrier tochange; everyone is now an employee ofthe commissioner. One officer in Canberratold us: “When the office of constable rolewas removed, the sky didn’t fall”.91

ConclusionThe experience of the AFP provides anumber of pointers for those involved inpolice reform in England and Wales: a sys-tem of transferable police powers, a criticalexamination of the value of the office ofconstable, requiring the police federationto admit all staff and empowering chiefconstables to act as chief executives of theirforces. We also believe that the number ofranks could be cut in England and Wales asa useful first step to modernising theorganisational structure.

New ZealandContextThe New Zealand Police Force has justconcluded a comprehensive public con-sultation on a review of the 1958 PoliceAct.92 The review, begun in 2006, evalu-ates the structure of policing and consid-ers governance, accountability, conduct,ethics, employment and workforce struc-ture. The Policing Bill was introduced tothe New Zealand Parliament on 18December 2007. It sets out “first, to con-firm and strengthen police governance,accountability arrangements in a way thatis suitable for a contemporary age; andsecond, to improve the police’s effective-ness, especially by updating humanresource management provisions, and byestablishing a clear framework for theexercise of policing powers by particularpolice employees.”93

An evaluation of current police employ-ment and human resource arrangements is acentral pillar of the review, and public opin-ion has strongly supported the modernisa-tion proposals.94 The review offers furtheranalysis and exploration of potential reformsfor establishing a unified police service,which would effectively end the historicaldivide between sworn and non-sworn staff.

ChronologyThe dominance of sworn officers in thepolice culture of New Zealand stems from itsbeginnings in the early 19th century.Enduring characteristics include:95

� A quasi–military rank structure� A predominantly uniformed service� Employment based on ‘fit and able’ cri-

teria� Appointment of senior officers under

warrant by the Governor� Access to policing powers through tak-

ing a constabulary oath of office� Dismissal based on breach of legislative-

ly–defined standards

As in Australia, police officers are identifiedas “sworn members of police” and constituteover three-quarters of total personnel.96

The 1989 amendments to the Police Act,which placed civilian police staff under theemployment of the commissioner as “non-sworn members”, created two complemen-tary categories of police employees. At thetime, this was viewed as a significant stepforward, but since then “it has grownincreasingly clear that having two types of‘members of police’ divides more than itunites.”97

The Police Act Review reveals that currentlegislation divides police by erecting barriersto the transfer of staff and skills within theservice. Police staff are organised accordingto their sworn or non-sworn status.Although all staff are known as “members ofpolice”, the sworn/non-sworn divisionremains a driving factor in police organisa-


tion. Employment structures do not allowfor an intermediate step in status; all swornmembers take the statutory oath of office,and in doing so, access the powers of a con-stable.98

Within this structure, specialists requiringconstabulary powers are only recruited from(currently serving) sworn members of thepolice service. There is no provision for civil-ian recruitment or training for skill-specificroles that require constabulary powers.

Police managers are largely unable toemploy people in a limited-powers capacityand there are few lateral entry opportunities.Moreover sworn officers can only choosefrom designated sworn positions whendeciding on career development options andnon-sworn jobs are only available if swornmembers first resign or retire and then seekre-employment as non-sworn members.

The need for flexibility and specialisation There has been a growing recognition with-in the profession of the limitations of currentpolice employment structures. More flexibil-ity is required and more specialisation. Theneed to confer specific police powers onpolice staff reflects the difficulty in trainingsworn staff to deal with every aspect of con-temporary crime. Examples are technology-based crimes requiring specialist understand-ing or technical skills, international organ-ised crime groups, including cyber crime,complex fraud offences and terrorist threats.New police initiatives, such as child protec-tion and neighbourhood policing, alsorequire increasingly specialised skills. Suchlevels of specialisation are unfamiliar to mostpolice constables.

Proposed new Policing ActBuilding on the review, the Minister ofPolice has circulated a series of papers toher Cabinet colleagues, seeking support forthe elements of a new framework of legis-lation. Two of these Cabinet papers – out-lining proposals for a modern police work-

force structure and detailed elements ofnew employment arrangements – appearto be immediately applicable to the policeservice in England and Wales. The paperdealing with structural reform of the policeworkforce argues that a new Policing Actshould:99

� Support the commissioner’s ability toemploy a workforce with the range ofskills, powers and protections needed tomeet current and future policingdemands

� Confirm a workforce model thatenables the setting of unified employ-ment terms and conditions, featuring anew single code of conduct and solemnundertaking for all employees

� Formally recognise the office of consta-ble, and update the constabulary oath,while widening the commissioner’s abil-ity to assign targeted policing powers tospecific categories of police employees

� Facilitate talent flows, including tempo-rary secondments to and from thePolice, and better allow for leadershipdevelopment at senior levels

� Make provision for a future registrationsystem for police professionals, buildingon the existing certification programme

Creating a unified workforce requires ateam-based approach The proposed employment structure is thecentrepiece to New Zealand’s reform pro-gramme. It is designed to enable the policeservice to establish a greater mix of appropri-ately empowered staff to contribute to indi-vidual and community safety “covering thefull range of policing duties, from minorincidents to major emergencies”.100

Forces need to recruit trained specialistswho, on joining the service, can be grantedspecific police powers, allowing them tocontribute to policing immediately. Agreater mix of personnel, exercising a rangeof police powers, will effectively end theage of the omni-competent constable, and

98 Issues Paper 3: Employmentarrangements, Police Act Review,August 2006, p 5

99 Police Act Review - Paper 3,op cit, p 1

100 Ibid, p 1




introduce a more sophisticated and flexibleapproach to policing. Such a system aimsto deploy staff with the right skills andpowers to deal with the varying demandsthat may arise.101

Division by category undermines thecreation of a strong service ethos and gen-erates public confusion over policeresource levels. To address this, and theevolution of the police commissioner’sresponsibilities as an employer over thepreceding quarter of a century, the pro-posed Policing Act will refer to all staffemployed by the commissioner as “policeemployees”.

The Minister explains in one of themost recent Cabinet papers: “The effect ofthis change will be to remove the labels‘sworn’ and ‘non-sworn’ from police legis-lation, and not divide police employeesinto two separate membership categories.Police employees will be able to pursuecareer changes within the police more eas-ily, and it will be clearer that all policeemployees provide valued services togeth-er.”102

The allocation of policing powersWidening the powers of police staff is acentral part of the review. In doing so,however, there has been a commitment toretain the ‘office of constable’. Policy mak-ers have argued for the importance of pre-serving the strength and versatility of theconstable’s role; but against reliance on theconstable as the only key actor in policing.

Under the proposed legislation, allpolice employees will have employmentcontracts. When the “mixed economy”workforce is implemented, decisions willbe jointly made about the skills, powersand protections that each employee needsto contribute most effectively. There is anexpectation that, depending on careerand professional demands, a person mighttake on and be released from the office ofconstable at different points in a policecareer. It is specifically envisaged that a

police employee would cease to be a consta-ble if he or she were to agree with the com-missioner to set aside this status.103

If a position is a frontline policing role,involving full use of constabulary powers,the employee will need to be trained as aconstable and to have taken the constable’soath. However, under proposed legislation,should such an individual seek anotherpolice role that he or she is qualified tohold, but that does not require full con-stabulary powers, the sworn/non-swornstatus barriers that currently apply willhave no place.

Under the proposed Policing Act, specificstatutory policing roles will be established tocreate a wider policing remit for non-swornpolice employees. These roles will extend tosearch and arrest powers, when and whereappropriate. The level of flexibility and spe-cialisation gained under the reforms willprobably encourage further innovation inthe workforce. The aim of the reforms is toalign specific police specialist responsibilitiesto future demands on the police service, inturn facilitating direct entry into police forspecialised positions.104 Fundamentally, thereview seeks to establish an employmentstructure that enables the commissioner todeploy a more flexible and cohesive work-force.

Early priorities for statutory policingroles will include:105

� Protective service officers � Guards at the scene of a crime, jailers

and prisoner escorts, � Investigative officers � E-crime specialists

Sustaining the new police workforcemodelThe Policing Act will require that recipientsof police powers are “suitably qualified toexercise assigned powers, duties or func-tions”.106 This is likely to come from certifi-cation, indicating appropriate training andpolicing skills.

101 Police Act Review - Paper 3,op cit, p 1

102 Ibid, p 3

103 Ibid, p 5

104 Police Act Review, IssuesPaper 3: Employment arrange-ments, August 2006, p 11

105 Police Act Review - Paper 3,Office of the Minister of Police,September 2007, p 6

106 Ibid, p 6

32

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107 Police Act Review - Paper 3,Office of the Minister of Police,September 2007, p 8

108 Ibid, p 3

109 Ibid, p 3

110 Building Communities,Beating Crime, Home Office,2004, p 113

Further expansion of a certification sys-tem would be sustained by the introductionof a policing registration board. Currentlythere is no formal basis for linking certifica-tion of members’ skills to employment andno formal body to monitor and adjudicateon the currency of members’ certification.The creation of a registration board isexpected to help to professionalise the policeservice and establish a more united work-force.107

In support of the unified approach, acommon code of conduct will be introducedalong with a solemn undertaking to be takenby all police employees. Additionally, plansare in place to draw the police organisationcloser to the rest of the public sector. This isconsidered crucial to the overall success ofreform.

At present sworn officers are not coveredby the employment provisions of the StateSector Act 1988. Consequently, sworn staffare treated differently to all other employees.This is most apparent in wage bargaining,union representation and access to generalemployment institutions. The discrepancyhas sustained the perception of police excep-tionalism, which is now seen as more likelyto harm than protect the organisation and itsmembers.108

Future public sector employment legisla-tion will encompass the police workforce,with special provisions applied only wherethere is a compelling case to do so. Webelieve that police employees should havesimilar employment rights and responsibili-ties to those of all other state sector work-ers.109 However, police employees exorcisingfull police powers will not be eligible to takeindustrial action, ie strike.

ConclusionNew Zealand’s proposed police reform planprovides a radical, and persuasive, blueprintfor England and Wales to follow. But anysuch plan first requires broad acceptance of

the need for change. In New Zealand, thecommissioner, the police minister and thepresidents of the two main police serviceorganisations all support modernisation. InEngland and Wales, however, recognition ofthe need to modernise the workforce hasbeen far from unanimous and the mecha-nisms for instituting reform are disjointedand uncoordinated.110 However, the recentestablishment of workforce modernisationpilot sites offers some hope that more consis-tent and comprehensive reform may be pos-sible.

The New Zealand policing review has rec-ommended maintaining the constable as acentrepiece of the police service, but alsointroducing greater flexibility. Staff will beable to move between constabulary and non-constabulary roles, taking up and relinquish-ing certain police powers as necessary, asdetermined by the commissioner. This willprovide a level of flexibility for officers tomove into new roles without having to leavethe force in order to rejoin in a differentcapacity.

The third noteworthy recommendationof the New Zealand review is the ability toconfer police powers on civilian staff whereapplicable. Again, this proposal will afford agreat deal of flexibility to the police service,allowing specialists in a diverse range ofinvestigatory functions to temporarilyassume powers of search and arrest.

The final lesson to be taken from theNew Zealand experience is the extent towhich the review process has involvedengagement with the public. The NewZealand Government and police have con-ducted a comprehensive public consulta-tion, which has demonstrated overall pub-lic support for the reform programme.

New Zealand’s proposed workforcemodel is likely to become operational inthe very near future, providing an extreme-ly helpful roadmap for a similar policereform programme in England and Wales.


6Public-private partnerships and private finance initiatives

SummaryPrivatisation of state-owned industry hasbeen a feature of public policy in Westerndemocracies fo the last 30 years.111 TheLabour Government has followed thistrend, establishing public-private partner-ships as a mainstay of its public servicesagenda.

So far, research on public-private part-nerships (PPP) and private finance initia-tives (PFI), and the accompanying mediaattention, has centred on the healthcareand transport sectors. We believe that suchpartnerships could also help to deliver highperformance policing – if procurementpractices are improved. This report is mostconcerned, therefore, with questions ofdelivery, accountability and risk sharing, allof which are linked to contract negotiationand procurement.

What are public-private partnerships?A PPP is typically defined as “a risk-sharingrelationship between the public and pri-vate sectors based upon a shared aspirationto bring about a desired public policy out-come.”112 It enables capital projects andpublic services to be delivered by privatesector providers through a contract withthe State.

Development of public-privatepartnershipsDelivering public services through public-private partnerships was central to the

reform of public management during the1990s. The era of “new public manage-ment”, as it is called, was a response to thedemand for higher standards in publicservices. It was built around professional-ism, performance management, consumerorientation, marketisation, privatisationand efficiency.

In Partnership for Prosperity published inNovember 1997, Labour outlined its gen-eral support for PFIs and discussed plansto take advantage of the possibilitiesoffered by procuring private sectorproviders of public services.113 To drive thepolicy, the Government created the privatefinance task force, later replaced by thepermanent organisation, Partnerships UK.Labour’s commitment to these schemes isevident in the number and value of thecontracts it has created. By 2005, morethan 569 PFIs were underway or complet-ed through contracts worth more than £56billion.114

Advantages and disadvantagesProponents argue that these schemes deliv-er efficiency savings, improve service stan-dards, transfers risk from the public to theprivate sector and that expertise and pro-fessional management skills can be trans-ferred from the private to the public sec-tor.115

Andrew Smith, chief secretary to theTreasury in 2000, insisted that the PFI sys-tem “promises more essential services to

111 Edwards P and Shaoul J“Partnerships: for better, forworse?”, Accounting, Auditing &Accountability Journal, vol 16, no3, 2003, pp 397-421

112 Building Better Partnerships,Institute for Public PolicyResearch, 2002

113 Flinders M, “The Politics ofPublic-Private Partnerships”,British Journal of Politics andInternational Relations, vol 7, no2, 2005 pp 215-239

114 Ibid

115 Ibid

34


higher standard than otherwise would havebeen the case”.116 Moreover, in the case ofPFIs, where capital investment is required,private sector companies provide the invest-ment needed. A Treasury-commissionedresearch paper found that, based on a sam-ple of contracts, PFIs produced an averageestimated efficiency savings of 17 percent.117 However, critics argue that they rep-resent a “buy now, pay later” scheme thatlimits the options of future governments.

Their effectiveness often depends onwhich sector is involved: results are mixedacross the full range of sectors. In health-care, PFIs have not performed as well asintended.118

One of the perceived advantages of PFIsis that they transfer risk of investmentfrom the public to the private sector.However, Jean Shaoul argues that, theseprogrammes actually transfer risk from pri-vate industry to government and public (asconsumers and taxpayers).119 There havealso been concerns raised about theGovernment being too willing to bail outPFIs with public funds, as it did forScotRail in 2002.120

The longevity of PFIs and PPPs isanother drawback. Most contracts run forbetween 15 and 30 years. Pollack et alargue that the PPP provider would be in avery strong bargaining position if a futuregovernment wanted to renegotiate a con-tract.121 The process of negotiating the con-tract can itself be problematic. PPPs areuseful only when terms are right.

Public accountability can be anotherdifficulty. According to the Institute forPublic Policy Research, “PPPs, like manyforms of contracting for public services,disrupt traditional accountability struc-tures.”122 Troublesome contracts haveincluded the new computer system at thePassport Agency, the benefits payment cardproject at the Department for SocialSecurity and contracts to update theImmigration and Nationality Directorateat the Home Office. Each of these PPPs

has shown how difficult it is to maintainan adequate level of accountability in acomplex partnership.

Public private partnerships and policingAs demands for a higher level of servicemount, and the realities of reduced centralgovernment funding set in, the police serv-ice needs to be in position to deployresources intelligently to support the front-line. Outsourcing to private providersshould enable police forces to concentrateon their core responsibilities: reducingcrime, making policing citizen-focused,increasing detection and conviction ratesand combating serious and organised crime.

Outsourcing provides an opportunityfor police forces to keep administrativetasks from interfering with police priori-ties. Through greater openness to privatepartnership, there would be a more rapiddevelopment of the market in police sup-port services, allowing forces to outsourceoperations such as facilities management,IT and administration services.123

A small number of forces have begunincorporating partnerships into theirmodernisation plans. In partnership withReliance plc, the Sussex police force hasoutsourced the management of its cus-tody facilities. In most forces, prisonersare guarded by fully warranted police offi-cers, thus keeping officers off the front-line. Sussex police now needs fewer offi-cers to guard prisoners. Additionally,Reliance has achieved greater efficiency byreducing booking times from 20 minutesto nine.124

Delivering innovationIn a 2006 report, the Confederation ofBritish Industry (CBI) argued that privateprovision of public services leads to greaterefficiency through innovation. Our inter-views, focus groups and site visits corrobo-rate the CBI. Private providers are drivenby market principles to deliver a higherlevel of service at lower cost. By holding

116 Public-Private Partnership s–The Government’s Approach, HMTreasury, 2000

117 Value for Money Drivers inthe Private Finance Initiative, HMTreasury/the Office of GovernmentCommerce, London 2000

118 Grimshaw D et al, “GoingPrivately: Partnership andOutsourcing in UK PublicServices”, Public Administration,vol 80, no 3, 2002 pp 475-502

119 Shaoul J, “A FinancialAnalysis of the National Air TrafficServices PPP”, Public Money andManagement, vol 23, no 3, 2003pp 185-194

120 Smith M, “Executive’s £70bailout for Scotrail”, EdinburghEvening News, 7 March 2002

121 Pollock A et al “PublicServices and the Private Sector”,Catalyst, 2001

122 Opening It Up: Accountabilityand Partnerships, Institute forPublic Policy Research, 2004

123 Better Policing ThroughPartnership, Confederation ofBritish Industries, October 2006

124 Site visit and interviews withReliance and Sussex police, June2007

Public-Private Partnerships and Private finance initiatives



private partners to tough key performanceindicators (KPIs), police forces can ensurethat their goals are being met.

Partnerships can also be used to driveefficiency and innovation at the strategiclevel. West Midlands police has begun apilot scheme with the Criminal RecordsBureau (CBR) to deliver a record checkingservice. This allows specialist staff at theCRB to carry out checks against the force’srecords in a secure environment withoutsacrificing control of information.125

GSL has delivered custody services inCheshire, replacing 11 outdated city centrestations with three new custody suites.GSL was required to reduce the length oftime taken to arrest a suspect. Cheshirepolice authority also made getting moreofficers on the beat an explicit goal of usingprivately run custody centres. GSL wasable to deliver on both counts: using spe-cialised software to deploy police vansmore efficiently it has saved time andhuman resources.126

The business of collaborationCollaboration is often viewed purely interms of police strategy, as a solution to clos-ing the protective services gap. However, thesharing of services, combined with out-sourcing to private providers, could offercost savings to police forces.

Sharing of services has a lot to offer inback-office support functions. Neighbouringpolice forces could capitalise on economies ofscale and increased purchasing powerthrough joint partnerships with privateproviders of HR, finance and pensions, andIT services. This would offer not only signif-icant cost savings to police authorities, butwould also drive further growth and develop-ment in the police support industry—ulti-mately leading to a higher level of service forpolice forces.

Solutions for better outsourcingAs they establish how to best use privateproviders, the Home Office (specifically

the NPIA) must establish a consistent andeffective approach to procurement of pri-vate services and outsourcing contracts.

If the police service is to incorporatecost-saving outsourcing successfully into aprogramme of modernisation, it must laythe groundwork. First, it needs to developeasily replicable models of outsourcing.Contracts which are negotiated independ-ently without any proven framework canproduce poor outcomes for the police andthe public. Such a framework of best prac-tice in contract management and procure-ment will have to be developed by theNPIA.

Once a reliable and successful model hasbeen agreed forces will need to establishexactly what functions are carried out bysupport staff through activity-based cost-ing analysis. Then they can determinewhich tasks can be outsourced, andwhether or not this should be done in col-laboration with other police forces.Pensions and payroll administration areexamples of back office support functionsthat could be outsourced.

The final prerequisite for successful out-sourcing is to strike a balance between localcontrol over procurement and driving bestpractice from the centre. The NPIA needsto take responsibility for driving the devel-opment of contract negotiation frame-works, while building in a system for effec-tive local control and accountability.

Lessons for contract procurementA significant amount of time and effortmust be invested in preparation for anoutsourcing contract. Before possible sup-pliers are even contacted police forcesmust determine and clarify the objectivesof an outsourcing contract, which shouldequate to improved efficiency and cost-savings. They will also need to outlinetheir expectations of service delivery, theirstrategy of implementation and the levelof investment required in any outsourcingdeal. Again, the NPIA should develop a

125 Better Policing ThroughPartnership, Confederation ofBritish Industries, October 2006

126 Ibid

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Footing the bill


framework for the early stages of out-sourcing.

Finally, flexibility in contracts could bethe most important factor in whether ornot outsourcing is successful and whetherit results in significant cost savings for aforce. In the private sector, outsourcingcontracts have tended to run for shorterand shorter periods. We believe that this isthe best way for police forces to maintainflexibility and negotiating leverage overservice providers. Shorter contracts alsoallow for greater accountability. A 15-yearcontract could end in an expensive disaster,leaving a force with a long-term financialproblem.

Another trend in private sector out-sourcing is multi-sourcing. Companies areno longer using one umbrella contractor,who then sub-contracts to other providers.

Smaller, more specific contracts are becom-ing more popular because they can be tai-lored to the needs of clients. Using multi-ple companies for specific functions canalso bolster flexibility in procurement.

To extract the full benefits from out-sourcing and private partnerships, con-tracts need to be short term, flexible,accountable through key performanceindicators and possibly multi-sourced. TheNPIA should, through consultation withfinancial and consulting services experts,establish a training programme that wouldensure police forces are prepared to get thebest possible terms from private partner-ship contracts. Implementing successfuloutsourcing requires well trained procure-ment staff who can deliver top-quality per-formance. That means investment in pro-curement and contract management skills.

Public-Private Partnerships and Private finance initiatives



7 Recommendations

Our recommendations follow on from ourearlier report, Fitting the Bill, which sug-gested that the Government shouldrestructure the police in ways that ensurelocal policing is clearly linked to local com-munities.127 They are divided into four sec-tions:

1 Funding2. Collaboration3. Workforce modernisation4. Private provision

Funding � Remove the cap on council tax

increases, review the police fundingformula and institute local pay bar-gaining

Fitting the Bill argued for greater localaccountability and the creation, whereappropriate, of locally elected sheriffs ormayors to whom the police would beaccountable. To pursue local accountabili-ty further we recommend first, that the 5per cent cap that the Department forCommunities and Local Government hasimposed on local councils should be lifted.Secondly, rather than wait until 2010-11for the next scheduled review of the policefunding formula this should be carried outnow. The last full review took place in2005 and there has been relatively rapiddemographic change since. Thirdly, afterthe failure of the police negotiation andarbitration system in 2007, we believe thatthere is a case for local pay bargaining,which would allow a more flexible andeffective employment regime.

Collaboration� Collaborate through locally driven

strategic alliancesThere are a number of options for collabora-tion between forces, but strategic alliancesoffer the most effective and practical solutionto close the protective services gap.

A well-structured system of collaborationcould offer the police service a range of ben-efits, from procurement of police resources inbulk – achieving economies of scale withgreater buying power – to coordinating large-scale investigations that span police forceboundaries. But some senior police mangerslack the skills to manage these types of proj-ects successfully and there is an absence ofexternal quality assurance. Forces would ben-efit from a system that encourages reciproci-ty, accountability, and continuity. A centralrepository of information on best practicewould help forces to improve; more invest-ment in training and skills is also needed.

Workforce modernisation� Establish transferable police powersThe introduction of transferable powers ofarrest, search and seizure would maximisethe use of all police personnel and main-tain the ability of forces to deal with unex-pected crises (resilience). It would alsoallow them to respond to increasingdemands with fewer resources.

Transferable powers could be conferredon non-sworn members of staff by a chiefconstable on a temporary basis. This wouldbe particularly valuable for specialists deal-ing with areas such as cyber crime, fraudand identity theft.

38

127 Loveday B and McClory J,Fitting the Bill, Policy Exchange,June 2007


Recommendations


If the office of constable were abolished(see below), police officers would be ableto move between constabulary and non-constabulary roles, taking up and relin-quishing certain police powers as the chiefconstable deemed necessary. Police officerscould transfer to new roles without havingto leave the force and rejoin in a differentcapacity.

Transferable powers could also be con-ferred on police community support offi-cers in response to an unforeseen eventwhere demands on officer numbers weretoo great for a force to meet.

� Create unified employment arrange-ments for sworn and non-sworn staff

We argue for the introduction of unifiedemployment arrangements. The creationof a shared solemn undertaking for allpolice employees (while maintaining theconstabulary oath) would reduce the dis-tinction between sworn and non-swornpolice employees. All personnel should alsobe required to subscribe to a code of ethics.

These measures would begin to breakdown the cultural barriers that blockreform and workforce modernisation.

� Retain, but review, the office of constable

Countries such as Australia and NewZealand have questioned whether theoffice of constable is still valuable.

We believe that the office does providethe service with a high degree of flexibility,enabling it to respond quickly to the unex-pected. However, it may also be a barrier toinstituting the unified employment struc-ture needed for workforce reform.

We argue that the office of constableshould be retained while an immediatereview of rank structure is carried out.

� Encourage the Police Federation toadmit all staff

Any large-scale modernisation programmewill need to make progress in breaking

down cultural resistance to reform.Requiring the Police Federation to admitall staff, sworn and non-sworn, wouldbreak down cultural barriers betweensupport staff and officers, unifying theinterests of all police employees.

In both the Australian Federation ofPolice and the New Zealand Police Force,their respective police associations repre-sent all police personnel, sworn and non-sworn. Both staff associations believedthis serves to strengthen their status andnegotiating position with management.

� Improved use of performance meas-urement data

The police service is hindered by an over-bearing and archaic system of perform-ance management that skews priorities.The current system is in need of an over-haul that realigns police priorities withthe primary concerns of the citizens andpublic perceptions of safety.

Better use of performance data shouldalso extend to embedding key perform-ance indicators into the contracts of pri-vate partners providing support servicesto police forces.

� Expansion of non-sworn staff roleEvidence from police forces runningworkforce modernisation pilot schemesindicates that the employment of non-sworn staff in a wider range of roleswould be likely to improve police effec-tiveness.

The police service should be encour-aged to identify tasks presently carriedout by fully warranted officers, such as

“ The police service is hindered by an overbearing andarchaic system of performance management that skewspriorities”


guarding prisoners and securing crimescenes, which non-sworn staff could doat a much lower cost. As well as savingmoney, this would also release officers forfrontline duties. We believe that anexpansion of the role of non-sworn staffwould be a natural consequence of theeffective delegation of police budgets tolocal commanders. Such delegationwould begin to change the profile ofmany local police units as police com-manders make much wider use of non-sworn personnel.

� Identify and reduce “resilience” risksassociated with workforce modernisation

As forces begin a programme of moderni-sation and non-sworn staff take on newroles with greater responsibility, forcesmust make sure that they are still ready torespond to unexpected crises, such as ter-rorist acts. We argued in chapter four thatto mitigate these “resilience” risks forcesmust establish in advance their minimumoperational requirements and make plansnot to fall below them.

� Cutting the number of police ranks

The current structure of eight supervisoryranks above that of constable inhibitspolice effectiveness. At present it is onlypossible to reward good policing by pro-moting officers out of the job in whichthey have proved to be most effective.

A modern reward system should bebased on a streamlined structure of three tofour ranks, including constable, sergeantand superintendent, with bands of paywithin each rank.

� Chief constables should act as chiefexecutives in their forces

Chief constables should be given powers ofchief executives over their police force,making police officers and staff theiremployees. This reform would also allowfor local employment bargaining, withchief constables, rather than the HomeSecretary, dictating pay and conditions.

Private provision � Widen the use of private partnership Greater use of outsourcing has potentialfor cost-savings, and efficiency by makingmore officers available for frontline duty.The police service needs to identify whichsupport functions can be outsourced tocontractors that provide a cost advantage (adevelopment that local police commandersalready consider desirable).

� Strengthen procurement expertise atHome Office and at force leadershiplevel

The police service should make greater useof outsourcing options. The nationalpolice improvement agency is best placedto develop a standard framework for con-tract negotiation with private providers.

Contracts need to be short term, flexi-ble, accountable through key performanceindicators and possibly multi-sourced.After consultation with financial and con-sulting services experts, the NPIA shouldestablish a training programme that wouldensure police forces have well trained pro-curement staff able to get the best termsfrom private partnership contracts. Thatmeans investment in procurement andcontract management skills.

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Glossary

ACPO: Association of Chief PoliceOfficers is a professional police associationrepresenting members of chief officerteams: chief constables, deputy chief con-stables and assistant chief constables.

AFP: The Australian Federal Police wasformed on 19 October 1979 under theAustralian Federal Police Act 1979, afterthe merging of the former CommonwealthPolice and the Australian Capital TerritoryPolice. The AFP is responsible for policingthe Australian Capital Territory, the JervisBay Territory, Norfolk Island, ChristmasIsland and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands andalso provides protective services for, and onbehalf, of the Australian Government.

APA: Association of Police Authorities is anational association representing the interestsof all police authorities in England and Wales.

CBI: Confederation of British Industryis a not-for-profit organisation incorporat-ed by royal charter which promotes theinterests of its members, some 200,000British businesses. It is the foremost lobbygroup representing business in the UK.

CDRP: Crime and disorder reductionpartnership is an alliance of organisations,including police, fire service, NHS, localauthority departments, legal agencies andvoluntary agencies, that is required to gen-erate strategies for its area.

Community safety partnerships: partner-ships between local agencies to identifyand respond to crime and disorder withintheir local authority area.

COT: Chief officer team a team of officersat the force level, comprising chief consta-ble, deputy chief constable, and assistantchief constables.

CPS: Crown Prosecution Service isresponsible for prosecuting criminal cases.

Crime Levels: Level 1: local, high-volume crime charac-terised by antisocial behaviour, vandalismand petty theft. Level 2: more serious crime such as murderor organised crime. Level 2 crime oftenoperates across police force borders.Level 3: terrorism and international crimethat transcends national borders.

CSR: Comprehensive Spending Reviewis a governmental process in the UnitedKingdom carried out by HM Treasury toset three-year departmental expenditurelimits and, through public service agree-ments, defines the improvements that thepublic can expect from these resources.

HMIC: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate ofConstabulary examines and improves theefficiency of the police service in Englandand Wales.

KPI: Key performance indicators areused to measure the performance of organ-isations or individuals on a pre-establishedset of criteria. They can be used in out-sourcing contracts to ensure providers aremeeting their commitments to the client.

Mixed-Economy Team: a team of policeofficers that usually incorporates a ser-geant, police constables and communitysupport officers. The teams are most asso-ciated with neighbourhood policing.

NIM: National intelligence model is aninformation-based deployment system andcornerstone for the management of lawenforcement operations in England andWales. NIM identifies patterns of crimeand promotes a co-operative approach to



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policing, which requires the participationof other agencies and bodies.

NPP: National policing plan announcespolice priorities, expectations, targets anddevelopments for policing in England andWales, as well as details of progress sincethe previous plan. It is prepared by theHome Office after consultation withpolice authorities, ACPO and other stake-holders.

NPI: Neighbourhood policing initiativeis a programme aimed at putting morepolice officers out on patrol to increasepolice visibility and tackle quality-of-lifeissues that often cause distress, such asgraffiti, rowdy neighbours, vandalism, off-road motorcycling, speeding and littering.

NPIA: National policing improvementagency is new agency created to supportself-improvement across the police serviceand to drive forward programmes outlinedin the national community safety plan.

NRPP: National reassurance policingprogramme is a national plan for “reassur-ance” policing, a model of neighbourhoodpolicing that aims to build public confi-dence in policing. It involves local commu-nities in identifying priority crime and dis-order issues in their neighbourhood, whichthey then tackle together with the policeand other public services and partners.

PA: Police authority is an independentbody with responsibility for the appoint-

ment of chief officers, managing finance andmonitoring the performance of the force.

PCSOs: Police community support offi-cers are civilian members of staff who weara police-style uniform. Their main functionsare to provide a highly visible police presencein public areas and to deal with low-level nui-sance and antisocial behaviour.

Police Federation: The Police Federation ofEngland and Wales is the representative bodyto which all police officers up to and includ-ing the rank of Chief Inspector belong.

PRRD: Police reform and resources direc-torate was established in April 2007 andreplaced the police resources unit. It isresponsible for ensuring that there is a pro-gramme for police reform carried out in part-nership with the Association of Chief PoliceOfficers, Association of Police Authoritiesand other stakeholders, making use of theNPIA.

PSU: Police standards unit provides sup-port to forces and Basic Command Units tohelp them to meet the desired levels of per-formance.

Resilience: state of preparedness, in co-oper-ation with other public services, to deal withmajor unexpected crises such as terrorist acts.

Special Constables: Part-time volunteerpolice officers. Unlike PCSOs, they haveidentical powers to their fully warranted col-leagues, working alongside them as equals.


Appendix 1: AFP Work Value Study

A common job classification system wasintroduced – whereby common terms andconditions of service were designed toimprove efficiency and effectiveness. Theintegrated work levels are described in

Table 6. The column on the far right showsthe equivalent ranks for non-sworn policestaff, unifying a ranking structure for bothsworn and non-sworn police employees.


Table 5: Integrated pay bands

Band 1-2 Probationer officers and process civilian staff

Band 3-5 Constables and non-sworn equivalents

Band 6-8 Sergeants and non-sworn equivalents

Band 9 Inspector+ commissioner and non-sworn equivalent

Table 6: Integrated work levels

Work level Existing police level rankings New non-sworn staff member classifications

1 n/a Staff member class 1

2 Constable Staff member class 2

3 Sergeant Staff member class 3

4 Superintendent Staff member class 4

5 Commander Senior executive officer 1

6 Assistant Commissioner Senior executive officer 2


Footing the billReforming the police service

Barry Loveday and Jonathan McCloryEdited by Gavin Lockhart

Fo

oting

the bill

Barry Lo

veday and

Jonathan M

cClo

ry, edited

by G

avin Lockhart

Po

licy Exchang

e

£10.00

ISBN: 978-1-906097-14-1

Policy ExchangeClutha House

10 Storey’s GateLondon SW1P 3AY

www.policyexchange.org.uk

The first publication in this series, Fitting the Bill, showed that thequality and efficiency of local policing would be improved bydelegating budgetary and human resources control to localcommanders, and by an overhaul of the performance measurementregime. This research is no less important or ambitious.

Drawing on field work from the Antipodes and interviews withserving officers and policy makers in England and Wales, Footingthe Bill investigates the challenges police face in containing costs,and in balancing protective services, counter-terrorism andresponse policing. Barry Loveday and Jonathan McClory suggestways to address the funding shortfall; deliver neighbourhoodpolicing and a more effective and efficient service; balance thedemands of local policing with cross-border crime and terrorismand find an appropriate role for the private security industry.

The authors discuss ways in which the police service could bemore effective and efficient even with declining central governmentfunding. Some of the recommendations – such as reform of theoffice of constable, giving more staff powers of arrest, search andseizure, lifting the cap on council tax increases and reducing thenumber of police ranks – will be controversial.

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