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Police Research Series Paper 116

Best value policing:making preparations

Adrian Leigh

Gary Mundy

Rachel Tuffin

Police Research Series Paper 116

Best value policing:making preparations

Adrian Leigh

Gary Mundy

Rachel Tuffin

Editor: Barry Webb

Home Office

Policing and Reducing Crime Unit

Research, Development and Statistics Directorate

Clive House, Petty France

London, SW1H 9HD

Crown Copyright 1999First Published 1999

Policing and Reducing Crime Unit: Police Research Series

The Policing and Reducing Crime (PRC) Unit was formed in 1998 as a result of the merger of the Police Research Group (PRG) and the Research and StatisticsDirectorate. The PRC Unit is now one part of the Research, Development andStatistics Directorate of the Home Office. The PRC Unit carries out andcommissions research in the social and management sciences on policing and crimereduction, broadening out the role that PRG played.

The PRC Unit has now combined PRG’s two main series into the Police ResearchSeries, continuing PRG’s earlier work. This will present research material on crimeprevention and detection as well as police management and organisation issues.

ISBN 1-84082-341-0

Copies of this publication can be made available in formats accessible to

the visually impaired on request.

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C

Forewor d

The statutory requirement for police authorities to ensure their forces are deliveringbest value services represents a potential step change in the way policing isdelivered. From April 2000, police authorities and forces must review each policingservice at least every five years to examine whether it should be provided in the first place, consult widely on its delivery, compare its performance with the bestand consider other competitive ways of providing it.

This new framework for service delivery and performance management, to ensurecontinuous improvements in quality, effectiveness and efficiency, will affect everymember of each police authority and police force. It is vital that senior police forcestaff, in particular, are aware of what is required of them so that they can work withpolice authority members to drive forward changes likely to have a significantmanagerial and cultural impact in the service.

This research provides the first authoritative overview of how the police service hasbeen preparing for best value to date. It finds that there is a patchwork of ongoingpreparations across English and Welsh policing and highlights particular issues where early lessons have been learnt.

To date, there has been relatively little published information about how best toprepare for best value and none specifically related to policing. This research aimsto help fill that gap. The study should prove an invaluable companion to authorities and forces as they prepare for best value. Future Home Office briefinginformation, to be issued over the coming months, will take these findings andfurther research into account.

Gloria Laycock

Policing and Reducing Crime Unit

Research, Development and Statistics Directorate

Home Office

August 1999

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the police authorities and forces in England,Wales and Scotland who contributed to this work. They would also like to thank the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Audit Commission, HerMajesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the Association of PoliceAuthorities (APA) and Warwick Business School for their support and commentsduring the research.

The authors would also like to thank Paul Quinton and Angela Strathern in PRCfor their contribution to the interviews and data analysis.

The Authors

Adrian Leigh, Gary Mundy and Rachel Tuffin are researchers in the Home OfficePolicing and Reducing Crime Unit.

PRC Unit would like to thank Professor Tim Newburn at Goldsmiths College, foracting as independent assessor for this report.

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Executive summar y

Background

Best value is a statutory duty, from 1 April 2000, on local authorities, fire and police authorities that aims both to engender closer links between their work andthe priorities of local communities, and encourage continuous improvements in local service delivery. The legislation requires authorities to review all their servicesover five years, in each case ‘challenging’ whether the service is needed in the firstplace, ‘consulting’ widely on its provision, ‘comparing’ it with other providers’services, and examining ‘competitive’ alternatives (the ‘4Cs’). Authorities mustpublish the review findings and their planned improvement actions, with measuresand targets, in an annual Performance Plan.

The legislation and guidance deliberately do not prescribewhat mechanisms andtechniques are needed to deliver best value. Instead, along with other public service providers, police authorities and forces must decide how best to establishtheir strengths and weaknesses; how to benchmark; what consultation methods touse; how to produce and carry forward Action Plans, and so on.

In early 1999, the Home Office Working Group on Police Performance and BestValue1 agreed to develop briefing information on best value policing. Recognisingthe need for this to draw on practical experiences in the three formal best valuepolicing pilots and preparatory work elsewhere in the service, the Working Groupasked the Policing and Reducing Crime (PRC) Unit to explore:

● what preparations police authorities and forces in England and Wales weremaking;

● what models and techniques were being considered by police authorities andforces;

● the relationships developing between police authorities and forces; and● what early lessons were emerging from the experiences of the authorities and

forces most advanced in their preparations.

To address these aims, the research team carried out work in three phases:

● a telephone survey of all 43 forces in England and Wales during March and April 1999;

● the subsequent construction and analysis of a database of best valuedevelopments; and

● semi-structured face-to-face interviews with key personnel in police authoritiesand forces in nine areas during June and July 1999. Visited force areas were:Greater Manchester; Cleveland; South Wales; Dyfed-Powys; West Yorkshire;Derbyshire; Lincolnshire; Hertfordshire; and Northamptonshire.

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1 The Working Group includes

representatives from ACPO, the

APA, HMIC, HM Treasury,

the Audit Commission and the

Home Office.

One immediate finding was that all authorities and forces were in the midst ofpreparations, but were at differing stages. It was clear, however, that developmentswere moving at a very fast pace and readers need to bear in mind, therefore, thatthe research reflects a snapshotof how authorities and forces were approaching bestvalue in the first half of 1999. Furthermore, the findings do not suggest definitiveanswers – instead the key issues authorities and forces said they faced whilstpreparing for best value are drawn out, along with information on how they hadtackled these issues.

Key findings

All police authorities and forces in England and Wales were making progress in their preparations for best value, having concluded that they could not wait forguidance or findings from the pilots. It was also clear that the picture was rapidlychanging: in April authorities and forces were in the early stages of consideringwidely differing approaches to best value, but by July their preparedness andapproaches seemed to be broadly converging, as they started to pilot reviews andencountered similar issues and difficulties.

Key areas where these patterns were emerging included:

● authorities and forces were generally aiming to build on existing structures,systems and cycles, rather than planning radical organisational changes in thefirst stages of best value;

● some were choosing to develop their systems before piloting reviews, whilst others were doing the reverse: the end results, however, were broadly similar interms of programmes and approaches to review;

● perceptions of preparedness seemed to be directly related to forces’ experiences in best value: with those forces most advanced in their preparations more awareof how much work it involved;

● invariably, forces were combining various tools and models in a ‘toolkit’, so thateach review was conducted according to the service’s circumstances;

● all forces were using the Business Excellence Model, though to different extents– usually as a self-assessment tool. Many were process mapping to identify activities;

● forces were taking a hybrid approach to service definition to avoid thedisadvantages of just one approach – reviewing services by function or by taking a process-based approach (although the picture was complicated by how theycombined these approaches with different review targets and levels);

● reviews were usually being prioritised according to a combination of services’ past performance, their budget size and the potential for savings to be made;

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● increasingly, forces were forming central teams to oversee best value’s day-to-daymanagement;

● where resources were limited, however, forces were also tending to let servicesself-assess, with support and guidance from the centre;

● authorities and forces were concluding that review programmes needed to beflexible to take account of changing circumstances;

● early pilot reviews were taking longer than expected, but forces had concludedthat time-scales would shorten as they became more used to them;

● there was increasing evidence of forces and local authorities combining theirconsultation and even starting to discuss joint reviews; and

● there were signs, too, that police authorities and forces were developing a closerworking relationship – in some areas police authority members wereparticipating in regular seminars and in others, taking part in best value steeringgroups and in reviews.

Alongside these developments, some common concerns and difficulties were alsoemerging, along with some illuminating responses to them:

● Forces were starting to experience the cultural implications of best value. Somestaff – particularly in support services – were feeling threatened by the ‘challenge’ and ‘compete’ elements of reviews, whilst service heads wereoccasionally reluctant to help reviews. Many forces were therefore developingforce-wide communication strategies to ‘market’ best value thereby encouragingstaff and staff association participation. Some forces were also mixing ‘marketingmaterial’ with their public consultation to explain policing services and managethe potential for raised public expectations.

● Authorities and forces were finding that their other planning cycles did notmatch with their best value programme. Some, however, were addressing this byvarying the length of their review programme to match cycles, such as that forCrime and Disorder.

● Some police authorities were finding that best value was remaining the p re s e rve of a minority of members – they were there f o re finding ways tocommunicate developments across the authority. To counter the danger thatbest value might lead to friction between authority and force, some had agre e dtheir respective roles and others had joint steering groups.

● Some forces had found they could learn little from the local authorities in theirarea – so they were examining developments further afield. Others had tried to

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develop joint reviews, but been frustrated by differences in timetables andagendas – they had identified the need for earlier planning in the future.

● All of the tools for best value had their potential disadvantages (in terms ofcomplexity, relevance or comparability), but forces were accepting that thesemodels alone were no more than aids, and that some of their faults could beovercome by combining or adapting them.

● In a number of reviews, forces had found that the data they needed wereunavailable. Some were reacting to this by requiring all services to self-assessregularly, so that the information would automatically be available once they were due for review.

● F o rces were finding it difficult to benchmark because it was often hard toidentify leading service providers and data were seldom comparable. Accurate benchmarking would also be assisted by activity costing, but thiswas still in development and comparisons were made harder by diff e r i n gtechniques, definitions and conventions. In part i c u l a r, however, it was p roving difficult to compare police services with the non-police sector.Despite this, there were many examples of effective benchmarking betweenf o rces, and involving non-police organisations, that had led to savings. F o rces consistently pressed for the establishment of a national database orwebsite to help them communicate developments, learn lessons from eachother and benchmark more easily.

● It was sometimes proving difficult to consult effectively on particular services(because of the nature of the service or reluctance on the part of the user orstakeholder). Nevertheless, forces were developing some very innovative andinteractive techniques that could have wider lessons for improving consultationmore generally.

● Forces were finding it hard to envisage applying the ‘compete’ element of the‘4Cs’ to services other than support, because of the nature of policing. However,there was a growing appreciation that ‘contracting-out’ was not the only optionand evidence that forces were examining alternative arrangements – such as‘comparative advantage’ agreements and consortia.

Future issues

T h e re were also some issues identified as key to the future success of best valuepolicing. In part i c u l a r, police authorities and forces will need to consider how they will:

● manage and resource the rising tide of work that will result from best value as itrolls forward;

● manage and monitor Action Plans;● monitor their best value approach as a whole and what they will do if it seems to

be failing;● meet the requirements of the audit and inspection regime, once it becomes clear;

and● monitor and learn from other approaches – formal pilots, other forces, local and

fire authorities.

Conclusions

These findings represent only the more commonly described features of currentpreparations for best value: it would be impossible to describe in one report all thetopics raised and preparations underway. Best value will not come into effect untilApril 2000 and it will, therefore, be some time before it is clear which approaches, in what circumstances, are most likely to be successful. Throughout the researchand even as this report was published, more issues and potential lessons wereemerging. Future research is planned to follow up developments but, for now, thisreport can only raise issues and, sometimes, potential solutions: it cannot supply allthe questions, let alone the answers.

U l t i m a t e l y, police authorities and forces must bear in mind that they will be judged not on their mechanisms and review approaches, but on whether they ares e l f - reviewing rigorously and improving on the basis of the findings of thosereviews. In short, authorities and forces need to deliver best value policing – theways by which they do so can diff e r, but the result must be the same: continuousi m p rovements in service.

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Annex: Issues raised by authorities and forces

Throughout the study, authorities and forces identified issues they had alreadyaddressed or would need to address in their preparations: the list below summarisesthese as questions. This list draws on experiences to date; it is not a definitivechecklist. In many cases, however, authorities and forces explained how they hadaddressed or would address these questions and these examples are described in thereport – not as ‘good practice’, but as possible responses.

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Understanding best value and building on existing practices Section(s)

Are key players aware of the main elements of best value and its timetable, 1,2and do they have an informed view of how well prepared they are?

Before April 2000, will the focus be on checking support systems or on 2piloting a review model?

How will existing planning cycles be co-ordinated with the best value cycle? 2,6

Should the best value review cycle mirror the three-year Crime and Disorder cycle? 2

What changes might need to be made to the existing service review system? 2

To what extent will they be able to draw on the results of existing 2,6consultation mechanisms?

Does further work need to be carried out to enable accurate activity costing? 2,6

Should every review be required to find 2% savings for the Efficiency Plan? 2

Should efficiency savings be reallocated within a reviewed service or 2spread across the force?

Managing the preparations Section(s)

What management structure is required and who should be represented at each level? 2

Should the force have a best value team and who should carry out and lead 2service reviews?

In what ways can a supportive managerial culture be promoted? 3

What type of monitoring system is needed to assess and influence implementation 2,3,6of best value?

In what ways can visible and credible commitment from the top be demonstrated? 3

To what extent should staff from associations and interest groups be involved 3in decision-making?

What techniques can be used to keep staff informed and/or market best value? 3

Would it be useful to include awareness of best value in appraisal and promotion 3processes?

Is there a need to allay the fears of support staff and, if so, how can this be done? 3,6

Should the centre have full access to detailed self-assessment findings, or 3just summaries?

During service reviews, how will staff within the service be kept informed of 3,5,6developments?

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Working together: police authorities and forces Section(s)

How regularly will the police authority and the force meet to discuss best value? 3

How will roles and responsibilities be shared, for example should authority 3members/officers attend or chair the steering group for best value or take a practical role in reviews?

If the authority has a best value committee how will internal communication 3be ensured?

How will authority members and officers be trained/inducted in best value? 3

Should the authority review itself? 3

To what extent are authorities making use of the knowledge and experience of 3all their members?

How will the authority manage the potential tension between needing both to work 3closely with and to challenge the force?

In what ways will the authority cope with the growing volume of work? 3,5

Working with others Section(s)

Is there a need to develop closer links with local authorities, or national networks? 3

Is there potential for money-saving arrangements with other agencies and forces? 3,6

Using tools and techniques Section(s)

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the models and tools used, and how 4will their limitations be addressed?

Who will apply the tools – members of the reviewed service, a central team or 3,4,6‘outsiders’?

What might be needed in terms of communication, training, toolkits and guides? 3,6

How can forces ensure they do not get ‘bogged down’ and lose sight of the point 4of reviews?

Can the same tools be used for each review or should they be combined according 4to service type?

How will tools, or aspects of them, be combined? 4

Will ‘off the shelf’ tools be applied as they stand or will they need to be adapted? 4

How will forces avoid becoming reliant on one particular tool (e.g. the Business 4Excellence Model)?

To what extent will the tools be explained to police staff? 3,4

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Corporate reviews; defining services and prioritising reviews; action plans Section(s)

How frequently will corporate reviews be carried out? 5

From where will the data for the key elements of the review be drawn? 4,5,6

Are consultation findings sufficiently relevant and up-to-date? 2,5,6

Is there a need to develop a new policing strategy, and how will future policing 2,5issues be identified and incorporated?

How will the corporate review be linked to prioritisation of service reviews? 5

Which review approaches and levels should be adopted, and how could these be 5combined according to the target for review?

In what ways can significant overlaps between reviews, and the number of reviews 5overall, be kept to a minimum?

Who should decide priorities for reviews and on what factors, or models? 5

What resources, including time, will be needed and what contingency plans 3,5,6exist if they over-run?

Can joint reviews be negotiated with other forces and local service providers? 3,5,6

What resource implications will the accumulation of Action Plans have over time? 3,5,6

What information should be included in the Performance Plan, how long will it 5take to produce and how will it be distributed?

How will Action Plan findings, objectives and measures be combined and 5,6summarised in the plan?

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Reviewing services with the 4Cs Section(s)

Is a standard template needed, or should the strategy be tailored for each review? 4,5,6

What will the minimum standard for each review be and how can this be 6quality assured?

Are reliable data available or is there a need for all services to collect data well 4,6before reviews?

What cultural implications might there be, particularly from challenging 3,6and competing?

How should services be challenged and who should carry out the challenge? 3,6

Should forces compare/benchmark whole services, or elements of them? 6

Should forces benchmark against: neighbouring forces or those in the same region; 6service leaders; forces in the same family or all forces; organisations belonging to clubs, or on databases, if so which; and non-police organisations on an ad hoc service-by-service basis?

How will data incomparability and confidentiality of police information be addressed? 6

How can ‘consultation overload’ be avoided, can forces ‘piggyback’ on others’ 3,6consultation?

In what ways can raised public expectations be managed and the force 6approach marketed?

Are all users, stakeholders and providers adequately consulted; is there a need 6for innovation?

What options and combinations of competitive approaches are most appropriate? 3,6

Is there scope for procurement and resource consortia with other forces and agencies? 3,6

How can staff fears be addressed, and unequal application of competition be avoided? 3,6

Who should devise Action Plans, objectives and measures and in what format 3,6should they be?

How will ownership of Action Plans be ensured and who will monitor and 6manage their implementation?

Contents

Page

Forewor d (iii)

Acknowledgements (iv)

Executive summar y (v)

List of Tables (xiv)

List of Figures (xiv)

List of Boxes (xv)

1.Introducing best value 1Best value and policing 2The research 3The structure of the report 5

2.Best value policing – what’s new? 7The main elements of best value policing 7Perceptions and pilots 7Best value policing – what’s new? 8

3.Preparing for and managing best value policing 14Best value: organisation and resources 14Management, culture and communication 16Police authority and force relations 18Working with other authorities 20

4. Tools, models and standards for best value policing 22Tools for best value policing 22The Business Excellence Model (BEM) 23Process mapping and Process Expert (PE) 26The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) 28Investors in People (IIP) and Charter Mark 30

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5. Defining services and running review programmes 32Corporate review 32Defining services 35Review prioritisation 39Constructing review programmes 42Producing Performance Plans 44

6. Service reviews and the ‘4Cs’ 45Review phases and the ‘4Cs’ 45Challenging 47Comparing 48Consulting 52Competing 54Review outcomes: objectives and Action Plans 56

7. Overview and the futur e 58

References 62

Appendix 1: The Business Excellence Model 64Appendix 2: Links between the Business Excellence Model 66

and other initiativesAppendix 3: Forces cur rently piloting national Process 68

Improvement ProjectsAppendix 4: Case Study 1: Best Value in Greater Manchester Police 70Appendix 5: Case Study 2: Best Value in Derbyshire Police 75

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List of tables

Table No. Caption Page

1. Best value policing pilots in England and Wales 9

2. Police planning and reporting cycles 11

3. Responsibility for service reviews 16

4. Force perceptions of possible roles for police authority members or officers 19

5. The most frequently cited tools and standards for 22best value policing

6. Force perceptions of proposed methods for producing corporate reviews 33

7. Approaches to service review 36

8. The advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to 37service reviews

9. Factors influencing review prioritisation 40

10. Likely review targets 41

List of figures

Figure No. Caption Page

1. The timing of best value’s key elements (1999 onwards) 8

2. Force management structures and roles for best value 14

3. The Business Excellence Model 64

4. Links between BEM and other initiatives 66

5. GMP’s Review Programme (1999-2005) 73

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List of boxes

Box No. Caption Page

1. Best value defined 1

2. The ‘Four Cs’ 7

3. Cleveland Police 10

4. BEM and South Wales Police 24

5. FAST and Lincolnshire Police 28

6. The Balanced Scorecard in Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary 30

7. What is a corporate review? 32

8. Corporate review in West Yorkshire 34

9. Force Command and corporate review 35

10. Guidance on review prioritisation 39

11. Review prioritisation in Leicestershire Constabulary 42

12. A possible service review 46

13. Challenging questions 48

14. Competition and policing 54

15. Extracts from a GMP Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) 72

16. The seven-stage review process in Derbyshire Constabulary 77

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1. Introducing best value

Following its election in May 1997, the new government signalled its intention tomodernise local government by bringing councils and their communities closertogether and encouraging continuous improvements in local service delivery. A keyelement of this Modernisation Programme – best value – was outlined in aconsultative paper published by the Department for Environment, Transport andthe Regions in March 1998 (1998a). Four months later, the DETR published its White Paper, Modern Local Government: In Touch with the People (1998b)2,describing in more detail the aims of best value and its principal features (Box 1).

To begin with, authorities often interpreted best value primarily as a replacement for Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT), due to be repealed on 2 January20003. It soon became clear, however, with the publication of the White Paper and,more recently, the passing of the Local Government Act 1999, which gives bestvalue its legal basis, that the new regime will have a far greater impact than didCCT. To summarise its key features, best value:

● is a statutory duty , from 1 April 2000 , on authorities to develop a five-year

programme of service reviews , and to summarise the findings and resultingAction Plans in a published annual Performance Plan ;

● applies not only to local authorities but also fire and police authorities, andcovers all their services – not just those above CCT thresholds;

● defines the key elements for each review to ensure that each service is neededin the first place, has been widely consulted on, compared with other providers’services, and subject to competitive consideration;

● requires that reviews go beyond CCT’s role to ensure economy (which tended tofavour lowest cost providers), by promoting efficiency (i.e. maximising outputs to inputs), requiring the effective use of resources (i.e. properly allocatedresources with outcomes meeting objectives) and quality (i.e. high standards that meet user requirements);

INTRODUCTION

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Box 1: Best value defined

“Best value will be a duty to deliver services to clear standards – covering both cost and quality

– by the most effective, economic and efficient means available…Local authorities will set those

standards – covering both cost and quality – for all the services for which they are responsible…

Under best value local people will be clear about the standards of services which they can

expect to receive, and better able to hold their councils to account for their record in meeting

them.”

DETR (1998b)

2 In Wales, a consultative paper

was published in April 1998

and the White Paper, Local

Voices: Modernising Local

Government in Wales, was

published in July 1998.

3 CCT is a legal requirement for

certain public services to be

opened to market-testing,

tendering and possible

contracting-out if external

providers appear likely to be

cheaper than in-house teams.

● builds on the movement towards multi-agency partnerships , by encouragingauthorities to identify and tackle cross-cutting themes (‘wicked issues’) inpartnership with other authorities, businesses, education, health, social services,probation, etc;

● is part of a performance management framework , which includes nationalperformance indicators and standards against which best value authorities will bemeasured, and requires authorities to set targets to at least match theperformance of the top quartile;

● subjects service providers’ reviews and programmes to regular in-depth audit and

inspection to ensure compliance and validate outcomes; and

● enables the Secretary of State to intervene wherever there is clear evidence that an authority is failing to meet its statutory obligations.

For the public services, then, some of which have been quite sheltered from therigours of competition and benchmarking, best value will be a significant challenge – moving beyond the regime where they have been exhortedto improve performance to one where they are requiredto.

Best value and policing

The inclusion of police authorities as ‘best value authorities’ means that the policeservice will be subject to the same regime as local authorities. Because the best value duty falls on police authorities, theywill be held responsible if their force failsto meet the requirements. The tripartite structure of policing, however, means thatchief officers and their staff will play a key role in delivering best value on a day-to-day basis. Police authorities and forces need, therefore, to work closely together todevelop an integrated approach for the delivery of best value policing.

For the police, best value is a logical progression from the following recentdevelopments, which have underlined the need for forces to demonstrate theirefficient and effective use of resources:

● HMIC Thematic Review ‘What Price Policing’ (HMIC, 1998) which highlighted the need for forces to improve progress in costing services and theirability to recognise, deliver and demonstrate value for money;

● outcome of the 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review , highlighting the needfor savings in areas such as sickness, ill-health retirements, asset management and procurement;

INTRODUCTION

2

● development in 1998 of overarching aims and objectives for policing (includingGuiding Principles on efficiency), which will lead to a new national suite ofperformance indicators (PIs) underpinning best value; and

● requirement for police authorities to find 2% year on year efficiency savings fromApril 1999 and to include planned efficiency improvements in their PolicingPlans.

These last two developments specifically trailed the introduction of best value.Efficiency Plans dovetail with best value’s Performance Plans, whilst the new PIsinclude the delivery of efficiency savings and encourage the application of best value through the new suite of nationally comparable indicators of performance and quality.

Best value, then, is not a new concept for the police, who already have experienceof service reviews and performance management regimes. Instead, it builds onexisting practices and recent developments in policing – fixing them within a morerigorous national framework. The potential value of existing structures is considered in Section 2.

Although best value’s key elements have been known for some time, themechanisms and techniques underpinning them are deliberately not prescribedby thelegislation or related guidance. Instead, along with other public service providers,police authorities and forces have to decide how best to establish their strengths and weaknesses; how to identify their services and conduct service reviews; how tobenchmark; what consultation methods to employ; how to produce and carryforward Action Plans, and so on. Authorities and forces also need to establish theirindividual and shared roles in taking forward best value.

The research

In early 1999, the Home Office Working Group on Police Performance and BestValue4, agreed to develop best value policing guidance, but recognised the need forthis to draw on practical experiences. Two English police forces were already piloting best value (along with forty local authorities) for independent evaluation by Warwick Business School on behalf of DETR, and one Welsh force was having its pilot evaluated by Cardiff Business School, on behalf of the Welsh Office5. TheWorking Group, however, had heard anecdotal evidence of other pilots and wantedto be able to draw on all these experiences before preparing guidance. Theytherefore asked the Policing and Reducing Crime (PRC) Unit to research:

INTRODUCTION

3

4 The Working Group includes

representatives from ACPO,

the Association of Police

Authorities, HMIC, the

Treasury, the Audit

Commission and the

Home Office.

5 These forces are: Cleveland

Police, Greater Manchester

Police and South Wales Police.

● what preparations police authorities and forces in England and Wales weremaking;

● what models and techniques were being considered by police authorities andforces;

● the relationships developing between police authorities and forces; and● what early lessons were emerging from the experiences of the authorities and

forces most advanced in their preparations.

Methodology

The research comprised three phases:

● A telephone survey of all 43 forces in England and Wales during March and April 1999.

● The subsequent construction and analysis of a database of best valuedevelopments.

● Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with key personnel in police authoritiesand forces in nine areas during June and July 1999. Visited force areas were:Greater Manchester; Cleveland; South Wales; Dyfed-Powys; West Yorkshire;Derbyshire; Lincolnshire; Hertfordshire; and Northamptonshire.

The sample forces for the visits were chosen because they appeared to demonstratea range of approaches and experiences. We also maintained contact with WarwickBusiness School, to draw on lessons emerging from the local authority pilots.

Finally, although the research and its findings were confined to England and Wales,we also visited Scotland to discover the differences in their approach and identifypotential lessons. The best value regime for Welsh forces is broadly similar to thatfor English forces (the only differences relating to terminology), although the needfor the Secretary of State to consult the Welsh Assembly on key decisions may have an impact in the future. In Scotland, however, there has been no best valuelegislation – instead, local authorities have been taking forward best value since theScottish Office requested them to develop plans in 1997. The Scottish police wereasked, in 1998, to ‘catch up’ with local authorities by producing their firstPerformance Plans in March 1999, outlining their understanding of best value, howthey will identify services for review, and which services will be reviewed first. Inpractice, given the extent of preparations south of the border, we found thatScottish forces were not necessarily ‘ahead’, but were facing issues very similar tothose for the English and Welsh police.

INTRODUCTION

4

Some caveats

Best value, and how the police are preparing, is a fast-moving area of interest.Readers need to bear in mind that this report reflects only a snapshot of howauthorities and forces were approaching best value in the first half of 1999: futureresearch will be required to update this picture and identify new developments andlessons.

Given the pragmatic approach to the mechanics of best value, our findings aredescriptive and do not suggest definitive answers. Although we identify possibleissues for consideration and approaches the police service might adopt, we can onlyrely on what respondents told us: others might disagree with their comments and,therefore, our findings. There is, however, no uniform solution or approach to bestvalue: what works for one police authority or force may not for another.

In particular, we have aimed to make our report as practical as possible, by relatingto actual examples and reporting case studies. We are not suggesting, however, thatthese examples are necessarily ‘good practice’ in best value nor is this report a guide

on how to deliver best value policing . Although this report raises manyquestions for authorities and forces, and identifies some of the ways in which theyhave been tackled, it does not provide the solutions. The Working Group will,however, issue briefings from mid-1999 that will address many of the issues raisedduring the research.

Finally, best value will not come into effect until April 2000. It is, thereforeimpossible at this stage to determine which approaches in which circumstances aremost likely to be successful. It may be years before such lessons emerge. We can,however, report early lessons identified by forces preparing for best value and, insome cases, piloting its main elements.

The structure of the r e p o r t

Section 2 of this report considers the main elements of best value and how theymight relate to existing practices. Section 3 highlights the key managerial issuesfacing authorities and forces as they prepare for best value, whilst Section 4 takes adetailed look at the main tools and models being adopted by forces across England,Wales and Scotland and identifies their advantages and disadvantages. Section 5considers how the police have been defining services and drafting their programmesfor review, whilst Section 6 examines the approach to service reviews. Section 7comprises a summary of the key findings and conclusions from the research andhighlights the issues that are likely to be crucial to the police between now andApril 2000.

INTRODUCTION

5

The Appendices also include full case studies of preparations in two force areas forbest value and some of the key lessons that they had learned. As with all theexamples in this report, these case studies are included not as demonstrations of‘good practice’, but illustrations of how parts of the police service have beenapproaching the requirements.

INTRODUCTION

6

2. Best value policing – what’s new?

The main elements of best value policing

To begin with, police authorities and forces need to be familiar with the mainelements of best value policing and its timetable. The key to best value is an ongoing review process, which aims to encourage a culture of continuousimprovement, and, in practice, means police authorities must:

● undertake a corporate review , setting out a strategy for local policing andexamining performance, to help identify services for review and develop a five-year review programme;

● subject all policing services to a rolling series of Fundamental Performance

Reviews 6, ensuring each is examined according to the ‘4Cs’ (see Box 2); and ● produce annual Performance Plans setting out force achievements and

reporting plans, targets, priorities for, and outcomes of, service reviews.

The product of each review will be an Action Plan, describing the findings,explaining how the service will drive up its performance and setting measures andtargets for the future. This ongoing cycle of review and improvement will follow atight timetable (see Figure 1).

Perceptions and pilots

Respondents to our telephone survey often perceived that their force would meetbest value’s requirements without too much difficulty. Every interviewee thoughtthey already had at least some elementsin place and nearly half believed they onlyneeded to pull together existing ‘fragmented’ elements. One intervieweecommented: “Best value is a rebranding of what forces have done before…it’s nothing

new”. Experience of piloting best value, however, seemed to bring a realisation ofthe extent of the work required. Interviewees from forces piloting reviews tended toconsider they had more preparational work to do than did those from forces that

BEST VALUE POLICING – WHAT’S NEW?

7

6 Service reviews are officially

termed Fundamental

Performance Reviews (FPRs)

but, for simplicity, are referred

to throughout this report as

either “service reviews” or

“reviews”.Box 2: The ‘Four Cs’

“In practice, the reviews will:

● challenge why and how a service is being provided;

● invite comparison with others’ performance across a range of relevant indicators, taking

into account the views of both service users and potential suppliers;

● consult with local taxpayers, service users and the wider business community in the

setting of new performance targets; and

● embrace fair competition as a means of securing efficient and effective services.”

DETR (1998b)

had not started. The implication – and a message frequently repeated by forcesadvanced in preparations – was that forces should not underestimate what wasneeded. With nearly half of all forces planning to pilot best value before 2000 (Table 1), it is possible that their perceptions may have since changed.

Best value policing – what’s new?

Linked to forces’ perceptions that they were partly prepared for best value was therecurring view that it represented a framework into which they could ‘slot’ existingpractices – in particular, their current:

● planning cycles;● review systems;● consultation techniques; and● mechanisms and plans for costing policing.


8

Figure 1: The timing of best value’s key elements (1999 onwards)

AUDIT AND INSPECTION REGIME

Sections 4 to 6 consider the key stages of this timetable (highlighted) in greater detail.

By 31 March 2000

Publish firstPerformance Plan

(within AnnualPolicing Plan)which:

● Sets out theprogramme andtimetable ofreviews

● Includesassessment of pastperformance andcomparisons withother forces

● Summarises anypilot reviews andAction Plans

● Sets measurabletargets for yearsahead

(Plan must beexternally auditedby 30 June)

April 2000 –

March 2001

Take forwardAction Plans

Review

services

identified astargets for firstyear, applyingthe ‘4Cs’

Draft secondPerformancePlan

By March 31 2001

Publish secondPerformance Planwhich:

● Includesassessment ofprevious year’sperformance andcomparisons withother forces

● Re-examines thereviewprogramme

● Examines theoutcomes of pastAction Plans andconsiders theneed for furtheraction

● Includes ActionPlans from thelatest servicereviews

● Sets measurabletargets for yearsahead

July 1999 –

March 2000

Undertakecorporate

review

Define

services forreview

Devise

programme

of servicereviews

Possibly pilot

reviews/test

tools and

models

Dec 1999 –

March 2000

Policeauthority andforce draftfirst bestvaluePerformancePlan

These issues are considered in more detail below. Whilst some respondentssuggested that their practices needed little adjustment, others felt that these‘building blocks’ required significant development work before best value could beeffectively implemented. One force, an official pilot, had concluded that the key topreparing for best value was to develop the necessary structures and improveexisting practices, before piloting reviews and developing a programme (Box 3).

Review systems

Forces had been reviewing their services for many years, although most admittedthat this had been informal and ad-hoc, with reviews differing in scope and depthand often taking place only when a service appeared to have weaknesses, or hadbeen the subject of an HMIC or auditor’s report. These reviews had tended to


9

Table 1: Best value policing pilots in England and Wales

Extent of forces’ piloting (May 1999) Forces

No pilot and no intention to pilot 22

Currently piloting best value review of a service or services 12

Aiming to pilot a service review in next 6-10 months 4

Trialling specific tools for best value (e.g. Business Excellence Model) 3

Undertaking a review to pilot a specific element of the ‘4Cs’ (e.g. compete) 2

Box 3: Cleveland Police

The pilot included a range of projects to help roll out best value across the force. Key areas addressed were:

● activity based costing, with particular focus on the use of mobile and personal dataterminals for operational officers;

● mapping and management of processes;● benchmarking;● partnership working and problem solving, with shared responsibility and accountability;● devolved Resource Management;● development of an IT solution to unite existing data systems and provide performance

management information for any level and identified grouping within the organisation;● performance management;● strategic and financial planning; and● internal and external consultation and feedback.

Some projects focused on the delivery of operational policing at District level, whilst otherss e rved to develop organisational support stru c t u res for operational policing. All had sincedeveloped in scope and become interlinked. Drawing on these experiences, Cleveland hadrecently developed its five-year programme of reviews and its review mod e l .

concentrate on support services, where it seemed there was greater scope toexamine activities and find savings. Most force representatives also considered that,although they had experience of comparing and consulting for reviews, they wereweaker in terms of challenging why services were provided and consideringcompetitive alternatives.

Interviewees, therefore, agreed that best value would impact on review systems,citing ways in which they thought best value would bring order to their force’sregime, including:

● requiring them to link reviews to force objectives;● forcing them to review all their services;● prompting them to construct long-term programmes of reviews;● providing a common structure for reviews; ● moving them away from concentrating on ‘cost-cutting’ and toward service

improvement; and● requiring them to publish their findings along with action plans and outcomes.

For some force representatives, however, this meant more change than for others: afew interviewees, for instance, explained that their force had developed their ownforce-wide review programmes a few years earlier and planned simply to adapt thesefor best value.

Planning and reporting cycles

Best value introduces a new cycle to policing, to be placed alongside many others(Table 2). The outcomes of these cycles will help authorities and forces manage best value and provide information relevant to service reviews. Some interviewees,however, felt that the picture was becoming too complex because cycles differed interms of:

● frequency and duration : most cycles were yearly, but the difference betweenthree-yearly Crime and Disorder Strategies and five-yearly review programmesraised concerns;

● length of planning cycle : some cycles re q u i red significant preparation before h a n d(e.g. budgets), whereas others only started a few months before publication;

● responsibility : the mixture of responsibilities between forces, police authorities,local authorities and other agencies required extensive communicationnetworks; and

● level: many plans were also broken down to divisional level or to local authoritylevel (with boundaries not always coterminous).


10

Police authorities and forces will need to demonstrate in their corporate reviews how they will be co-ordinating their cycles so that they are related and mutuallysupportive. No guidance on this had been issued by the time of this report, however, leaving interviewees unclear how cycles related to one another andconcerned they might clash. One force, for instance, had made heavy use of theoutcomes of its crime and disorder consultation when reviewing a division, butacknowledged that these data would lose their value with age. Some forces werealready reacting: Greater Manchester Police had decided to adopt three-year cyclesfor divisional reviews, so that they could align them with the timetable for their next Crime and Disorder Strategies.

Authorities and forces also needed to be considering the link between EfficiencyPlans and Performance Plans. Some had decided that they would require everyreview to deliver savings of 2%, but others considered this endangered the principlethat best value should improve quality – arguing that some review findings mightrecommend additional spending. One force representative described particularproblems encountered when their central best value team had decided that savingsfrom a review should contribute to the force-wide efficiency target and be re-invested elsewhere: the reviewed service had strongly opposed this, arguing thatthey were entitled to keep the savings.


11

Table 2: Police planning and reporting cycles

Plan Frequency Responsibility

Force/Corporate Strategy Either every one, three or five Police Authority and Forceyears (may be reviewed yearly)

Annual Reports Yearly Police Authority and Force

Local/Annual Policing Plan Yearly Police Authority

Budget Yearly Police Authority and Force

Efficiency Plan Yearly Police Authority

Youth Justice Plan Yearly Local authorities with others (inc. police)

Crime and Disorder Audit Every three years Local authorities with others (inc. police)

Crime and Disorder Strategy Every three years Local authorities with others (inc. police)

Best Value Programme Every five years ( may be Police Authorityreviewed more frequently)

Best Value Performance Plan Yearly Police Authority

Consultation

Most force representatives in the telephone survey seemed confident that thenecessary public consultation mechanisms were largely in place, given the existenceof Police and Community Consultative Groups (PCCGs), surveys for nationalperformance indicators and consultation for the Crime and Disorder Audits. Many,however, emphasised that their force would be drawing on additional existingmechanisms, such as:

● focus groups;● local business contacts;● large scale surveys (often shared with local authorities); and● meetings with voluntary sector organisations.

The extent to which these and other mechanisms might help forces meet bestvalue’s requirements is examined in Section 6.

Costed policing

The Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act 1994 (incorporated in the Police Act 1996) placed a requirement on the police to produce costed policing plans. In athematic inspection in 1998, HMIC reflected slow progress in the costing of policeservices and highlighted the increasing pressure to develop mechanisms to enableforces to demonstrate the efficient and effective use of resources. The requirementfor efficiency savings and introduction of best value have added to this pressure –driving forces to introduce activity-based costing (ABC) so that savings can befound and services more accurately compared.

Nearly half the forces were piloting ABC. Most popular was Humberside’s model, by which forces measure operational staff activities for two weeks a year, then linkthem to one of three policing strategies (public reassurance, crime management andtraffic management), with the costs of delivering the strategies subsequentlycalculated using a pay ready reckoner. Forces were then usually apportioning othercosts pro-rata and breaking down total costs by function and incident. A few forces,such as Cleveland, were adopting more sophisticated systems, enabling them totrack activities electronically by giving officers hand-held devices and linking theirtime keeping directly to payrolls.

These efforts were starting to support best value pilot reviews – many of whichincluded attempts to cost activities. Despite the ongoing work, however, it was clear that it would be some time before forces could accurately cost all services.


12

The differences between service definitions, costing conventions and localcircumstances prompted some interviewees to suggest that it would never bepossible to compare costed services between forces. This issue is returned to inSection 6.


13

3. Preparing for and managing best value policing

The previous section described how authorities and forces might build on existingpractices for best value. As they make their preparations, however, they will alsoneed to consider what resource, organisational, managerial and cultural preparations are needed and how they might work with others to deliver best value.This section examines these issues.

Best value: organisation and resources

Managing best value

Two-thirds of forces had either a defined ‘best value team’ or group of people closely associated with implementing best value but not called a ‘team’. The majority of ‘teams’ were dedicated to best value, although some were dealing withother issues too. Most commonly, staff were drawn from headquarters departmentssuch as corporate development, performance review and strategic planning. In ahandful of cases, however, there was just one ‘Best Value Officer’ with few resourcesavailable to them: other forces were critical of this limited approach, regarding it asunsustainable.

Force representatives described either a dual- or triple-level management structureto oversee the implementation of best value (Figure 2). Three levels were typical,although a small number of forces had only the first and third layer, or combined the first and second layers into one ‘best value team’. All but two forces apparentlyhad regular ACPO-rank officer involvement in their best value preparations.

PREPARING FOR AND MANAGING BEST VALUE POLICING

14

First layer

Best Value Team

Usually 4-8 people basedat HQ and headed byInsp/Ch Insp or Supt.Three forces had a single‘Best Value Officer’.Usually responsible for thepractical work indelivering best value –undertaking reviews oroverseeing and supportingreviews undertaken byreviewed services. Alsoinvariably responsible fordeveloping the force’sapproach to best value andmonitoringimplementation.

Second layer

Best Value Board/Steering

Group

Usually chaired by DCC orACC. Invariably includesHeads of Finance, SupportServices, Legal Advisors,Quality Development, BestValue Team, one or moredivisional commanders, staffrepresentatives, etc. Nineforces had Police Authorityrepresentatives on theboard. Group usuallyoversees the force’s bestvalue approach, discussingreports, examining reviewoutcomes, agreeing actionsand reporting to ChiefOfficers.

Third layer

Chief Officers

The regular meetingsof ACPO-rank officers, also nowconsideringrecommendations ofthe Best Value Teamand/or Steering Group. In many cases,the main link with thepolice authority.

Figure 2: Force management structures and roles for best value

It was too early for us to judge the merits or otherwise of these managementstructures, although the inclusion on steering groups of staff representatives fromreviewed services was considered key by many. One force had found that this wasparticularly important for support staff, who could not be deployed elsewhere in thesame way as police officers if posts were threatened by the outcome of a servicereview. A number of forces also highlighted the importance of a participativeapproach throughout all the stages of best value, to manage employee fears.

Police Federation, Superintendents Association and UNISON representatives werefrequently involved in steering groups but forces did not seem to be involving otherstaff associations (such as women’s groups or representatives of staff from ethnicminorities). One force voiced concerns that inputs from too many staffrepresentatives could slow down decision-making.

Force representatives with experience of piloting reviews also stressed theimportance of clear senior officer, and particularly chief officer, commitment andwillingness to take responsibility for difficult or unpopular decisions. In one force, itseemed that a review had effectively run aground when senior officers, underpressure from officers in the reviewed service, had not been prepared to carryforward the unpopular recommendations.

Who undertakes reviews?7

Respondents – particularly from larger forces that had piloted reviews – consideredthat central staff alone would not be able to carry out a whole programme ofreviews. Furthermore, staff in one force had reacted badly to a review team comingin from elsewhere – perceiving them as ‘the enemy’ and failing to co-operate withrequests for information. On the other hand, some respondents were also concerned about the potential for the ‘challenge’ element of reviews to be limited if all the reviewers had a vested interest in the service continuing unchanged.

Reviews generally combined some form of assessment exercise – where comparativeand consultation-based data on each service was gathered and examined – withother elements, such as workshops to ‘challenge’, and a formal examination ofcompetitive alternatives. Most forces were tending to conclude that roles in andresponsibility for these elements should be split and shared (Table 3). In many cases, then, members of the reviewed service were conducting self-assessments, withadvice and support from the ‘best value team’, but other review elements involvedpeople from outside the service – either from the central team or from anotherservice.


15

7 See Appendices 4 and 5 for case

studies of reviews.

How much will it cost?

Numerous interviewees were concerned that best value meant costly bureaucracy,explaining that they hoped to avoid drawing away resources from elsewhere (byusing existing teams and expertise wherever possible). There was particular concernthat best value should not affect operational deployment of officers – although theexperience of those forces advanced in preparations was that this was not asignificant issue provided there was strong support from a central team.

The potential costs of best value should, anyway, be weighed against its potentialbenefits. Although it was too soon to estimate the financial costs of best value, oneof the pilot forces had calculated that in one year it had allocated 0.1% of its annual budget to best value8. To date, this force had recorded efficiency gains of atleast 0.2% of its annual budget and, although it expected opportunity costs toincrease as best value was rolled out, it was aiming to achieve consistent efficiencygains of double the costs. Another force had found that one review had producedmonetary and efficiency savings of £330,000, for an estimated cost of approximately£30,000.

Apart from the internal costs of implementing best value, the majority of forces also expected to use consultants: only eleven had ruled out this option – oftenbecause they had experienced problems with them in the past. Due to their highcosts, however, consultants’ roles were usually limited to developing in-houseexpertise in specific issues and not as key to their approach – although one force was considering asking a consultant after each review, to provide an independent‘challenge’ which could be undertaken relatively quickly and at low cost. Mostforces, however, were finding that district auditors were key to their understandingof best value and were increasingly involving them in their preparations – either as a source of guidance and advice, or more actively assisting with pilot reviews.

Management, culture and communication

Attitudes to change were seen as key to the success of forces’ best value approachesand the force’s history of change management was a major influence. Interviewees


16

Table 3: Responsibility for service reviews

Who will undertake reviews Forces

Staff in the reviewed service with central support 19

Central (HQ-based) team alone (after receiving training) 9

Staff in the reviewed service alone 6

8 Costs were mainly accounted

for by secondees’ opportunity

costs, time spent on reviews and

senior management costs.

from forces that had experienced significant changes in the recent past, althoughacknowledging that some staff were weary of upheaval, thought that colleagues hadbecome more accepting of change and might even welcome best value. Onecommented: “The main hindrance will be a cultural one, people will be thinking it’s yet

another change. It needs effective communication and education. Staff are fairly

forward thinking, we just need to make sure they all know what’s happening .

Working by example will help more than anything.”

Many forces had recognised a need to communicate best value to staff, but mostwere reluctant to spend a great deal of time or resources on formal training –preferring, instead, to ‘market’ it. Three forces piloting reviews planned to use theforce intranet to keep staff informed of developments: they felt that staff needed tounderstand best value’s practical implications for them and were more likely to bewon over by ‘early wins’. Staff seemed more receptive to messages about best value if they came from their peers. Cleveland Police, for instance, had used anoperational officer from a division to conduct briefings on best value whocommented: “a lot of thought should be put into the first 30 seconds…it’s best not to

mention the term best value at first or they’ll switch off…I focused on the new legal

obligations instead ” . Officers had shown more interest in hearing about howconsultation might work and in what ways the force would be measured.

Longer-term resistance to best value was thought likely if staff were not keptinformed or felt distanced from the reviewers and decision-makers. In one case, forinstance, where staff had been brought in from outside to conduct a review, anatmosphere of friction and distrust had developed which had led to a breakdown incommunication. Some forces had decided that, to build up trust amongst staff, thecentre would be provided with only summary findings from self-assessment exercises (such as BEM), rather than having access to detailed material that mightembarrass particular staff members and thus potentially undermine thecomprehensiveness of the exercise.

Communication from the bottom-up was also seen to be key, to encouragecontributions in terms of problem solving. One interviewee noted that staff hadoften “ i n t roduced good ideas in the course of their work but not thought to draw

attention to the fact” . To embed best value, forces were also consideringadding it to probationer training and making it a topic for staff assessment andappraisal for promotion.

Finally, management quality was a key factor in best value implementation. Oneforce representative who had compared pilot reviews concluded that: “managers


17

need to develop the right mindset: an understanding of the performance culture, an ability

to come up with solutions and the willingness to take risks." Senior officersneeded to support managers to:

● ‘think outside the box’ – outside the bounds of existing structures andmanagement practices;

● challenge their role and encourage staff to challenge their activities;● take risks and promote a blame-free culture;● encourage staff to identify problems and suggest solutions; and● support change where it was needed.

As one interviewee suggested, ‘traditional’ managers were more likely to think, “If I

get rid of this department, I’ll lose my own post! ” , than were managers usedto working in a performance culture. They had noted that senior officers,previously used to managing large operational teams but now heading supportdepartments, had a tendency to build up their departments and were more likely toresist any change that might reduce their resources. Forces, needed, therefore, toconsider how to encourage effective management of best value and to take carefulaccount of the culture of each review target and the personalities involved.

Police authority and force relations

Best value will radically alter the role of police authorities – making them legallyresponsible for continuous improvement in forces’ performance and providing themwith the opportunity to acquire a more detailed picture of policing activities.Despite this potential sea change, however, our research suggested that, untilrecently, many authorities had only briefly and infrequently discussed best value.

Internal issues for police authorities

Most authorities had made an existing audit committee or equivalent responsible for best value, although a small number had established a specific sub-committeeand a few had a lead member or a named ‘Best Value Officer’. Although theestablishment of a separate sub-committee suggested they had recognised bestvalue’s importance, some authority representatives felt it might become the preserve of a minority of members or officers. It was clear that authorities needed toconsider how best to communicate developments across their membership: oneauthority was addressing this by inviting all members to its Best Value Sub-Committee.

Some authority and force representatives believed that elected members – giventheir knowledge of developments in local authorities – tended to have a better


18

grasp of best value than independent members. Elected members’ potential reserveof experience may be valuable to forces as they develop their approaches but,increasingly, police authorities were also discovering they could draw on the publicand private sector experience of their independent members to good effect.

The relationship with the force

At the time of the telephone survey many authorities and forces had not decidedhow they would work together to deliver best value and there did not seem to havebeen much discussion of how this relationship might develop. Many forces, however, foresaw a practical role for authority members or officers (Table 4).

This highlighted, however, that authorities would need to consider whether theycould cope with the growth in work – such as assessing review materials, makingdecisions and monitoring progress. Most police authority representatives felt thatlack of resources and members’ time meant that best value might not receive theattention it should.

Although, by April 1999, only four forces had not formally discussed best value with their police authority, the frequency and extent of contact between otherauthorities and forces differed quite markedly. Often, forces were simply ‘keepingtheir authority informed’ of progress – either by communicating developments at the main meetings or by having an authority representative on the force SteeringGroup. Police authority members that had attended informal seminars run by forces, where issues could be discussed in a less formal environment than atcommittee, had found these useful and were taking an increasingly active and‘questioning’ role.

Our discussions with authorities and forces suggested that the extent of the role ofthe police authority in best value depended, in particular, on:

● the historical relationship between senior management and the police authority;● the personalities, skills, interests and enthusiasm of members and officers;


19

Table 4: Force perceptions of possible roles for police authority members or officers

Role Forces

Involved in prioritising services for review 30

Members to take part in service reviews 13

At least one member/officer to attend force Best Value Steering Group 9

Consulted at each stage 5

Monitoring role 4

● how the turnover of members was handled – especially in terms of best valueinduction;

● the resources available in terms of time and administrative support; and ● the way in which their involvement in local level consultation had developed.

Some force re p resentatives were apparently still concerned that police authority members might ‘dictate too much’ and ‘want to influence operational policing decisions’ – particularly if they could see a political gain.The implication was that by addressing, at an early stage, their respective ro l e sand relationships, police authorities and forces might avoid potential futurefriction. West Yo r k s h i re Police Authority and its force, for instance, had a g reed to a joint Best Value Steering Group, chaired by the Deputy Chair of the Police Authority. To further this integrated approach, the police authorityconcluded that, as part of a publicly funded service, they themselves should besubject to the same best value review process as, for example, the Forc eCommand Team. In Derbyshire Constabulary, the ACPO rank officers hada l ready taken part in training with members of the police authority – alsoa g reeing their respective roles and planning a best value review of the authority for 2004/5.

Northamptonshire Police Authority and their force were holding regular seminars as a means of communicating openly, outside the public arena, on ‘large-scaleissues’. Police authority members had already taken part in an earlier force review,and advocated a partnership approach, which one member described as being like a‘critical friend’ to the force. Potential difficulties for police authorities werehighlighted, however, in terms of the conflict between the monitoring and executive roles which best value legislation was seen to require.

The roles of the authority and force in the consultation process were also unclear.It was proving difficult to disentangle areas where the force would consult fromthose that were seen to be the preserve of the police authority. One forceinterviewee identified a broader need to develop a system for working with thepolice authority on research and consultation, thus “spreading the load”. The issue ofconsultation is returned to in Section 6.

Working with other authorities

Nearly half the forces had not discussed best value formally with local authorities in their area by April 1999 – although only one suggested it had no plans to do so.Six forces had found regular meetings helped avoid duplication (particularly inconsultation) and enabled them to discuss approaches, exchange good practice anddraw out early lessons.


20

One force was planning to go further, by running joint reviews whilst another hadalready benefited from local authority staff input to their implementation plans.Another force had developed a sustainable community project with the localauthority, where they shared the same performance indicator: the number of lettings in the area (i.e. not directly a crime-related indicator). Other forces,however, had become frustrated when trying to arrange joint reviews, because localauthorities in their area were working to different timetables and agendas.

A few forces felt that they were ahead of their local authorities in terms ofpreparations for best value and were better served by contact with local authoritieselsewhere who were more advanced, such as the London Borough of Newham. Twoforce representatives recommended access to local authority networks ofinformation from which they had gained useful material, for example on innovativepartnership working with the private sector.

Most forces had yet to have much contact with other authorities, such as those forfire and health, to discuss best value: although they frequently mentioned that theywould be prepared to consider sharing resources such as command and controlcentres. One force, however, had been unable to advance discussions because, theybelieved, the potential for sharing services could have budget implications: “We

would like to look at sharing with other emergency services but they feel very threatened by

all of this and are point blank refusing to discuss it . ”


21

4. Tools, models and standards for best value policing

Having identified some emerging management lessons, this re p o rt turns to thepractical details of the new regime, and how tools may help forces deliver best valuepolicing. Appendices 4 and 5 also include descriptions of some tools in action.

Tools for best value policing

The introduction of best value comes at the end of a decade that has seen a rapidadoption of management tools and aids in both the public and private sector. Bestvalue authorities have been turning to these either to give structure to their wholeapproach or to help them apply key elements.

Police authorities and forces were no exception to this trend: all but eight forceswere planning to use various models – mixing and matching them as necessary.Most interviewees from forces planning to combine models added that their forcewas developing or aiming to produce a toolkit and guidance to help officers decidewhich model to use and when. Greater Manchester Police, for instance, had adapted and were using the concept of a Best Value Toolkit originally developed byNewham. Many of the local authorities in the Greater Manchester area were alsousing the idea of a toolkit.

Table 5 lists the models and standards most frequently cited by forces as likely to aid their approach to best value – either by helping to drive the whole reviewstructure, or as one element within their reviews. The list excludes projectmanagement tools – of which there is a large range – cited by many forces as ameans of mapping and monitoring the progress of reviews.

Some respondents, however, felt there was a danger that early concentration ontools might lead authorities and forces to conclude that these, rather than thepractical, cultural, organisational and managerial implications of best value,deserved most attention. The models described in this section are, then, potentialaids to reviews and not guarantors or substitutesfor the delivery of best value policing. This section examines each tool in turn, considering its application as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

TOOLS, MODELS AND STANDARDS FOR BEST VALUE POLICING

22

Table 5: The most frequently cited tools and standards for best value policing

Tools/standards Forces

Business Excellence Model (BEM) 43

Process mapping 26

IIP accreditation 12

Balanced Scorecard 9

Charter Mark 7

The Business Excellence Model (BEM)

BEM, developed between 1988 and 1992 by the European Foundation for QualityManagement (EFQM), contends that controlled processes, supported by strategicleadership, resources and skilled personnel, will deliver continually improvingperformance and enhance staff and customer satisfaction whilst having a beneficialimpact on society more widely. For readers unfamiliar with BEM, the model isdescribed in Appendix 1.

The public sector soon recognised BEM’s potential and, by the mid-1990s it wasbeing adopted by local authorities, central government departments and nationalorganisations, such as Royal Mail. The model’s emphasis on continuousimprovement, enhanced customer satisfaction and performance benchmarking made it an obvious candidate for aiding best value delivery. The main attractions ofBEM for forces, however, as they developed their review process included:

● it is the most well-established ‘off the shelf’ tool – making it easier for the policeto compare performance with and learn from other public sector bodies and theprivate sector;

● all forces are using BEM in some way – increasing the opportunities for findingsand lessons to be shared in a common format;

● using BEM as a template for reviews effectively means that forces are likelyautomatically to cover three of the four Cs: compare, consult and compete;

● BEM assessments lead to action plans – in line with best value requirements;● if forces choose to score or grade their services as a result of BEM review, they

can reuse the model as a consistent way of measuring changes in performance;● forces can adapt it to their circumstances by changing headings, weightings and

issues; and● BEM coincides with many other disparate initiatives – such as Investors in

People, Charter Mark, QS 9000, BS EN ISO 9000 and ISO 4000. These links(described in Appendix 2) mean that forces can potentially combine earlierinitiatives with BEM, or need not adopt them.

Even before best value many forces were adopting BEM and, in 1998, ACPOformally recommended its police version as a means of managing and monitoringperformance. It was, therefore, not surprising that BEM was easily the mostfrequently cited tool – representing at least an element of the likely approach to best value in every force. The frequency with which the model was cited masked,however, differences in the way it was being applied. Variations included:


23

● employing consultants to apply the model, tasking a central review team ortraining members of each reviewed service to self-assess;

● using the original model, the revised model, the public sector version, the policeversion or the force’s own adaptation;

● with full scoring, partial scoring, grading or no scores;● as a way of reviewing the whole force to prioritise reviews (i.e. for corporate

review) and/or as an integral part of the reviews themselves; ● using differing mixtures or levels of evidence to score, such as the reviewers’

perceptions, practitioner workshops or full evidence gathering; and● as the standard review template or one of many tools to be applied to all/some

services.

We could not establish a detailed picture of exactly how each force would beemploying BEM (see Appendix 4 for one example). Typically, however, forcesintended to adapt the original model or use the police version and most regarded itprimarily as a self-assessment technique. Forces were expecting to have to tailor theissues and questions for each heading and reviewed service, but very few intended to employ the full ‘weights and scores’ model. A small number planned a ‘partialscoring’ approach, by reviewing their findings and grading each service (e.g. A, B, C, etc.). Two forces planned to require all divisions and departments to completeregular BEMs – so that much of the necessary data would be already available toinform the review and to aid ongoing management and planning (see Box 4).

Despite the frequency with which BEM was mentioned, it was clear that it was notuniversally popular. Indeed, most forces identified weaknesses and a small numbersuggested they had only adopted it because others had. One interviewee, from aforce that had decided to make limited use of BEM, explained that BEM’s resultswere only useful if they were acceptable: “We tried it five years ago and the Chief

Officers so disagreed with its findings that they got rid of it”.


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Box 4: BEM and South Wales Police

South Wales Police, one of the pilots, was asking all divisions and departments to undertake annual BEM assessments. The force, in common with many others, consideredthat it would take a few years for BEM to bed down. The assessments, therefore, would beundertaken by trained staff in each service and based, to begin with, solely on theirperceptions of the service’s performance. This would be followed a year later by a morerigorous practitioners’ workshop-based approach and it was proposed that these assessments would take place every two years. The best value reviews would therefore beable to draw immediately on up-to-date information.

BEM’s key disadvantages included:

● it is formulaic, complex, bureaucratic and costly;● forces often have to provide extensive training or use costly consultants;● everyone is using different versions – reducing the scope for comparability; ● BEM increases the time for best value to bed down, whilst provoking resistance

from staff who tend to regard it, and thus best value, as another jargon-rich fad; ● BEM’s self-assessment approach is too reliant on perceptions, meaning that

scores cannot accurately be benchmarked between forces or compared with other organisations;

● BEM highlights weaknesses, but not potential solutions – this has to be doneseparately; and

● the basic model has no built-in ‘challenge’ aspect: it implicitly assumes that thepolice should be providing each service.

Despite its relevance to best value, therefore, the police need to be alert to BEM’spotential limitations. Forces we visited stressed that the police cannot base theirwhole approach to best value solely on one model, such as BEM – they need toadapt models to their circumstances, adding ways to ensure that each service is‘challenged’ and all realistic options for improvement considered.

Whether forces adopt the fully scored and weighted BEM depends on the depth towhich they want to take assessments and how comparable over time and betweenservices they want reviews to be. An immediate problem encountered by one of theforces applying the full model was that the necessary data – particularly historical –were often lacking (although the force considered this finding a valuable outcome– enabling them to identify areas for improvement in data capture). Section 6examines further the issue of data availability.

Some of the forces we spoke to indicated that they were considering sharing the self-assessment function across the force – so that members of one service mightapply the BEM to another service. The potential advantage of this approach wasthat it could both reduce the danger that services assess themselves too favourably,and increase opportunities for lessons to be shared between services. One of thepilots, however, had decided against it on the basis that staff would come to regardreviews as akin to an audit – encouraging them to talk up their performance andpossibly conceal information. Instead, they had decided that a Lead Assessor fromthe centre would head review teams elsewhere, acting as a control on rigour andquality. They also intended to ask external consultants to examine their reviews.


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We were aware throughout our research of the emphasis being placed by forces onBEM. To sum up, however, as one interviewee from a force well experienced in BEM stressed: “The BEM is not a panacea – it doesn’t guarantee best value, but it does

help to identify what is and isn’t working. You don’t just do BEM – you have to use the

results. BEM is a tool – not the end ” .

Process mapping and Process Expert (PE)

Process mapping, which enables organisations to identify and map out for eachfunction every single interlinked activity, is not new to policing. Many forcesdescribed their use of it to break policing down into costed activities, or help themto understand the minutiae of a particular service. The potential value of processmapping to best value, however is that it:

● enables links between services to be identified because it breaks activities downby processes rather than functions (such as departments), therefore teasing outevery link in the chain of policing so that reviews can more easily cut acrossdepartments and divisions;

● requires forces to define a service and then identify every related activity – sothat each can, in turn, be challenged and compared with other services or forces;

● makes costing, and thus the ‘compete’ element of best value, morestraightforward by enabling every input to be identified and assessed; and

● allows every member of staff providing or receiving services across the force to be identified – so enabling best value consultation to be more focused.

Process mapping was popular even with ‘front-line’ officers. In one force, themapping of ‘accident procedures’ prompted one officer to comment that theresulting policy to stop recording ‘damage-only accidents’ had been “the only good

thing that ever came out of headquarters ”.

Although there is a range of mapping products on the market, many forces plannedto use Process Expert (PE) Professional Software. This tool has been developed as aresult of an ACPO-backed project to develop a national database of process models, with the intention of developing a common language and consistency inservice delivery as well as to enable more accurate activity costing. PE uses thePolice Process Classification Framework (agreed by ACPO in 1998), to breakpolicing down into over 300 processes and sub-processes. PE software enables forcesto record every related staff activity for each of these processes so that complexprocess maps are gradually created which enable all policing activities to be costedand compared between forces.


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In May 1999, 19 forces had started to pilot PE for six defined processes (Appendix3). By mid-1999, all but three forces aimed to purchase the software and many wereapplying it independently to inform their reviews. The possible additionaladvantages of PE to best value policing included:

● as best value progresses and forces map all their processes, it will enable thecreation of a national database of process blueprints to aid the dissemination ofgood practice;

● it ensures consistency of approach across forces in terms of modelling and costing, so that inter-force comparisons are more accurate; and

● it is based on software that can be easily shared and updated.

Our survey also suggested that the software’s promotion had at least partly driventhe decision of some forces to define services by processes rather than functions (see Section 5). The future spread of PE might, therefore, have a significant impacton how forces implement best value. If all forces vigorously take up PE it is possiblethat reviews will become increasingly process driven – with geographic- andfunction-based approaches becoming rarer. Some force contacts even explained that their force had decided to delay devising their programme of service reviewsuntil they had used PE to help them define their services.

One alternative to PE was the Functional Analysis System Technique (FAST)Model, which combines process mapping with a structure for challenging eachidentified activity (Box 5).

Whilst the apparent value of process mapping to forces wishing to break downservices into activities was clear, it was too early for us to judge PE’s impact. Manyforces regarded PE highly – suggesting it had great potential provided all forcessigned up and used it rigorously. Despite this, few regarded PE as an importantbenchmarkingtool. This may partly be related to the scale of work required to buildthe data warehouse – PE’s promoters suggest that complete benchmarking data willnot be available until all forces have reviewed all services (i.e. April 2005). Oneforce contact, however, considered it unlikely that PE would ever be able to create a full database of all processes, because many forces would review their services inother ways.

Some contacts were less enthusiastic about process mapping and, as with BEM,interviewees were often concerned that forces should not mistake process mappingas a direct route to best value. One commented: “process mapping is not the same as a

best value review: it doesn’t involve consulting people…it’s just a desk-based exercise”.


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The Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

Robert Kaplan and David Norton first proposed the BSC, in 1992, because of theapparent failure of organisations to link measurement of past performance to futurestrategies. They proposed a framework of measures providing a comprehensivepicture of an organisation’s overall performance against its long-term vision andstrategy. With the BSC, once an organisation has established its vision, aims andobjectives, it identifies the required actions or initiatives and establishes for eachaction key inter-related ratios under the following four headings to help keep trackof its progress:

● customer perspective – measures of customer and stakeholder expectations,perceptions and levels of satisfaction;

● internal business process perspective – measures of current performance againsttargets for the organisation’s identified key processes;

● continuous improvement perspective – measures of the organisation’s ability tocommunicate and learn from improvements; and

● financial perspective – measures such as cost ratios.


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Box 5: FAST and Lincolnshire Police

Lincolnshire and seven other forces had jointly benchmarked and challenged proceduresfor firearms and explosives licensing, using FAST – a tool combining process mapping with a challenge element.

Under FAST, a focus group of practitioners breaks a function down into its componentparts, mapping out all the interconnected processes for the whole service on a single sheetof paper. They then brainstorm each process, by applying a verb and noun to defend it (forinstance: “the service does ‘x’ to save money”). A ‘wild card’ member is present at themeeting constantly to question why things are done in the way they are. Once performance information is added (e.g. cost, frequency, time taken) the group can identifywhich parts of the service require more detailed process mapping to identify precisely theactivities where attention is needed.

The model had some drawbacks: it did not necessarily produce results that could becompared with non-participating forces, and was potentially unpredictable because of itsdependence on the personalities and knowledge of the participants. Nevertheless,Lincolnshire considered FAST a potentially effective means of both benchmarking andchallenging services (to some extent the challenge was supplied by other forces asking why one force took an approach they had deemed unnecessary). One outcome of the pilotwas that the force now combined visits to all holders whose licences were due to expirewithin twelve months, rather than visiting each in turn as their licence expired: resulting in projected savings of over £80,000.

Based on the premise that ‘what gets measured gets done’, these measures aresubsequently used to drive up performance.

Apart from its emphasis on the drive for continuous performance improvement,BSC’s relevance to best value derives from its emphasis on the organisation’s vision(as in a corporate review) and setting of measures which ensure that each service issubject to the ‘4Cs’. The model’s potential advantages as a tool for best valuepolicing include:

● BSC can be applied to the entire organisation (as a corporate review) or toindividual services;

● it can provide a structure for service reviews by breaking down police activities so that they can be challenged, compared and consulted on;

● BSC’s heavy emphasis on performance measurement coincides with thedevelopment in the last decade of an increasingly comprehensive policeperformance management framework;

● it provides order for disparate police performance measures – placing them in astructure that ties them explicitly to long-term aims and objectives; and

● it provides a wider picture of outcomes than traditional performancemeasurement (for instance, a drugs initiative resulting in only a few arrests might be regarded as a failure, but BSC would include other overlooked outcomes – such as more officers with experience of dealing with the issue andincreased public awareness).

Nine forces, therefore, regarded BSC as a potential tool to help them break downservice objectives and set defensible measures. Usually, however, they wereintegrating the model with the BEM: by establishing future measures as part ofBEM’s ‘key performance results’. The most advanced demonstration we encountered of the application of BSC to policing was in Scotland, where theAccounts Commission (1998) was promoting its use for best value (Box 6).


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Whilst none of the interviewees from the forces considering the model thought that BSC had any drawbacks, a few from forces not using it felt it should not be keyto any force’s approach because it was too biased toward performance indicators and historic data.

Investors in People (IIP) and Charter Mark

IIP is a national standard for employers to help them plan, manage and evaluatestaff development to ensure that employees can deliver services effectively. CharterMark is the government’s award scheme for encouraging public service excellenceagainst nine criteria, including high performance standards, customer satisfaction,complaints handling and value for money.

Investors in People (IIP) and Charter Mark are standards to which service providers aspire, rather than tools for best value. They were usually regarded byforces as evidence, therefore, that they were already supplying best value services,rather than as a mechanism forces should now adopt to meet the requirements.Forces were, however, drawing on information gathered during the accreditationprocesses to help inform their self-assessments. For instance, if they were using theBEM, forces were able to use IIP’s consultation process to inform their evaluation of


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Box 6: The Balanced Scorecard in Dumfries and Galloway Constabular y

Dumfries and Galloway piloted BSC to define services and set performance measures. Forexample, they identified a force aim to “make the streets safer” before breaking this downinto three key goals, to reduce:

● alcohol-related incidents;● street disorder; and● the use of knives and weapons.

They then broke these goals down into actions, using a ‘what-how’ analysis. This involvedtaking each goal (the ‘what’) and asking ‘how’ to deliver it. As each ‘how’ is identified itbecomes a ‘what’ and the question is again asked ‘how’ to achieve it – so that an action isidentified. For example, to reduce alcohol related incidents (the ‘what’), the force mightdecide to encourage public houses not to serve obviously drunk clients (the ‘how’) and toachieve this end the action might be to visit particular premises and keep following up.

Taking the reduction of alcohol-related incidents as an example, the force identified arange of actions and categorised them according to the BSC’s four headings, before settingperformance measures. For example, one action was to change the customer’s perspectiveby targeting underage drinking and the measure was “number of cautions/offences reported”.Another action to ensure continuous improvement was to have internal briefings on theissue with the measure being “the change in officers’ attitudes and awareness”.

‘people results’. On the other hand, some forces had concluded that theirapplication of BEM was sufficient to ensure that they need not adopt IIP (Appendix 2 explains the links between BEM and other initiatives).

Charter Mark potentially has a more significant relationship to best value than IIP,because of its concentration on high standards in service provision and customersatisfaction across the board. Despite this, few interviewees highlighted it as criticalto their force’s approach to best value. Interviewees from forces with CharterMarked services invariably regarded it as both vital and highly valuable and oftensuggested that the best value legislation should have exempted these services. Acouple of interviewees, in contrast, were highly critical of the standard – suggestingthat it signified little for an enormous amount of work and was unnecessary: “We

dislike the Charter Mark system: it involves too much effort for little gain in relation to the

requirements of best value.”


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5. Defining services and running review programmes

The previous three Sections considered some of the issues the police need to address as they prepare for best value – management, culture, communications,external relations and potential tools. This Section and the next move on toexamine best value’s practical implications and some early lessons in terms of thekey stages of the framework:

● corporate review – developing a strategy for local policing, based on a review ofperformance;

● defining services – deciding how to divide up policing services for review; ● review prioritisation – deciding which services to review when;● constructing and managing review programmes – agreeing roles and a

timetable; and● producing Performance Plans – deciding how best to present review findings,

objectives, measures and ongoing results of monitoring from past reviews.

Corporate review

Section 2 described how police authorities and forces have, for some time, beenpublishing mission statements, aims, objectives, measures and targets. Just over halfthe force representatives in the telephone survey considered these providedsufficiently comprehensive information from which to derive a corporate review –although a handful planned first to update their data. Only thirteen forces appearedto have interpreted best value as requiring a new and separate force-wide ‘healthcheck’ at the start or in the early stages of best value (Table 6).

DEFINING SERVICES AND RUNNING REVIEW PROGRAMMES

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Box 7: What is a corporate review?

“Effective corporate review involves establishing a clear picture of an authority’s strengths and

weaknesses, agreeing a local vision for improvement…and setting practical goals...”.

‘Better by Far’, Audit Commission

DETR (1999) suggest that the first item on an authority’s action list should be to “carry out an

assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the authority ” . The guidance continues: “as a

first step, authorities will need to establish, where they have not already done so, their strategic

objectives and corporate priorities”.

We were not in a position to judge whether existing planning structures would besufficient to enable the production of a corporate review. Key elements of acorporate review, however, should include:

● an overarching vision and a practical set of objectives for achieving it;● the results of community consultation (including users, potential users,

businesses and other agencies) on current performance and future priorities;● an overall assessment of performance9 (including, where possible, comparisons

with non-police organisations) and a clear picture of force strengths andweaknesses;

● a consideration of future policing issues and what preparations are required; ● the co-ordination of existing planning processes (see Section 2); and● an explicit link between the corporate review and the selection of services for

review.

Forces, therefore, need to consider whether they have the sort of up-to-dateinformation required: if not, they may need to ‘plug the gaps’ so that their firstPerformance Plan and review programme is demonstrably based on full knowledge of where they are headed and where they currently stand.

The legislation and guidance do not prescribe how frequent corporate review should be, but some forces apparently regarded it as a one-off exercise, replacingprevious long-term force strategies. Review programmes, however, have to besufficiently flexible to take account both of the findings from reviews and forces’changing circumstances (including national developments, such as the MacPhersonReport). Some forces, therefore, had decided to keep their programmes up-to-dateby revisiting them regularly or undertaking frequent corporate reviews (Box 8).


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Table 6: Proposed methods for producing corporate reviews

Method Forces

Drawing on existing plans (Strategic Plans, Local Policing Plans, Business Plans, etc.) 22

Undertaking new force-wide review 9

Updating existing plans (Strategic Plans, Local Policing Plans, Business Plans, etc.) 5

Building up picture from rapid review of all services in first year 4

Building up force-wide picture over 5-year best value programme 3

9 For the moment, forces will

have to base their comparisons

of performance on the existing

disparate set of national

performance indicators. From

April 2000, however, they will

be able to use the new national

suite of performance indicators

developed to underpin the

Overarching Aims and

Objectives for Policing

(published August 1998).

One force had decided to include a review of its own Force Command within thecorporate review, which would enable a longer-term strategy to parallel their reviewprogramme (Box 9). Others had concluded that there was no discernible differencebetween corporate review and review prioritisation: for them, the process ofselecting services for review equated to a corporate assessment. Although, however,the two processes of corporate review and review prioritisation are explicitly linked,the latter derives from and is informed by the former. Forces will need to be able todemonstrate that their review prioritisation is a product of a corporate picture ofhow their force shouldbe performing and how it really is.

Defining services

Neither the best value legislation nor any related guidance prescribes any particularapproach to dividing up services for review. The Audit Commission (1998) however, identified four ways by which authorities might ‘cut up’ their services,adding that they might take a hybrid pick-and-mix approach, by combining theseoptions according to the characteristics of their services:

● service-based – by existing service units;● area-based – geographic sub-areas within overall boundaries;


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Box 8: Corporate review in West Yorkshir e

West Yorkshire had adapted its Annual Strategic Review process to become an annual

corporate review every autumn. Since 1995, this approach had helped the force reviewCorporate Strategy – including resource allocation and the prioritisation of organisationalchange projects (such as the Force Process Improvement Programme of reviews). Theoriginal approach involved a structured process undertaken over two days by members ofthe Force Command Team, facilitated by the Management Support Unit. Key stagesincluded:

● What sort of organisation do we want to be? (i.e. purpose and values).● What environmental issues need to be considered? (employing environmental

scanning).● How well have we done? (i.e. an assessment against objectives and targets, activity

analysis findings and reviews of major organisational change projects).

Building on these data, the Force Command Team would agree the force’s StrategicObjectives (with linked targets) and how best to allocate resources.

For its 1998 review, to meet best value, the force had built on this structured process byadding an annual policing excellence assessment (i.e. the BEM), adopting a new reviewapproach to cover the whole force over five years, and improving the consultation of hardto reach groups. To help ‘plug possible gaps’ in their consultation, the police authority wasalso considering whether to fund a citizens’ panel focused on policing.

● customer focus – how the service appears from the customer’s perspective; and ● cross-cutting issues/ ‘wicked issues’ – issues cutting across localities and

demographic groups, best tackled by a multi-agency approach.

Our discussions with forces suggested, however, that the potential pattern of servicereviews was likely to be more complex than this. We identified three inter-relatedelements to the definition of services for review:

● the review approach – whether to review by function, process, theme, etc.; ● the review target – the topic of a review (i.e. a division, a department, a theme,

etc.); and● the level of review – whether at the level of division, sub-division, department,

team, etc.).

Review approaches

By asking interviewees to suggest potential review examples, we discerned thefollowing approaches (Table 7).

Until best value is fully underway, it will not be possible to reach clear conclusionsabout which review approach might be most appropriate to forces’ circumstances.Forces, however, identified potential advantages and disadvantages for all theapproaches. These are outlined below in Table 8 which also draws on the AuditCommission’s work (1998). As forces decide which approaches to adopt and when,they also need to consider how best to address the potential disadvantages.


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Box 9: Force Command and corporate review

Greater Manchester Police had decided to review their Force Command at the outset ofbest value. For them, this approach had important advantages: helping CommandingOfficers to develop an understanding of best value, to demonstrate leadership and showthe rest of the force that no one was to be immune.

The Force Command Review also enables Commanding Officers to re-examine forceperformance, set a vision and develop a strategic plan to help inform the reviewprogramme. This development of a new Strategic Plan effectively required the ForceCommand to undertake a corporate review of their force – gathering a wide range ofperformance data and consultation finding. By combining the review of its Command Team with a corporate review, GMP also hoped to break out of the silo mentality – whereby officers were tempted to think in terms of their areas of command rather thanacross the force. The resulting corporate review would initially inform the best valueprogramme, but would also be a living document which could be revisited over time as theforce regularly re-examined its Strategic Plan in the light of service reviews.

The most frequently cited review combinations we encountered comprisedfunctional reviews for non-operational parts of the force (e.g. headquartersdepartments) and either process reviews for operational policing (e.g. crimeinvestigation or patrol) or geographical reviews (e.g. division by division). Thoseforces already advanced in their planning had also usually allowed for thedevelopment of cross-cutting reviews with other agencies, although none hadprogressed very far.

Review targets

Forces’ potential review targets included ‘training’, ‘custody’ and ‘patrol’. In themain, these targets frequently related to the review approach. For instance, an ‘IT ‘or ‘personnel review’ usually implied a functional approach (i.e. focusing on the ITand personnel departments).

It became clear, however, that forces could, if they wanted, apply different review

approaches for the same target. For example, as Table 8 demonstrates, a review of theIT department could potentially be addressed simply by examining the activities ofIT staff, or by widening this to a process review, encompassing all IT usage acrossthe whole force (whether by specialist or operational officers). Likewise a focus on‘custody’ might mean a functional review of all custody suites (i.e. costs, location,activities, staffing, etc.) or a wider process review of every police activity relating todetainee handling – from point of arrest through entry into a custody suite and


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Table 7: Approaches to service review

Approaches Forces

Function/Service-based: This involves isolating and reviewing the providers of a 28service (e.g. a support department or a custody suite).

Process: Identifying a series of related policing activities, often across a range of 28service providers, from start to finish (e.g. crime management, broken down into crime recording, reporting, investigation, etc.). Confusingly, some forces referred to this approach as ‘cross-cutting’ or ‘thematic’ because it ranged across a number of internal functions and issues.

Geographic/Area-based: Defining services by geographic layout (e.g. reviewing all 16HQ departments or individual divisions). Whilst local authorities might have many sites, however, most forces only have divisions and departments (often concentrated at one main site). There tended, therefore, to be strong similarities between the functional and geographic approach.

Cross-cutting: Identifying wide-ranging policing issues/themes best tackled in 14partnership with non-police service providers (e.g. drugs, community safety, etc.).

Customer-focused: Defining services according to how users perceive them 3(i.e. points of public contact with the police and their perceptions of what happens behind the scenes).


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Table 8: The advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to service reviews

Potential advantages Potential disadvantages

Process(e.g. filepreparationand recordsystems –which mightinclude theIT dept.)●

Opportunity for forces to identify howdepartments and divisions worktogether

● Functions can be linked in a way thatmakes sense and overcomes ‘silomentality’

● PE and other process mappingapproaches can help identify activities

● More likely to relate to customerperceptions

● Using processes may makebenchmarking easier (forces cancompare ‘bits’ of services)

● Forces need to process map (which canbe complex and time consuming)

● Harder to identify review teams andassign objectives

● Benchmarking harder unless forces havedefined processes in exactly the sameway

● Difficult to know ‘where to stop’ whendefining a service (i.e. service boundaries are unclear)

● Encourages a ‘silo mentality’ – wherestaff tend to think only in terms of theirown service

● Difficult to dissociate services when theyrely on one another

● Harder to identify cross-functionallessons

● Straightforward, relating to existingstructures

● Data already exist in this format● Easier to identify review teams and

assign objectives● Easier to explain to staf f

Function(e.g. theIT dept.)

Geographic(e.g. bydivision, ordepartmentaccordingto their site– whichmightinclude theIT dept.)

● Relates to existing structures, soreviews may be easier to conduct

● Encourages local view of serviceprovision more attuned to publicperceptions and priorities

● Easier to relate reviews to existinglocal partnerships (especially givenCrime and Disorder Strategies)

● Data usually exist down to local level● May encourage competition between

services – possibly driving upperformance

● Danger of duplication of similar reviews● Less likely to learn cross-force lessons ● May encourage competition between

services – possibly hindering the sharingof lessons

● May overlook opportunities foreconomies of scale from shared resources

● Creates confusion if different areas thentake different actions to improve

● More complex if boundaries are notcoterminous with local authorities

● Different divisions often have the sameexternal partners – reviewing themseparately might confuse these partners

Cross-cutting(e.g. agencydata sharing– inc. forceIT dept.)

● Enables forces to develop or build onexisting partnerships

● More likely to focus on issues of publicconcern

● More attuned to public perceptionsand priorities

● Difficult to co-ordinate reviews withlots of other agencies – which may beworking to different timetables

● Complex and lengthy ● May be harder to assign and co-

ordinate follow-up actions

Customer -focused (e.g.complaintshandling –mightinclude ITrecords)

● Relates directly to issues of localconcern

● May make it easier to work with otheragencies

● Hard to establish an accurate pictureof customer perceptions

● Public perceptions may be inaccurate● Will not cover all force services – such

as those where the public have nocontact

● Difficult to develop performancemeasures and targets

eventual release. Both these functional or process reviews might also havegeographic elements by examining, separately or in parallel, headquarters policy and divisional differences in activities and performance.

Levels of review

Forces were likely to be focusing their reviews at different levels. Functional reviews of departments might, for instance, cover the whole department or one partof it, whilst geographic reviews might focus on divisions or sub-divisions.

One force was considering devolving the best value requirements to departments –so that each one would have to devise its own five-year programme for internalreviews. They thought this might have the advantage of increasing local ownershipwhilst allowing for the diverse responsibilities of some of the departments. It wouldalso enable them to prioritise reviews more accurately by focusing on particularaspects of a department or division particularly in need of review. There were,however, also potential disadvantages: so many reviews at different times couldmake it hard to learn lessons across the force and make best value’s managementcomplex.

GMP had piloted its reviews in four sub-divisions and intended to take forward thisapproach (Appendix 4). However, the force had also concluded that the outcomeswould have to be aggregated and taken forward at divisional level to disseminatelessons, avoid different actions being taken by neighbouring teams of officers and aid the management of best value.

Service reviews: hybrid approaches

Although, in our survey, only three forces had not yet considered how to definetheir services for review, the majority had only recently started to address the issue.Despite this, three-quarters had decided that that they would adopt some form ofpick-and-mix approach. One interviewee acknowledged that although their hybridmix of reviews “might entail some review overlaps, it will hopefully counter our fear of

missing something out…”. The key danger with this was identified by one pilot as a‘burgeoning number of reviews’ that might mean “forces gradually drowning in best

value”. They concluded that it was critical for forces to keep the number of reviewsto a minimum.

We found, therefore, that it was overly simplistic to categorise force approaches tobest value as process- or geographic-based. Although a force might be concentrating on a set of process reviews, it might also undertake functional


38

reviews. Likewise, it might be undertaking a functional review of a service whilst itsneighbours undertook a process review of the same service. The force might alsocombine process and functional elements in the same review. This potentialpatchwork of approaches, targets and levels will have important consequences forforces comparing progress and outcomes, as well for the HMIC and AuditCommission as they develop their audit and inspection regime.

Review prioritisation

Having defined their services, police authorities and forces need to agree reviewpriorities. The White Paper suggested that authorities should concentrate first onservices where the public is poorly served (Box 10).

Although our survey suggested that poor performance would be the key factorinfluencing the prioritisation of police service reviews, it was clear that there wouldbe others (Table 9), with two-thirds of forces intending to weigh up a range offactors before defining their programmes. The size of services’ budgets and thepotential for financial savings (not necessarily an indication of weakness) werefrequently cited factors. Surprisingly few forces, however, were considering tyingtheir review timetables into those of other forces or agencies.

Forces were reluctant to place too much emphasis on poor performance as a factorinfluencing review priorities because of its potentially adverse impact on morale.One interviewee commented: “In terms of divisions, in particular, we will look to do

the reviews roughly at the same time to avoid the stigma that one division is being done

sooner because it is weakest .” Some forces also considered that weakness,defined solely on the basis of performance indicators, would not necessarily identifyservices that delivered poor quality to the public. Another interviewee explained:“Defining weakness is hard – do we rely on PIs, finance information or public opinion?

Also, a service may not be weak in all aspects . ” A few forces also emphasised the


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Box 10: Guidance on review prioritisation

“Where the performance of a service is demonstrably poor by any standards – and the framework of

national indicators will highlight these – then authorities will be expected to review that service

quickly and effectively. Where performance is poor but there are a number of areas needing

attention, there may need to be some scope for phasing a review. Where will also be a case for

addressing some of the stronger areas of performance early, so what the lessons of success can be

spread quickly. But it would be unacceptable for any authority to put off reviewing significant areas

of weakness without good cause…”

DETR (1998b)

need to take account of trends, rather than relying on the most recent data thatmight conceal a dynamic picture of rapidly improving or worsening performance.

Forces also seldom seemed to link corporate review and service prioritisationexplicitly: indeed, many had already identified which services they were likely toreview from April 2000 (Table 10).

Although divisions were often mentioned as targets, forces already piloting reviewsusually preferred to start with support services. Particular favourites for early reviewwere the departments responsible for IT, training, personnel, finance and fleetmanagement. Less frequently mentioned were reviews of operational policing – such as patrol, CID or particular districts. A few forces were also reviewing specialist units, such as child protection and domestic violence units (Appendix 5describes one of these reviews).

It was apparent that, despite those factors cited by forces as key to their reviewprioritisation (Table 9), there were other considerations influencing their choice forearly reviews. Support services were favoured by many because they were regardedas areas where reviews were most likely to identify efficiency savings, to contributeto the force’s 2% target. Support services were also seen as easier to define forreview purposes and more likely to be familiar with reviews. Some of the forcesconcentrating on operational policing, however, had done so because this offeredmore scope for a rapid impact on ‘front-line’ policing, in line with force and national objectives, and because performance data were more readily available.


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Table 9: Factors influencing review prioritisation

Main factors influencing prioritisation Forces

Weak performance 21

Size of service’s budget 14

After public consultation/recognised as most important to public 11

Size of potential financial savings 8

Likelihood of ‘quick win’ 7

When service had last been reviewed 6

Extent to which service is ‘public facing’ 5

External pressures (e.g. from HMIC, Home Office, Audit Commission) 5

Existing corporate/strategic/local objectives 2

Identified as a priority by other reviews 2

To tie in with other agencies’ reviews (e.g. local authorities) 2

To reflect what other forces are doing 2

In most cases, where the decision had been made, responsibility for the initialprioritisation would rest with whatever central team their force had. The team’srecommendations, however, would be put to the force’s Best Value Steering Groupor equivalent and to the police authority.

Models for prioritisation

Although the Audit Commission (1998) highlighted how some local authoritieswere adopting models to aid prioritisation, only nine forces intended to do the same – usually by adapting the London Borough of Newham’s model10. Some,however, had developed their own version (Box 11).

The advantage of adopting a model for prioritisation was that it simplified decision-making – enabling all the choices to be made rapidly and according to the samecriteria. It also ensured that these decisions were potentially more objective and,therefore, more defensible. The value of the approach, however, depended on thecriteria chosen, the weight applied to the scores and how, or by whom, the scoreswere decided.

Constructing review programmes

Once authorities and forces have agreed how they plan to define policing s e rvices, they should draw on their corporate review findings to devise a


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Table 10: Likely review targets

Target Forces

Individual divisions/BCUs 8

Personnel/sickness policy/administration/catering 6

IT services 6

Finance/payroll/procurement 6

Custody 6

Frontline patrol/response 6

Crime management (recording, reporting, investigation) 6

Call handling/crime desk/help desk 6

Fleet management/transport 5

Training 4

Estate management 4

Public relations/publicity/printing services 4

Community safety/multi-agency work/Problem Oriented Policing 4

10 This model prioritises by scoring

each defined service from one to

five points (where five means

‘high priority’) according to

factors such as public

satisfaction, importance to the

public, user satisfaction,

performance and cost.

p rogramme that will ensure all services are reviewed between 1 April 2000 and 31 March 2005. This does not mean, however, that programmes can or need to list e v e ry review that will occur over the next five years – programmes need to beflexible, so that new reviews can be added or planned reviews amended orrescheduled in the light of:

● findings from service reviews – which might, for instance, highlight new areas for review or be extended to include an area originally intended for separatereview;

● changes to force objectives/priorities following consultation; and● external factors – such as new legislation or national developments (e.g. the

MacPherson report and Human Rights legislation), or local factors such as thedevelopment of a new town.

Although some forces had already listed a large number of reviews for particularyears, most were yet to define their programmes. Many force contacts mentionedthat they had difficulty knowing what should be reviewed in two years time – letalone five. The forces we visited that had developed review programmes haddecided that the best approach was to have a pragmatic outline structure of reviewswith an element of regular review. Given the need to link service prioritisation to


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Box 11: Review prioritisation in Leicestershire Constabular6y

Leicestershire Constabulary had developed a weighted model using the following factors:

● importance of the service – assessment of extent to which service matters to public andstakeholders – it is likely that core services will score more highly than ancillary services;

● public satisfaction – whether this is improving/falling and perceived performance getting better/worse;

● comparative performance – PIs and their trends;● cost/benefit – the cost of the service, likely cost of review and potential for savings;● external influences – pressure to review particular services, areas or practices from

Audit Commission, HMIC, the government or elsewhere;● benchmarking – depending on the availability of data from forces and elsewhere (in

some cases, reviews may be delayed until information is available);● corporate objectives – set at force level, relating to areas for organisational

development;● other organisations – whether review might be co-ordinated with others; and● timing – taking account of factors such as when the last review took place, whether it

complements other reviews and whether legislation is anticipated.

Each potential target will be assessed against these nine factors and given a score betweenone and five to reflect their level of priority. A score of five would indicate a high priorityfor review, and one will be the lowest priority. The services with the highest total score arelikely to be reviewed earlier in the programme.

corporate review, forces might consider having regular force-wide reviews (Box 6,page 30).

Forces advanced in devising their review programmes had concluded, in hindsight,that others should bear in mind the following:

● Resources need to be planned alongside self-assessments – both in terms ofcentral support and whether the service can spare the staff. One force, havingreviewed a support department commented: “…we almost had to put everything on

hold while we did the review. It was not too difficult to stop the department for a while,

but it’s going to be very hard for the divisions: they are going to have to keep everything

flowing whilst they review themselves”.

● Reviews tended to take longer than planned, although they were likely to become faster as the force became used to them. Review programmes will,however, have to be realistic and sufficiently flexible to cope with unexpecteddelays.

● It would be worthwhile to discuss the programme with neighbouring policeauthorities, forces and local authorities in the area, so that reviews might belinked and lessons shared. One force we visited had found it very difficult to co-ordinate its review of child protection units with social services, but hadconcluded that earlier contact and planning might have made this easier.

● The programme should take account of different review approaches and tools.Process reviews, with cross-force communications, may take longer than otherapproaches. Likewise, self-assessment using the full BEM is resource-intensiveand requires careful planning.

● Although best value requires all services to be reviewed over five years, this doesnot mean that a force need only review a service once in that period. Some of the forces we visited had concluded that five years was too long between reviewsand had devised a cycle that required more frequent reviews, or intended toreview certain key services more often.

● They need to plan how to assess and manage not only a rapidly growing numberof reviews, but also their findings, action plans and progress monitoring for each,as the programme rolls forward. Interviewees – even in forces advanced in theirpreparations – suggested that they had only recently appreciated the extent towhich best value meant an accumulation of work. One interviewee commented:”we’ve really just been concentrating on what we needed to do over the next year – but

best value is not just a flow of reviews, it’s a wave that will get higher”.


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Producing Performance Plans

By 31 March every year, police authorities and forces will need to have agreed theirPerformance Plans. No detailed guidance had been issued, by the date of this report, on the content and format of these Plans. However, DETR (1998b, 1999)and the Local Government Act 1999, suggest that an authority’s Plan should:

● summarise the force’s objectives and its assessment of how well it had beenmeeting these;

● compare its performance with the performance of others;● report the findings of reviews in the previous year and proposed actions to

improve performance (including measures and targets); and● set out the timetable for its proposed service reviews.

Few authorities or forces we spoke to had started to consider how to develop theirfirst Performance Plan – although many were concerned that they had received noadvice. Experience suggested that review reports and Action Plans tended to bebulky documents unsuited to wide-scale publication. The guidance (DETR, 1999),however, had also made it clear that Plans should employ “plain language, a clear

layout and relevant information”. It was clear, therefore, that published Plans wouldhave to summarise quite extensively the results of reviews – concentrating primarily on the proposed objectives, actions, measures and targets. One force,Greater Manchester Police, had already taken this approach by setting out whatresidents could expect to see receiving attention in short glossy reports of itsreviewed sub-divisions. The force intended to combine these PerformanceImprovement Plans into a contribution to their force-wide Performance Plan.


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6. Service reviews and the ‘4Cs’

Review phases and the ‘4Cs’

The success of the service’s approach to best value ultimately depends on theeffectiveness of its reviews. Authorities and forces will need to demonstrate thatevery service has been subjected to the ‘4Cs’ (Box 2, page 7), and should be clear,by April 2000, how they will do this.

Although this Section examines the ‘4Cs’ as distinct review components they areunlikely, in practice, to form consecutive tasks within each review. Instead, manyforces were tending to divide their pilot reviews into phases that mixed andcombined elements of the ‘4Cs’ in a way that served to highlight how, in fact, therequirements were inter-related. Some interviewees, therefore, found it difficult todisentangle the ‘4Cs’, concluding that:

● consultation findings enhanced performance comparisons;● comparisons helped them consider competitive alternatives; and● information on competitiveness enabled them to challenge service provision,

and so on.

It was also apparent that there was no optimum way to approach the ‘4Cs’ – someforces preferred to challenge at the start of a review, whilst others did so at the end(on the basis that they needed all the information first). Nevertheless, authoritiesand forces needed both to plan how they would cover the ‘4Cs’ and demonstrateretrospectively that they had done so. A typical review might start with the reviewteam mapping out their timetable and then initially considering why the serviceexisted (i.e. challenge) and what other options might exist (i.e. partial consideration of ‘compete’). From there, the review might mix and match theelements as it progressed (Box 12). In practice, forces did not need to adopt a rigidframework: many emphasised that they would plan each review’s structure at thestart – ensuring that, at minimum, they could demonstrate they had met all therequirements. Some forces, therefore, planned to produce a template that could beadded to and altered for each review.

SERVICE REVIEWS AND THE ‘4CS’

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Data availability and reliability

Most forces had decided that the gathering of all available data was a key initialstage in each review. Many were finding, however, that this was proving much easier for operational services than for support services, which were unused tohaving their performance examined and monitored so closely. To some extent, thiswas influencing review prioritisation, but it was also prompting some to put in place new data collection systems that would mean the data would be available once they came to review the service. This was one reason for South Wales’approach (Box 4, page 24).

One force, that had reviewed a support service, had found particular problems withthe data they collected – not only in terms of availability but also reliability. Theyemphasised that forces should be careful not to draw conclusions from one datasource, but triangulate (i.e. compare other related data) wherever possible.


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Box 12: A possible service review

Phase The ‘4Cs’

Initial planning meeting/workshop also discusses whether/why service should be provided by the police

Gathering and discussing available data to comparewith past data (PIs, staffing levels, activities, costs)

Gathering and discussing comparative performancedata available for similar service providers (possiblyusing benchmarking clubs or questionnaires)

Questionnaire/focus groups/interviews for a sampleof users, staff and stakeholders

Self-assessment (e.g. BEM) to gather more detailedinformation (consultation may be part of this stage, asmight process mapping/workshop on activities)

Examination of all other options for service andconsideration (using cost and benchmarking data)

Report listing outcomes and options for considerationby Steering Group, Chief Officers and Police Authority

Agreed Action Plan with objectives and measures

Challenge

Challenge, Compare,Compete

Compare

Consult

Compare, Consult,Challenge

Challenge, Compete

Challenge, Compare,Consult, Compete

Challenging

All forces recognised that ‘challenging’ involved at least some assessment of why

they were providing a service, but there were differences in opinion on the ‘extent’of this challenge. Whilst some forces considered that ‘challenge’ meant questioningin every case whether a service should be provided , others defined it simply asquestioning how the service was provided . Finally, a few forces felt that thechallenge element was to be only partially applied to policing – principally thesupport services.

This confusion partly stemmed from the differing nature of services for review andalso illustrated another interlinkage between the 4Cs: this time, between challengeand compete. The legislation recognises that core policing services (such as CID)are exempt from being subject to competition. Some forces had interpreted this tomean that core policing functions need not be challenged in the same way. Whilstsome policing services might not be opened to competition, however, this does notmean that they are exempt from challenging questions, such as:

● Why are we providing this service?● Should we supply this service in this way?● Are there elements of this service we could supply differently, or possibly not

at all?● To what extent does this service impact on our other services?

Forces that had completed reviews had already concluded that importantoperational policing services could be challenged and thus improved. One force, forinstance, had reviewed its domestic violence unit, concluding that civilian staffcould more efficiently provide it, because police powers were seldom required.

Ways to challenge

Many forces were unsure about exactly how they would challenge services, although most were considering adding standard ‘challenging’ questions to a reviewtemplate. Some forces, having discovered that reviewed services found it hard todefine their purpose, were starting their challenge element by establishing why each service considered it existed before challenging each statement in a workshop(Box 13). Others were waiting until process mapping, such as PE or FAST, hadidentified all staff activities, before challenging these consecutively (sometimes with a ‘wildcard’ present, who could give an outsider’s perspective). Appendices 4and 5 detail the approaches taken by two forces.


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Who should challenge?

The ‘challenge’ and ‘compete’ elements seemed the most culturally difficult tohandle. Whilst questions such as ‘why does this service exist?’ might productivelyinvolve all staff or a sample, many forces seemed to be concluding that the moredifficult ones such as ‘what activities could you cease?’ or ‘who else might provideyour service?’ needed more careful handling.

One force was considering using staff from reviewed service to undertake the bulk of the review work, but asking an independent team to conduct the ‘challenge’ and‘compete’ elements with key service members only – both to ensure rigour andmaintain morale. Some forces also expressed a need for external involvement inreview processes to allow challenges to services to be genuine and credible. Onecommented: “We don’t want units to self-review. It’s essential we have an independent

team or they’ll just spend too much time justifying themselves”.

Comparing

Forces were already familiar with the concept of comparing service performance on a national level, using internal performance measures to compare operationalperformance and the suite of national performance indicators to compareexternally. Some were also comparing at force family level, and had in placearrangements to share data on a quarterly or monthly basis. Most added that theyalso examined HMIC and Audit Commission data and reports.

Best value, however, adds a new dimension to performance comparisons by requiring service-level comparisons. Services should also not simply be comparedwith other forces, but also, where possible, across the public and the private sector.


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Box 13: Challenging questions

One force had developed the following framework to help challenge the purpose of adivision or department. To begin with, review teams and key service members brainstormed or listed the main areas for which the division or department was responsible. Taking witness interviews as an example, they might construct a series ofpurpose statements (to summarise why a service existed):

ACTION VERB OBJECT RESULT OR STANDARD

To interview Child witnesses In accordance with legislation and the

force Memorandum of Good Practice

They then challenged each statement in a workshop setting, asking why each was necessary and what possible alternatives existed.

Furthermore, guidance (DETR, 1998b) suggests that, initially, reviews must produce quality, cost and efficiency targets over five years that, as a minimum, areconsistent with the performance of the top 25% of all authorities at the time thetargets are set. To set such targets, the police need to be aware of performanceelsewhere and whether it is calculated on a comparable basis, so that they canbenchmark.

The reliability and validity of comparative data was, in fact, the forces’ mainconcern about the ‘4Cs’. Although it was more likely to be a problem as forcesextended their comparisons beyond the police service, it was clear that there weredata problems between and even within forces. One interviewee commented: “Even with response times to 999 calls we have problems comparing with other forces

because they measure this in very different ways. For example, when does the response

time begin? Is it when the phone rings? Is it when it is first answered? Is it when the call is

completed?” This sort of comparability issue has been well-known for some time, but best value extends it into areas not usually compared – such as custody andvictim support services. Although quality of service may be judged by user surveys,quality definitions differ and such exercises are often conducted in different ways.

Effective benchmarking should also take into account the costsof delivering aservice. In the current absence, however, of nationally harmonised servicedefinitions and costing practices (see Section 2) forces were usually restrictingcosted benchmarks to in-force comparisons of operational policing activities.

The comparability of data within and between forces is an issue that will re q u i re national attention as best value pro g resses. Although some national level indicators already exist to aid reviews, accurate comparisons at serv i c elevel re q u i re individual functions and processes to be broken down intoactivities. The national process mapping exercise (Section 4) may contribute, by enabling similarly defined processes and activities to be compared. In themeantime, in the absence of a national database for police benchmarking or acontact list for forces undertaking similar reviews (both requested by manyi n t e rviewees), forces were making their own formal or informal benchmarkinga rr a n g e m e n t s .

Benchmarking between forces

Despite the difficulties, many forces were starting to co-operate with others tobenchmark performance for particular services. Four variants of this wereimmediately identifiable:


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● local comparisons – with neighbouring forces/those in the ACPO region;● service leaders – with forces acknowledged to lead in the service being

reviewed; ● most similar-force – with the services provided by other forces in the old HMIC

families or the new families of most similar forces; and● all forces – by sending detailed questionnaires on each service to every force to

gather comparative data.

All of these approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. Local comparisons were probably the easiest to organise but, as one intervieweecommented: “if the force next door provides a rubbish service, what’s the point in

benchmarking against it?” Some forces felt that, without national standards, theycould not accurately identify service leaders, adding that they might, in any case,benefit from special circumstances not enjoyed by other forces. Service comparisonswith most similar forces might ensure that key differences between forces wereironed out – but could not guarantee that comparison at servicelevel was fair.Finally, sending out questionnaires to all forces might elicit detailed information(provided definitions matched), but if every force did this there would be a tidalwave of questionnaires across the forces: already some reported being fed up withreceiving questionnaires and many were ignoring them.

It seemed likely, therefore, that forces would benefit from combining and mixingthese approaches – both to establish as wide a picture as possible and avoid relyingon one particular technique with its potential disadvantages.

Some forces, however, were also concerned that their performance was already highand that they experienced diminishing returns from benchmarking the higher theywere in the performance ‘league’. One interviewee commented: “Our performance in

most areas tends to be better than others, so there appears little scope for improvement.

It might be more appropriate for us to compare with forces in other countries . ”

Although some forces might have good records in particular services, however, itseemed unrealistic to suggest that performance across all services could not beimproved.

It was common practice for forces to compare divisions within their own force and,therefore, well known that such comparisons had to take into account the differingcharacteristics of each (in terms of size, local population, socio-economic factors,etc.). Some forces had developed their own families of divisions to try to overcomethese differences, but this did not solve the problem when they came to comparedivisional performance with other forces. One interviewee commented: “What we

really need to be able to do is to benchmark at BCU level between forces – there is a


50

major gap here which needs to be filled. We would like to compare Tunbridge Wells

with, say, Exeter11 – if only we could be sure that they were comparable ” .

Another interviewee, however, felt that, given the new Crime and Disorderpartnerships, benchmarking should more accurately take place at this level – thusenabling data sharing to encompass local authorities.

F u t u re re s e a rch is planned to develop a national set of local-level families for police perf o rmance comparisons. In the meantime, however, authorities and forc e smay have to consider alternatives – such as constructing informal families withintheir re g i o n s .

Benchmarking beyond policing

Most interviewees commenting on external benchmarking associated it solely withnon-operational policing. Many pointed out that operational policing was a uniqueservice, with no obvious comparators in the private sector. Some added that therewas even less certainty that data were similar and valid when comparing with non-police organisations than there was between forces.

Nevertheless, a large number of forces had already started to compare servicesexternally. We identified three current approaches:

● joining a wide-ranging benchmarking club (such as the Best Practice Club, theCivil Service Benchmarking Club or the European Network of Benchmarking);

● paying for access to a large benchmarking database (e.g. Andersens Consulting);and

● benchmarking on an informal and ad-hoc basis with individual public/privateservice providers to compare specific services (e.g. fire and ambulance, BT carfleets, etc.)

As with the approaches to benchmarking between forces, interviewees identifiedadvantages and disadvantages to all these approaches. Benchmarking clubs anddatabases potentially enabled forces rapidly to identify and contact similar servicesuppliers, but interviewees found their coverage was often largely irrelevant topolicing and some were concerned that forces might end up being bothered by other organisations wanting to benchmark against them. Benchmarking on aninformal basis was popular, but required a relationship to be built up, and somenational providers were reportedly becoming weary of receiving successive informalrequests for help from force after force.

One other key problem interviewees identified with external benchmarking was the need to protect the confidentiality of police information. This either restricted


51

11 The names of the towns have

been changed.

the extent and depth of comparisons or required lengthy weeding-out of certaininformation before benchmarking could take place.

Despite these difficulties, we encountered numerous examples of forces comparingservice performance with private organisations. A couple of forces had comparedtheir help desks with large city firms or Virgin Direct, whilst forces reviewing fleetmanagement had approached BT and ParcelForce. One force had compared itsExhibition Unit with those in the NHS and fire service, and its intranet with BT’sand Shell’s. There was evidence that lessons were being learnt from these exercises:one force had found that its fleet saved money by converting to liquid petroleumgas, whilst another discovered that a service was ‘top-heavy’ in comparison to theprivate sector. One force had discovered how to remove faults from its intranet after comparing it with a private company’s similar system. Another force had alsodiscovered that, whilst it might be difficult to find adequate private sectorcomparators for whole services, it was potentially possible to break the policingservice down into its component activities and then find comparators for these.

Consulting

Consultation is key to best value, both at force-level, to inform the corporate review, and at service-level, to inform individual service reviews. Section 2 described how forces were often confident that existing consultation mechanismsmeant they largely met these requirements. Forces undertaking reviews ofoperational policing, for instance, were able to draw on existing public consultationinformation (from past public satisfaction surveys and Crime and Disorder Audits).

Very often, however, interviewees explained that their force also planned to extendexisting mechanisms by establishing new focus groups, or by ‘piggybacking’ on localauthorities’ large surveys or citizens panels. Some were concerned, however, aboutthe value of large-scale surveys, when there was a need to target particular areas orsections of the community. Indeed, with all these new consultation practices, someforces were concerned that they and the public would start to suffer ‘consultationoverload’. Some felt that the solution was for forces to agree and co-ordinate theirconsultation with the consultative role of their police authority, and to discusscombining different forms of consultation, such as focus groups, with those run bytheir local authorities (which would also save money). Collaborative consultationbetween neighbouring forces was also raised as a way of collecting information more efficiently.

Others were concerned that increased consultation might raise public expectationsto unrealistic levels. A number of forces were intending to tackle this second


52

danger by combining marketing exercises with their public consultation, to managepublic expectations. For example, these forces would be sending out leaflets withtheir surveys, explaining policing services and what the public could expect.

Despite the often considerable efforts being made to consult the public at a higherlevel, however, forces also have to tailor consultation exercises for each review toensure the following groups, where relevant, were included:

● public users (e.g. victims of domestic violence who had contact with domesticviolence units);

● non-public users (e.g. businesses in a particular division);● force users (e.g. users of the force legal services department); ● stakeholders (e.g. other agencies, such as health authorities or social services);

and● providers (i.e. the staff delivering the service).

In the main, staff using services and those working in the reviewed service werekeen to be consulted. Some forces emphasised that the inclusion of staff, and staffassociations, in service reviews was important not only for completeness of thereview, but also to maintain morale by keeping employees informed and promoting a participative atmosphere.

Forces, however, were finding other groups more difficult to consult: not everyonehad an opinion or wanted to share it with the police. One interviewee had attended numerous business events and frequented the local Chambers ofCommerce, but had found it very difficult to generate any enthusiasm amongstbusinesses for sharing their views with the police. Furthermore, given the nature ofsome police work, not all users could be consulted: one force, for example, whichhad reviewed its child protection units pointed out that it would be unreasonable to consult child victims on their views of the policing service they had received.

Past research has demonstrated the problems experienced by forces when trying toestablish PCCGs (e.g. Morgan, 1992; Elliott and Nicholls, 1996). Low turnout at‘open space’ events is an obvious problem. One interviewee felt, however, that thiswas no excuse: “Lack of attendance at meetings in draughty halls on a wet Wednesday

evening, is not an indication of a lack of interest in local policing issues, it is an indication

of a lack of imagination on behalf of the force. We need to be much more innovative in

terms of how we reach our community”.

Numerous force representatives described innovative approaches. They were, forinstance, starting focus groups for hard to reach groups, introducing loops for the


53

hard of hearing, recruiting interpreters to extend consultation to non-Englishspeakers and installing terminals in public centres for people to find out about localpolicing and record their opinions. Some forces were also using their intranet bothto disseminate best value developments throughout the force and invite commentson particular services under review. Suffolk were planning to bring both consultation and their use of the BEM to life by introducing an interactive ITversion (used by Eastern Power and Barclays Bank). The force’s respondentexplained: “members of focus groups are given handsets (like on ‘Who Wants to be a

Millionaire’) and they score the force against questions based on the BEM structure.”

These findings were encouraging, but only further research will identify whichinnovations were most effective in differing circumstances and why.

Competing

Many forces were finding the ‘compete’ element the most difficult of the ‘4Cs’ tocome to terms with. The White Paper (DETR, 1998b) had defined competition as a test of whether a service might be delivered in a more efficient and effective way(Box 14), adding that core policing services would be exempt from this requirement. Despite this, forces remained unsure about what ‘competition’ meantin the context of policing and concerned that it should not extend to operationalactivities and those that involved access to confidential information.

Experience of competition in the service has, to date, been more limited than mostpublic services, both because of the nature of policing and the relatively late stage at which CCT was extended to forces. Although many forces, particularly the larger ones, could cite examples of contracting-out, these were invariably ‘one off’cases, relating to peripheral support services such as cleaning, catering and finance.

Competition in policing

For the police, therefore, best value’s requirement that reviews subject all but theircore functions to competitive testing is likely to have a significant impact. In


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Box 14: Competition and policing

“The key strategic choice for authorities is whether to provide services directly themselves or to

secure them through other means. The key test is which of the options is more likely to secure

best value for local people. Services should not be delivered directly if other more efficient

and effective means are available…Retaining work in-house without subjecting it to real

competitive pressure can rarely be justified…The Government recognises that it would not be

appropriate to expose to competition certain core statutory activities carried out by the police.”

DETR (1998b)

practice, it means that each review should examine whether another supplier couldbe procured to supply the service or whether some other means, such as apartnership approach, could reduce costs without lowering standards or raisestandards for the same cost. This need to compare costs, however, highlighteddifficulties faced by forces trying to apply economic evaluation to policing(Stockdale et. al., 1999). One force explained that it was difficult to calculate for all factors – such as the potential danger that contracting-out vehicle maintenanceto a cheaper external provider might mean poorer service and more accidents.

To counter the view that competition necessarily leads to contracting-out a wholeservice to external bidders, the White Paper (DETR, 1998b) suggested possiblecompetitive alternatives to existing service provision, including:

● commissioning an independent benchmarking report so that in-house servicescould be restructured to match the performance of the best providers;

● providing a service in-house, but buying in top-up support from the privatesector;

● forming a joint venture or partnership following a competition for an externalpartner;

● tendering part of a service with an in-house team bidding against externalbidders, before deciding whether to provide the bulk of a service internally orexternally; and

● disposing or selling-off competitively a service and its assets to another provider.

Authorities and forces advanced in their preparations acknowledged that best valuewas more flexible than CCT, with the potential for combining models of servicedelivery – including contracting-out parts of services, or agreeing joint arrangements with other agencies for certain related activities. Competition was also about ensuring value for money, so that savings could be re-invested (“more

bang for your bucks” as one interviewee put it). Whilst it was too soon to assesswhether forces were employing competitive alternatives, reviews were identifyingways of improving value for money – for example, by leasing rather than buyingequipment, or by using support staff to undertake some duties so that officers couldbe released for operational policing.

Authorities and forces were also starting to examine options for consortia to save pro c u rement and management costs (for instance, sharing re s o u rces such asa helicopter). A number of forces already had arrangements based on‘comparative advantage’ (i.e. specialising in areas they were best at and ‘buyingin’ other services from forces specialising in their best areas). For instance, forc e swith a small stretch of motorway had agreements with neighbouring forces with


55

m o re extensive motorway coverage. Although fears of ‘regionalisation’ weree x p ressed, it was likely these arrangements would be expanded to other serv i c e sand possibly other emergency service providers (such as health and fireauthorities). A popular example was the frequently mentioned potential fors h a red control ro o m s .

Managing the ‘compete’ element

Forces were usually planning a final discussion of review results, at which the teamand senior managers would use the data they had gathered and analysed both tochallenge the service and to consider competitive alternatives. This Section earlierdescribed how some forces directly equated ‘compete’ to ‘challenge’. For them,examining whether there was a more economic way of providing a service, meantchallenging their direct provision of it. This potentially overlooked, however, thefundamental basis of ‘challenge’ – to establish whether the service should beprovided at all, internally or externally.

One of the official pilots had found it important to address the fear of competition– particularly amongst support service staff. Their message had been that competition did not mean providing a service in the cheapest way, but improvingquality in relation to cost and, where possible, releasing resources for use elsewhere.Some interviewees, however, suggested that the police should remain alert to thedanger that competition would fall unevenly across each force with adverseimplications for morale. One commented: “There’s a real danger that competition will

fall on small areas of the service constantly. For example, a lot will fall on HQ

departments: areas with a lot of support staff are likely to be under constant scrutiny.”

Review outcomes: objectives and Action Plans

Once a review has been completed and its findings gathered in a report, the forceand police authority need to consider the options before agreeing an Action Plan. In most cases, forces considered that the best value team should draw up thealternatives for discussion – rather than leaving it to the reviewed service or thesteering group. One force had decided to present service managers with threeoptions from which they had to choose one – this approach had the advantage oflimiting discussion to the realistic whilst ensuring that the service felt it had‘ownership’ of its future.

Forces that had conducted reviews and agreed their Action Plan’s objectives wereinvariably breaking these down into small projects, each with its own objectives and an identified owner. Two forces at this stage highlighted that these objectives


56

needed to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant andTimebound). Project or activity owners were then agreeing what actions they would take and resources they would need with the service manager – who retainedoverall ownership of the Action Plan.

It was too soon to assess how Action Plans were being taken forward, but someforces were already identifying the need to have in place:

● continued central support, advice and monitoring of progress;● monitoring mechanisms within the service (one force was considering requiring

each service manager to run COMPSTAT12-like meetings with project owners);● project management tools (such as PRINCE 2 and Microsoft Project);● the ability to produce audit trails;● a blame-free culture should a project fail despite careful implementation; and● the flexibility to amend the Action Plan and projects in the light of results and

changing circumstances.


57

1 2 C O M P S TAT, introduced in

New York by the then Police

Commissioner William Bratton,

entails managers or divisional

commanders being subjected

b e f o re their peers to detailed and

sometimes hostile questioning on

their perf o rm a n c e .

7. Overview and the future

All police authorities and forces in England and Wales were making progress in their preparations for best value, having concluded that they could not afford towait for guidance or findings from the pilots. It was also clear that the picture wasrapidly changing: in April forces were in the early stages of considering widelydiffering approaches to best value, but by July their preparedness and approachesseemed to be broadly converging, as they started to pilot reviews and encounteredsimilar issues and difficulties. Key areas where patterns were emerging included:

● authorities and forces were generally aiming to build on existing structures,systems and cycles, rather than planning radical organisational changes in thefirst stages of best value;

● some were choosing to develop their systems before piloting reviews, whilst others were doing the reverse – the end results, however, were broadly the samein terms of programmes and approaches to review;

● perceptions of preparedness seemed to be directly related to forces’ experiences in best value: with those forces most advanced in their preparations more awareof how much work it involved;

● invariably, forces were combining various tools and models in a ‘toolkit’, so thateach review was conducted according to the service’s circumstances;

● all forces were using the Business Excellence Model, though to different extents – usually as a self-assessment tool. Many were process mapping to identifyactivities;

● forces were taking a hybrid approach to service definition to avoid thedisadvantages of just one approach – reviewing services by function or by taking a process-based approach (although the picture was complicated by how theycombined these approaches with different review targets and levels);

● reviews were usually being prioritised according to a combination of services’ past performance, their budget size and the potential for savings to be made;

● increasingly, forces were forming central teams to oversee best value’s day-to-daymanagement;

● where resources were limited, however, forces were also tending to let servicesself-assess, with support and guidance from the centre;

● authorities and forces were concluding that review programmes needed to beflexible to take account of changing circumstances;

● early pilot reviews were taking longer than expected, but forces had concludedthat time-scales would shorten as they became more used to them;

● there was increasing evidence of forces and local authorities combining theirconsultation and even starting to discuss joint reviews; and

● there were signs, too, that police authorities and forces were developing a closerworking relationship – in some areas authority members were participating inregular seminars, and in others, taking part in best value steering groups and inreviews.

OVERVIEW AND THE FUTURE

58

Alongside these developments, some common concerns and difficulties were alsoemerging, along with some illuminating responses to them:

● Forces were starting to experience the cultural implications of best value. Somestaff – particularly in support services – were feeling threatened by the ‘challenge’ and ‘compete’ elements of reviews, whilst service heads wereoccasionally reluctant to help reviews. Many forces were therefore developingforce-wide communication strategies to ‘market’ best value thereby encouragingstaff and staff association participation. Some forces were also mixing ‘marketingmaterial’ with their public consultation to explain policing services and managethe potential for raised public expectations.

● Authorities and forces were finding that their other planning cycles did notmatch with their best value programme. Some however, were addressing this byvarying the length of their review programme to match cycles, such as that forCrime and Disorder.

● Some police authorities were finding that best value was remaining the preserveof a minority of members – they were therefore finding ways to communicatedevelopments across the authority. To counter the danger that best value mightlead to friction between authority and force, some had agreed their respectiveroles and others had joint steering groups.

● Some forces had found they could learn little from the local authorities in theirarea – so they were examining developments further afield. Others had tried todevelop joint reviews, but been frustrated by differences in timetables andagendas – they had identified the need for earlier planning in the future.

● All of the tools for best value had their potential disadvantages (in terms ofcomplexity, relevance or comparability), but forces were accepting that thesemodels alone were no more than aids, and that some of the faults could beovercome by combining or adapting tools.

● In a number of reviews, forces had found that the data they needed wereunavailable. Some were reacting to this by requiring all services to self-assessregularly, so that the information would automatically be available once they were due for review.

● Forces were finding it difficult to benchmark because it was often hard to identify leading service providers and data were seldom comparable. Accuratebenchmarking would also be assisted by activity costing, but this was still in


59

development and comparisons were made harder by differing techniques,definitions and conventions. In particular, it was proving difficult to comparepolice services with the non-police sector. Despite this, there were many examples of effective benchmarking between forces, and involving non-policeorganisations, that had led to savings. Forces pressed for the establishment of anational database or website to help them communicate developments, learnlessons from each other and benchmark more easily.

● It was sometimes proving difficult to consult effectively on particular services(because of the nature of the service or reluctance on the part of the user orstakeholder). Nevertheless, forces were developing some very innovative andinteractive techniques that could have wider lessons for improving consultationmore generally.

● Forces envisaged difficulties applying the ‘compete’ element of the ‘4Cs’ toservices other than support, because of the nature of policing, and the lack ofclarity regarding which areas of policing would be exempt from the legislation.However, there was a growing appreciation that ‘contracting-out’ was not theonly option and evidence that forces were examining alternative arrangements –such as ‘comparative advantage’ agreements and consortia.

Future issues

T h e re were also some issues identified as key to the future success of best valuepolicing. In part i c u l a r, police authorities and forces will need to consider how they will:

● manage and resource the rising tide of work that will result from best value as itrolls forward;

● manage and monitor Action Plans;● monitor their best value approach as a whole and how they will take action if it

seems to be failing;● meet the requirements of the audit and inspection regime, once it becomes clear;

and● monitor and learn from developments elsewhere – the formal pilots, other forces,

local authorities and fire authorities.


60

Conclusion

These findings represent only the more commonly described features of currentpolice preparations for best value: it would be impossible to describe, in one report,all the topics raised and preparations underway. Best value will not come into effectuntil April 2000 and it will, therefore, be some time before it is clear whichapproaches in what circumstances are most likely to be successful. Throughout theresearch and even as this report was published, more issues and potential lessonswere emerging. Future research is planned to follow up developments but, for now,this report can only raise issues and, sometimes, potential solutions: it cannot supply all the questions, let alone the answers.

Ultimately, police authorities and forces must bear in mind that they will be judgednot on their mechanisms and review approaches, but on whether they are self-reviewing rigorously and improving on the basis of the findings of those reviews. Inshort, forces need to deliver best value policing – the ways by which they do so candiffer, but the result must be the same: continuous improvements in service.


61

References

Accounts Commission (1998), The Measures of Success: Developing a Balanced

Scorecard to Measure PerformancEdinburgh: Accounts Commission for Scotland.

Audit Commission (1998), Better by far: preparing for Best Value ,Management Paper, London: Audit Commission.

Bovaird, T (1998b), Achieving Best Value through competition, benchmarking and

performance networks, DETR/Warwick paper No. 6.

British Quality Foundation (1998), Local Government Interpretation of the Business

Excellence ModelLondon: BQF.

DETR (1998a), Modernising local government: improving local services through Best

Value. Green Paper, March 1998. London: DETR.

DETR (1998b), Modern Local Government: in touch with the people.

White Paper, July 1998. Cm 4013. London: Stationery Office.

DETR (1999), Preparing for Best Value, Guidance note, London: DETR.

Elliott, R and Nicholls, J (1996), It’s Good To Talk: Lessons in public consultation

and feedback, Police Research Series Paper 22, London: Home Office.

Geddes M (1998), Achieving Best Value through partnership: : Paper No. 7,Warwick/DETR Best Value Series, Warwick: Local Government Centre.

Hartley, J (1998), Organization-wide approaches to Best Value: Paper No. 10,Warwick/DETR Best Value Series, Warwick: Local Government Centre.

HMIC (1998), What Price Policing: A Study of Efficiency and Value for Money in the

Police Service, London: HMIC.

House of Commons (1998), Local Government Bill and Explanatory Notes.

London: The Stationery Office.

Kaplan, R S and Cooper, R (1998), Cost and Effect: Using integrated cost systems to

drive profitability and performance, Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kaplan, R S and Norton, D P (1996), The Balanced Scorecard,

Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

REFERENCES

62

Lewis, M (1998), Achieving Best Value through Quality Management,Paper No. 9,Warwick/DETR Best Value Series, Warwick: Local Government Centre.

Local Government Management Boar d (1999), Best Value: An Introductory Guide,London: LGMB.

Martin, S (1998), Achieving Best Value Through Public Engageme,Paper No. 8,Warwick/DETR Best Value Series, Warwick: Local Government Centre.

Martin, S J and Hartley , J (with BMG Marketing, LGA, LGMB) (1998), Best Value: Current Developments and Future Challenges , LGA, London.

Morgan, R (1992), ‘Talking about Policing’. In D. Downes (ed.) Unravelling

Criminal Justice , London: Policy Studies Institute.

Olve, N, Roy, J and Wetter, M (1999), Performance Drivers: a practical guide to

using the Balanced Scorecard, Chichester: Wiley.

Porter, L and Tanner, S (1996), Assessing Business Excellence,London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Sanderson, I (1998), Achieving Best Value through fundamental performance review ,Paper No. 7, Warwick/DETR Best Value Series, Warwick: Local GovernmentCentre.

Sanderson, I, Boivard, T, Davis, P, Martin, S and Foreman, A(1998), Made to

Measure: Evaluation in Practice in Local Government, London: LGMB.

Stockdale, J E, Whitehead, C M and Gresham, P J (1999), Applying Economic

Evaluation to Policing Activity, Police Research Series Paper 103, London: HomeOffice.

Zairi, M (1996), Benchmarking for Best Practice: Continuous learning through

sustainable innovatn, London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

REFERENCES

63

Appendix 1: The Business Excellence Model (BEM)

BEM, developed between 1988 and 1992 by the European Foundation for QualityManagement (EFQM), contends that controlled processes, supported by strategicleadership, resources and skilled personnel, will deliver continually improvingperformance and enhance staff and customer satisfaction whilst having a beneficialimpact on society more widely. The EFQM was founded in 1988, by 14 leadingEuropean companies, to develop guidance on enhancing the competitiveness ofEuropean companies in the world market. In the United Kingdom, the model ispromoted by both the Department of Trade and Industry and the British QualityFoundation (which, by 1999, had over 1800 members).

The model, last revised in April 1999, divides business excellence into nine keycriteria, each representing either an ‘enabler’ or a ‘result’. Enablers are concernedwith how an organisation is run, whilst the results are what the organisation hasachieved and is perceived to have achieved by its stakeholders (i.e. customers,employees, the community and other related organisations).

Assessors award points by judging evidence (such as performance data andinterviews) for the criteria against a series of 32 related sub-criteria. For instance,under ‘people results’, assessors will ask whether and how the organisation measuresemployee satisfaction and what staff perceptions are of management style, theirworking environment and morale. For each criterion, the number of points awarded depends on the extent to which there is evidence that the:

● Results required have been determined;● Approach has been planned and developed;

APPENDIX 1

64

Figure 3: The Business Excellence Model

Leadership

The Business Excellence Model / EFQM Excellence Model

People

ENABLERS

INNOVATIONANDLEARNING

® 1999 EFQM The Model is a registered trademark of the EFQM

RESULTS

Policy &Strategy

Partnerships& Resources

Processes

PeopleResults

CustomerResults

SocietyResults

KeyPerformance

Results

● chosen approach has been Deployed; and● approach and its deployment has been Assessed and Reviewed.

Rather than this RADAR approach, many forces were using an earlier version (onwhich the police specific version was based). For this version, the number of pointsfor the ‘enabling’ criteria depends on the evidence of the approach taken and extent to which it is deployed. For the ‘results’ criteria, the number of pointsdepends on the comparative performance trend and extent to which this impactsacross the organisation. Each criterion’s points, determined by this version, or theRADAR model, are then weighted by its relative importance within the model, sothat an overall score is produced. The total number of points theoreticallyachievable is 1000 (split evenly between enablers and results), although mostorganisations fall well short of this.

APPENDIX 1

65

Appendix 2: Links between the Business Excellence

Model and other initiatives

Figure 4 describes the extent to which five key initiatives undertaken by manypolice forces in the last decade address the nine elements of the BusinessExcellence Model:

no tick = not addressed✔ = indirectly addressed✔✔ = secondary impact✔✔✔ = critical impact

BS EN ISO 9000 : the ISO framework, strongly identified with Total QualityManagement (TQM), concentrates heavily on process optimisation from beginningto end, to ensure customer satisfaction. It therefore primarily links with the BEM’s‘processes’ criterion. Relying, as they do, on system audits and reviews, the ISOstandards were criticised by some force contacts for potentially becomingbureaucratic paper exercises.

QS 9000 : similar to ISO 9000, this standard promotes on-time delivery, lower costsand, in particular, improved quality. The initiative therefore is mainly associatedwith the ‘processes’ and ‘customer results’ criteria of the BEM.

APPENDIX 2

66

Figure 4: Links between BEM and other initiatives

BS EN QS 9000 ISO 4000 Investors Charter ISO in People Mark9000

BEM Enablers

Leadership ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔✔ ✔

People ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔✔✔ ✔✔

Policy and strategy ✔✔ ✔✔ ✔✔ ✔✔ ✔✔

Partnership and Resources ✔✔ ✔✔ ✔✔ ✔ ✔✔

Processes ✔✔✔ ✔✔✔ ✔✔ ✔ ✔

BEM Results

People results ✔ ✔ ✔✔✔ ✔

Customer results ✔✔ ✔✔✔ ✔ ✔ ✔✔✔

Society results ✔ ✔✔✔

Key performance results ✔ ✔✔ ✔ ✔✔ ✔✔✔

Source: adapted from ‘Excellence Links’, published by Business Link, BQF and DTI.

ISO 4000 : this series of standards relates an organisation’s activities to its impact on the environment – with a consequent beneficial impact on customers’ andstakeholders’ perceptions as well as staff morale. The primary link is to the BEM’s‘society results’ criterion.

APPENDIX 2

67

Appendix 3: Forces cur rently piloting national

Process Improvement Projects

The following forces are currently piloting the use of Process Expert Software tomap out all the activities relating to key sets of processes:

APPENDIX 3

68

Custody procedures

South Wales

Avon & Somerset

Wiltshire

Greater Manchester

Northumbria

Call handling

Lancashire

Cheshire

West Midlands

Gloucestershire

Thames Valley

West Mercia

Crime management

Norfolk

Case file preparation

Lancashire

Sussex

City of London

South Yorkshire

Merseyside

Develop and train staf f

Leicestershire

Dorset

Derbyshire

Scene management

Northumbria

Kent

For each of these processes or a related sub-process, the respective forces areidentifying every interlinking activity from start to finish and then comparing theirresults in the form of multi-level maps of decision-making trees, inputs and relatedcosts.

APPENDIX 3

69

Appendix 4: Case study one: Greater Manchester

Police

Between April 1998 and April 1999, GMP piloted its approach to best value in four sub-divisions belonging to one of its in-house families (each sub-division having been assigned to a family on the basis of population, policing incidents andland usage). The pilots covered a challenging inner-city area, with a high local index of deprivation. Each sub-division underwent the same three-stage self-reviewprocess detailed below. Although these reviews were geographical (i.e. concentrating on the services provided by the sub-divisions) they also sought toidentify lessons which could be read-across to other divisions and departments, aswell as issues that required further, separate review.

Stage 1: Producing the Baseline

Between April and May 1998, selected staff in each sub-division were trained in the application of the GMP Service Assessment Model (GMPSAM, the force’sversion of BEM). Each team comprised a lead assessor and approximately eightevidence gatherers, drawn from support staff and officers from Constable toInspector rank. During June and July these teams collected evidence that includedinterviews, questionnaires and focus group findings and applied GMPSAM, usingfull scores and weights (on the grounds that anything less would provideinsufficiently detailed information). The lead assessor from each team then prepared a comprehensive Baseline Assessment for each sub-division, reporting their GMPSAM findings and also:

● a description of the area (i.e. local population, households, employment andfacilities) and policing services (i.e. establishment, buildings, IT, uniformcoverage, CID, etc);

● an examination of the results of external consultation (past and current) and thefindings of a staff survey;

● an analysis of existing consultation and market research methods and recentfindings;

● a basic costing of policing broken down by functional area and per incident (using details from the financing system, activity data for uniform officers andapportioned costs); and

● a performance review, based on national and local PIs and compared with theresults from other forces in the family of forces, the provincial forces’ average and the national average (i.e. basic comparative benchmarking).

These additional elements were included in the review because the force felt thatGMPSAM failed to cover the service’s background adequately – particularly interms of providing the sort of information to enable them to ‘challenge’ the service.

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70

This stage, therefore, encompassed information collection and self-assessment. As in most other best value pilots, the ‘4Cs’ were not separated out in the process, butdata relevant to the ‘compare’, ‘consult’ and ‘compete’ elements were clearlyidentifiable.

Stage 2: Option appraisal and development of Performance Improvement

In stage two, the review team and service management team met to discuss thereview results and consider the service’s activities and objectives against policeauthority objectives and priorities; force priorities; Crime and Disorder Strategies;Home Office priorities and new legislation. During this stage, the force alsocompleted the ‘4Cs’ by challenging the sub-divisions activities and services, asking:

● Is the service necessary?● Is the service important?● How well is the service currently delivered?● Can/should someone else deliver the service?● Should we deliver the service in partnership?● Can the force stop doing the task/service?● What priority should the task/service be given?

Using the outcomes from these discussions and the data collected during the review, the assessors then drew up a list of options to tackle the areas forimprovement for each sub-division. Their aim was to identify the priorities forimprovement so that the sub-divisions could focus their efforts – as one of thereview team members commented: “everything is important but we have to identify

those that are crucial”. The assessors and management teams in each sub-divisionthen drafted a two-year Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) listing the proposedimprovement objectives and targets. To heighten participation and inclusiveness,these draft plans were circulated for comments to officers and staff in the respectivesub-divisions and shared at a later date with partners. All of the Plans hadsubsequently been amended before being published and made available to the localpopulation and all members of the sub-division.

APPENDIX 4

71

Stage 3: Implementation and monitoring of the Performance Improvement Plans

Each objective in the PIPs has been assigned an appropriate owner, from Sergeant to Superintendent rank, or a relevant member of support staff who will beresponsible for taking it forward with their own ‘objective team’. For instance, one of Greenheys’ Inspectors has agreed a strategy to address objective 1 (Box 15) thatincludes the following actions:

a) continue to identify and monitor hotspots (three located to date);b) use better intelligence to identify offenders;c) target offenders by covert operations;d) target harden the vulnerable premises;e) introduce graded police response to burglary dwelling premises;f) forward victim satisfaction survey to all burglary victims; andg) improve officer awareness of and training in crime prevention;

These are further broken down into individual output measures and targets. Forinstance, one of the measures for actions a) to c) is ‘number of crime detectioninitiatives targeted at hot spots’ with the target being ‘at least one initiative permonth between April 1999 and April 2001’. Pro g ress against the objectives ism o n i t o red at meetings held to discuss perf o rmance which take place at least e v e ry two months.

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72

Box 15: Extracts from a GMP Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

The following extracts are from the Greenheys sub-division PIP, which comprises 3 Aimsand 13 Objectives:

Aim: Attack crime that hurts the community most

Objective 1: Reduce burglary dwelling

Target: 15% reduction in burglary dwelling Target: Establish amount of burglary repeat victim premises and set target to reduceTarget: Increase level of victim satisfaction to 95%

Aim: Strive for total trust from our community

Objective 7: Encourage the reporting of crimes against vulnerable groups

Target: Establish the level of under-reporting of crimes and incidents and set a target inyear 2 to reduce the level

Aim: Focus resources to improve service

Objective 11: Increase operational availability of all officers

Target: Establish average number of days lost (e.g. through sickness) per officer and settarget to reduce abstractions for year 2Target: 90% of immediate response incidents answered within target time

Actions taken in relation to objective 7, including improved reporting procedures for racial harassment, better awareness training for officers and the establishment ofa new special unit had convinced the community that the police were taking theissue seriously. Reports of racial harassment had increased substantially in 1999when compared with the previous year. Other initiatives being pursued included the introduction of a dedicated community safety unit to focus on high-volumecrime, the promotion of CCTV along a main arterial route, and introduction of adrive and ride service to reduce thefts from vehicles. The force had found that thissort of ‘quick win’ was the most effective way to demonstrate best value to staff andsecure their support for it.

Outcomes and the lessons learnt

A key aim of the pilots was to aid the development of a model that could be rolledout across the force. GMP has subsequently developed a hybrid review programme(Figure 5) – combining two types of review based on that already piloted (initial and secondary/cross-cutting), with three targets for review (divisions, departmentsand specific services or parts of services).

Initial reviews will be completed on a three-year cycle because the force hadconcluded that five years between reviews was too long and three years fitted betterwith the Crime and Disorder Audit cycle. The secondary reviews will be similar inmethodology, but will draw on issues arising from the initial reviews: for example the pilots had identified personnel issues, and these would soon be examined as part of a personnel review.

The force has also decided that, although self-assessments will continue to beundertaken at sub-divisional level, the outcomes will be pulled together in a

APPENDIX 4

73

Specificservices(e.g.transport)

Departmentalunits

12departmentalunits

13departmentalunits

14departmentalunits

Divisionsand ForceCommand

All divisionsand ForceCommand

All divisionsand ForceCommand

Target forreview

April 1999 –March 2001





Figure 5: GMP’s Review Programme (1999-2005)

Type ofreview

InitialReviews

Secondary/cross-cuttingreviews

divisional Performance Improvement Plan, so that the divisional approach to bestvalue is less fragmented. Although retaining sub-divisional reviews may still becomplicated by the need to consider some functions (such as traffic) at a divisionallevel, the force envisaged little friction between sub-divisions and divisions,because the former will have to take account of divisional objectives.

Other key lessons included:

● The force had identified the need for each review to have an initial planningstage – so that its scope and objectives were clear from the start and it remainedwithin time-scale and resources. The subsequent data gathering stage was also avital element of the approach: forces had to understand the background to aservice before they reviewed it.

● GMP had concluded that officers from a mix of ranks should undertake thereviews – so that leadership and tasks could be allocated according to ability, butalso to ensure there was local understanding and ownership of the plan. Optionappraisal and action ownership, however, were better maintained at Inspector and Superintendent level to ensure leadership and avoid complex managerialstructures. The main disadvantage of using operational officers to do the reviewswas the danger of abstractions, but GMP had found that this could be overcomeif the centre was responsible for data gathering (one of the most labour intensiveaspects of best value).

● The force had realised that it needed a permanent central support team(currently about 20 people work on best value in the Corporate Developmentdepartment – although they have a range of other responsibilities). This team’srole was to animate the process, give support, help with data gathering and dealwith cross-cutting issues that had multiple-leadership implications. Despite this,the centre had to be careful not to appear to be taking the lead: it was vital thatinnovation was devolved. One danger inherent in the devolution of innovation,however, was the potential for conflict with the need for corporacy. The force was keen to ensure that good practice and improvements were highlighted androlled out elsewhere in the force.

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74

Appendix 5: Case study two: Derbyshir e

Constabular y

In February 1999, Derbyshire Constabulary established a new Best Value Section,within its Corporate Development Unit, by combining its Audit and EvaluationSection (responsible for thematic inspections) and Business Process Section(responsible for managing business change). The new Section comprises two ChiefInspectors, two Inspectors, two Research Officers and a Research Assistant.

To begin with, the Best Value Section took on responsibility for three key areas:

● the force’s five-year rolling review programme;● the development and application of a seven stage review process; and● ten pilot reviews commencing before 1 April 2000 – including ones for crime

reporting and recording, forensic science, administration, helicopter use andcrime intelligence.

The force review programme

Between 1998 and 1999, members of the police authority, the force’s Chief Officersand the Head of Corporate Development developed a review programme afterassessing:

● available benchmark data (HMIC, Audit Commission and local indicators). Theforce had already amassed comparative data on 150 indicators which enabledthem to identify which services were, in relation to those of other forces, in thelowest quartile (categorised ‘red’) in the two middle quartiles (categorised‘amber’) or in the top quartile (categorised ‘green’);

● the priorities of divisional commanders and department heads, including theirviews on where most financial gains might be made;

● customer feedback from PCCGs, the customer comments system and an annualsurvey conducted by a market research company; and

● the force’s previous reviews (in particular, to avoid reviewing any serviceexamined within the last two years, unless other factors necessitated this).

The resulting timetable envisages 67 service reviews over the five years, with theforce’s approach equally split between a functional approach (e.g. dog section, taskforce, Special Branch, Special Constabulary, legal services, police surgeons) and aprocess approach (e.g. accident investigation, case preparation, incidentmanagement, timeliness and quality of files). The force had also identified areasonably large number of cross-cutting reviews, likely to involve other agencies(e.g. drugs, diversionary schemes for offenders, community safety).

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75

Whilst the Best Value Section will be responsible on a day-to-day basis, theprogramme will be overseen by a Best Value Board, comprising the Chief Constable(chair), Vice Chair of the Police Authority, Head of Corporate Development, Headof Finance and the Best Value Manager (a senior representative from the reviewedservice). The police authority’s Audit Committee will receive copies of all best value reports before they are presented to the full authority. The programme will beflexible – changing to meet local and national priorities and reviewed annually as amatter of course.

The seven-stage review process

The force had developed a seven-stage process common to each review, with related forms to enable progress to be recorded and tracked (Box 16). Rather thanhaving a central manager for reviews, the police authority and force agreed that theBoard should appoint individual Best Value Plan Managers from each reviewedservice. This approach was chosen to aid the consultation process, ensure that themanager had a good working knowledge of the area under review and could carryforward any resulting changes. The Best Value Section will support the Board andBest Value Plan Manager, by:

● helping to define the terms of reference;● developing a plan of work and allocating tasks;● advising on and monitoring project management;● gathering qualitative and quantitative data by process mapping, activity analysis,

interviews with service providers, and applying the BEM;● undertaking surveys for internal and external consultation;● supplying and supervising the completion of forms for the seven stages;● producing and presenting briefing papers for the Board; and● producing a guidance manual for reviews.

The Section’s practical and consultancy role had highlighted their need foromnicompetence.

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76

The pilot review of child protection units and domestic violence units

A seven-member team carried out these pilot reviews over seven months betweenlate 1998 and early 1999. The review was already planned before the preparationsfor best value but, as an experiment, the force applied its new review approach(except for the use of BEM). Given their related characteristics, the reviews wereconducted simultaneously and a joint Performance Improvement Assessment andBusiness Benefits Plan developed. Although the review addressed the ‘4Cs’ as

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77

Box 16: The seven-stage review process in Derbyshire Constabular y

Stage one: Agreeing the terms of reference. The Best Value Plan Manager and keystakeholders consult Corporate Development, the Finance department andstaff associations, and develop terms of reference for approval by the Board,before considering the timetable, staff involvement, ‘action managers’ foreach stage and how to monitor progress (using PRINCE 2 and Gantt charts).

Stage two: Where are we now? The Best Value Section conducts an initial review ofquantitative data (including activity analysis, process mapping/FAST and apossible Balanced Scorecard Review) and another part of CorporateDevelopment consults stakeholders and conducts interviews. The reviewedservice undertakes a BEM self-assessment, whilst the Finance departmentgathers costing information.

Stage three: How does our performance compare with others? Structured visits, tolearn lessons, may be made to forces, other agencies or private sectororganisations that appear to have a better performance record in thereviewed service.

Stage four: Can we improve? The Best Value Section, having reviewed quality standards and consulted other specialist departments, develops options forimprovement for the Best Value Plan Manager and stakeholders to consider.

Stage five: The way forward. The Best Value Section produces a Business Benefits Plan for the options, setting out the skills/training needs, the timetable,targets for improvement and consultation findings. The Board discusses theoptions, making recommendations to Force Management and Policy Groups.The choice is then presented to the police authority.

Stage six: Implementation and change management. The Best Value Managerimplements the ‘Business Benefits Plan’ and Corporate Developmentmonitors its introduction. The Benefits Plan anticipates definite, expected,logical and intangible benefits (both financial and non-financial) from theproposed changes.

Stage seven: Have we realised the benefits? The Board sets a date for the Best ValuePlan Manager to review the outcomes (usually within 12-18 months) againstthe Benefits Plan, by examining quantitative and costing data. The reviewedservice also repeats its BEM assessment.

combined, rather than separate, elements of best value (see Section 6), the detailedreview findings were drawn together under the individual headings of the ‘4Cs’:

Compare

The review team examined:

● internal performance indicators from existing units; and ● benchmark data from similar units in their family of forces.

The force found benchmarking with other forces frustrating and time-consuming: in many cases – particularly for domestic violence units – reliable or comparabledata were unavailable. Derbyshire also found that benchmarking on the averagenumber of child protection referrals was misleading because of definitionaldifferences. Contacts with staff in similar units elsewhere revealed little, soDerbyshire instead turned to the equivalents of their Corporate DevelopmentDepartment and collected information on the roles, responsibilities, structure andstaffing of units. Officers visited Cambridgeshire to examine the potential foradopting Family Units, by combining both child protection and domestic violenceroles.

Challenge

Key tasks undertaken by the review team included:

● questioning staff on their unit’s Terms of Reference, line management, training,the need for protocols and staff need for welfare and support;

● assessing the additional workload likely to result from extending roles;● examining video training and consulting officers on the extent to which they

used these skills;● using interviews, referral data and activity analysis to consider structure and

staffing levels;● developing process maps by interviewing staff to create exhaustive lists of

activities (including their duration and frequency) to examine scope for reducingthe number of tasks;

● undertaking activity analysis across all divisions (i.e. measuring, over four weeks,time spent travelling, on administration, in contact with victims, witnesses andagencies, etc.) to identify ways of freeing-up time; and

● an assessment of the impact of the Osman vs. United Kingdom ruling (removingthe absolute bar on the police from being sued for negligence).

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Findings included:

● child protection officers gave better support to victims than divisional officers; ● video skills were used regularly by child protection officers but only by a

selection of trained divisional officers;● the child protection unit’s role could be extended without increasing staffing

levels;● divisional detective inspectors lacked the time to manage the units effectively;● the number of child protection units could be reduced and their structures

changed to guard against duplication and improve inter-unit support; ● protocols for information sharing with other agencies were required; and● coding of domestic incidents should be improved.

In terms of costing, the force had been undertaking activity analysis before processmapping, but concluded that it was better to get the processes and definitions rightbefore measuring activities against them. Now that they were clearer on unitprocesses they had been able to develop an activity card so that workers in the units could record their activities more accurately during the annual force-wideactivity analysis and for future reviews.

Consult

The review team:

● conducted face-to-face interviews with almost all of the units’ staff; ● sent 578 questionnaires to divisional operational constables and sergeants

(response rate 31%) asking them about their awareness of the issues andconfidence in dealing with them; their contact with the units and assessment ofthe service provided;

● for child protection units, surveyed social services staff and conducted a separatesurvey of other external partners (mainly head/deputy head teachers, childprotection co-ordinators, police surgeons and senior partners in doctors’ generalpractices);

● for domestic violence units, sent 306 questionnaires to a variety of agencies,solicitors, hostels, the probation service, social services, borough councils andvictim support (28% response rate); and

● for domestic violence units, conducted a telephone survey of a sample of 48victims but, for child protection units, concluded that a survey of child abusevictims would be better conducted during a joint review of Area Child Protection Procedures, to be led by social services.

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Consultation suggested that respondents were largely satisfied with the servicesprovided by the units, but identified a need for the police to market and explain the units’ roles to some agencies.

Compete

The review team:

● examined the results of a pilot scheme where text processing staff produced video interview summaries, rather than unit staff;

● considered the value of developing a new force-wide networked computer systemto share intelligence;

● considered whether staff should still be paid mileage costs, or should havefleet/loan vehicles; and

● examined the scope for civilianising many or all of the posts in the domesticviolence units.

Outcomes and lessons learnt

The resulting Performance Improvement Assessment proposed options for change in key areas, detailing potential ‘financial’ and ‘non-financial’ business benefits andtheir degree of predictability:

● definite (may be predicted with confidence);● expected (may be predicted on the basis of historic trends);● logical (can be anticipated and monitored, but not predictable); and● intangible (may be predictable, but difficult to substantiate).

Recommendations and their potential benefits included:

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Value type Proposed change Financial benefit Non-financial benefit

Definite carry out risk assessment reduced risk of at referral stage litigation

civilianise some domestic initial cash saving ofviolence unit posts £30k, decreasing over

eight years to £4k p.a.

Expected central welfare and improved staff moralesupport system

Logical central referral point improved service andfor agencies fewer referrals

Intangible computer generation more timely intervention and increased of standard letters identification of repeat victimisation

Other key lessons included:

● Best Value Plan Managers needed to be fully aware of their roles andresponsibilities and have substantial ownership of the process and findings.

● Face to face interviews had been too time-consuming as a means of datacollection and required a great deal of analysis. In the future, groups of serviceproviders would be asked to identify issues using the BEM and interviews withselected staff would drill down into these issues.

● Staff in the reviewed service needed to be involved in the analysis underlying the discussions on structures and staffing levels, so that they could be satisfiedthat the findings were accurate and not prompt the reviewers to ‘retrace theirsteps’. The staff also needed to be aware that data would be triangulated toensure accuracy: a few managers had been embarrassed by findings indicatingthat they had given some inaccurate information, particularly on workloads.

● Many stakeholders, unhappy with findings suggesting that their working practices and place of work needed to change, fought the results by challengingthem. The force commented: “it is rare that a best value review will result in status

quo – there is a need to overcome emotive responses by constantly reminding

stakeholders of their role and the need for decisions based on the evidence ” .

It was vital that the Plan Manager and Head of Best Value encouragestakeholders to take ownership of the decision-making process, but emphasisethat ‘no change’ was unacceptable. To guide the process, Plan Managers had tomake sure that meetings with stakeholders were structured and therefore not“reduced to a mêlée of subjective views and personal insults ” . Review leadersalso needed to support the review team as they faced potential criticism fromstakeholders.

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82

RECENT POLICING AND REDUCING CRIME UNIT PUBLICATIONS:

Police Research Series papers

97. Testing Performance Indicators for Local Anti-Drugs Strategies.Mike Chatterton, Matthew Varley and Peter Langmead-Jones. 1998.

98. Opportunity Makes the Thief: Practical Theory for Crime Prevention. Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke. 1998.

99. Sex Offending Against Children: Understanding the Risk. Don Grubin. 1998.

100. Policing Domestic Violence: Effective Organisational Structures. Joyce Plotnikoff and Richard Woolfson. 1999.

101. Pulling the Plug on Computer Theft. Paula Whitehead and Paul Gray. 1999.

102. Face Value? Evaluating the Accuracy of Eyewitness Information. Mark R. Kebbell and Graham F. Wagstaff. 1999.

103. Applying Economic Evaluation to Policing Activity. J.E. Stockdale, C.M.E. Whitehead and P.J.Gresham. 1999.

104. Arresting Evidence: Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimisation. Jalna Hanmer, Sue Griffiths and David Jerwood. 1999.

105. Proactive Policing on Merseyside. Alana Barton, Roger Evans. 1999.

106. Tenure: Policy and Practice. Gary Mundy. 1999.

107. Career Progression of Ethnic Minority Police Officers. Nick Bland, Gary Mundy, Jacqueline Russell and Rachel Tuffin. 1999.

108. Preventing Residential Burglary in Cambridge: From Crime Auditsto Targeted Strategies. Trevor Bennett and Linda Durie. 1999.

109. Policing Drug Hot-Spots. Jessica Jacobson. 1999.

110. Understanding and preventing police corruption: lessons from the literature Tim Newburn. 1999.

111. On a Course: Reducing the impact of police training on availability for ordinary duty. Peter R. Langmead Jones. 1999.

112. Hot Products: understanding, anticipating and reducing demand for stolen goods. Ronald V. Clarke. 1999.

113. Consolidating Police Crackdowns: findings from an anti-burglary project. Graham Farrell, Sylvia Chenery and Ken Pease. 1999.

114. Missing presumed...? The police response to missing persons.Geoff Newiss. 1999.

115. Interviewing Child Witnesses: A review of the Memorandum of Good Practice. Graham M. Davies and Helen L. Westcott. 1999.

Home OfficeResearch, Development and Statistics Directorate

best value policing: making preparationslibrary.college.police.uk/docs/hopolicers/fprs116.pdf ·...

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