Graham Hooper, Chief Executive Kent Police Authority ‘It’s a Jungle out there’ –...

Graham Hooper, Chief Executive Kent Police Authority

‘It’s a Jungle out there’ – Understanding Police Performance in PCC World

Does anyone understand this blimmin’ Police

Performance paper from the Force?

First, some things this presentation isn’t:

• An ‘expert’ speaking – just a bloke that wrestles (like you) with this subject, that’s all.

• Note the question mark in the title above – I have no special insight into how PCCs will handle this area (but I will make some guesses).

• I’m not telling any PCC’s office how they should monitor police performance – your call.

•

•

Police Performance in PCC World?

But before we dive into PCC’s, first, let’s ask how this lot did in oversight/’hold to account’ of police performance?

(notional Police Authority – England & Wales)


The good things police authorities did in the police performance domain

• Within bounds, they set challenging targets for their forces

• Were assiduous in monitoring progress of forces in meeting targets – didn’t just accept ‘good news’. They ‘sniffed out’ stuff

• They helped create a focus (or greater focus) on some important areas of policing


The good things police authorities did in the police performance domain

• Acted a ‘critical friend’ (generally!) ensuring there was rigour without hostility/confrontation

• Authorities didn’t accept performance data on a single dimension (e.g. just against Policing Plan targets). They would overlay against past years’ performance, MSF, etc


The not so good things about police authorities involvement in police performance

• It is often retrospective lacking immediacy and the ability to trouble-shoot performance issues as they emerged.

• Members do not necessarily have the expertise to scrutinise police performance (nor always do officers either!)

• They gleefully joined the world of performance ‘obsessionists ’ – did they lose sight of what is was all about?



• Initially performance scrutiny by authorities was not sufficiently outcome focussed – driven by quantity, time and cost not so much by (trickier) quality of service dimension.

• Perhaps never fully got to grips with value for money and productivity indicators.



• Whilst better at monitoring and challenging performance in volume crime domain (recorded crime, ASB, sanction detections, etc), they were less effective in the areas of central operations and protective service areas.

• Ditto for partnership areas.


The Unspoken Issues

• Were/are police authorities given the full picture in this domain?

• Have police authorities ‘moved on’ over police performance? Or are they stuck (and thereby making forces stuck) in the old police performance world?

• Failure to recognise the complexities of crime and its causes and a failure to challenge police force rhetoric on performance. Chief: ‘we’ve reduced crime by 9%’. Have the police done that on their own?!


Before I speculate on a PCC performance world, what’s happened to police performance in the last two years:

Police Performance in PCC World

What has the national ‘target’ ‘Cut Crime’ done to us all?


Excel spreadsheets, IQuanta, PPAF,

Balanced Scorecards… give me, give me

• We’re the walking dead; we’re junkies deprived forever of our fix; we’re a rudder without a ship!

• We still can’t believe what the Home Office did when they wiped away our police performance world and replaced it with just…………

CUT CRIME


What’s been going on since?

Two things:

1.Bit of gunfight to fill the vacuum left by the sweeping away of nationalpolice performance targetsbetween ………..


Filling the vacuum?

• Crime Maps

&

• HMIC’s Crime Comparator


2.

Performance Managing!Performance Managing! • Have things really changed that much since ?

• Bit of rationalisation here and there but still an awful lot of performance indicators and targets out there.


Other things we’ve seen since 2010 ‘Cut Crime’

• The introduction by some forces of a ‘Common Statement of Performance’ – an attempt to explain to the public all the demands & responsibilities upon the police and place raw statistics in context.

• A drive to better represent police performance by way of policing outcomes – as being developed on Crime Maps and through forces/authorities blended approach to performance – now including things like victim and public satisfaction levels.


Other things we’ve seen since 2010 ‘Cut Crime’

• A determined attempt to go beyond detections – all outcomes count (could this spell the end to ‘detections’ as we have known and loved them for so long?)

• Placing police performance in the context of risk and harm

• Work towards creating crime groups to delineate the kind of ‘victim’


What of police performance in a future PCC world? Some thoughts…………..

1. Short-Term v Long-Term

Despite three year policing plans many authorities focus on year-to-year performance comparisons

Performance fire-fighting

Will a PCC take a longer view? Four-year cycles?


A Future PCC world? 2. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Will satisfaction (even confidence!) emerge stronger under PCC’s, than itexists under police authorities?

Does satisfaction with policing = satisfaction with the PCC?

Will not this be the a diagnostic for the popularity of the PCC?


A Future PCC world?

3. Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff

• What is management information and what is material that should be used to hold the force to account?

• Will PCCs be able to manage data/information to conduct strategic oversight?

• What will PCCs make of the simplistic ‘cut crime’ mantra? How much below that headline will they want to go or be prepared to go?


A Future PCC world?

4. Banishing police stats as an end in themselves

• Both police authorities and forces have both been guilty of focussing on performance stats as an end in themselves.

• By looking at the figures, we should know the right questions to ask about the service delivery and business processes. Too often police authorities stop short of this.


A Future PCC world?

4. Banishing police stats as an end in themselves (cont’d)

• Authorities spend a lot of time trawling through data reports and asking why something is red or green, or why it is 22.2% rather than 22.3%.

• In reality we need to be better at getting beyond the figures and into what the figures really mean. Perhaps PCCs will do this?


A Future PCC world?

5. Force & Local Focus

PCCs will encourage a greater focus on local performance issues rather than pan-force issues.

In the minds of the electorate, the only crime issues that matter are those in their local neighbourhood - and those that directly affect them.


A Future PCC world?

5. Force & Local Focus (cont’d)

Force-wide performance improvements have little relevance to them.

PCCs may wish a two tier approach to their police and crime plans that reflect holistic targets, as well as local geographic performance objectives that relate more to the specific priorities and issues of that locality.


Hoops Handy Hints (take ‘em or leave ‘em)

• Get yourself direct access to your force data systems

- This will enable you to decide what you want, not what the force want to give you

- This will give you the instant, contemporaneous picture of force performance

- This will remove any worries you may have about the ‘correct picture’


Hoops’ Handy Hints (take ‘em or leave ‘em)

• Get yourself some expertise – people who really ‘get it’

• Your PCC may be ambivalent to this area: find ways to make this an understandable world for them

• Remember to keep looking at the national picture (we have commissioned some work from NPIA / College of Policing)

• There is a chance to look afresh at police performance…seize the opportunity


Am setting up an APACE Police Performance Working Group – anyone interested in helping out get in touch.

• Will try and create some new guidance (a racy ‘insiders guide’ to police performance).

• We may set up our own APACE standing group on this subject.

• Will try and establish bi-lateral relations with others on police performance through this new group.



Email: [email protected]

Tel: 01622 604488Mob: 07540 366482

Crime in multi-story car parks….it’s just

wrong on all levels!!!!

Graham Hooper, Chief Executive Kent Police Authority ‘It’s a Jungle out there’ –...

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