The public election of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) later this year comes amid fervent debate around resourcing and
the impact of ever-decreasing budgets on frontline policing services.
According to the Home Office, the stated aims of the PCCs are to cut crime, ensure community needs are met and make a difference to the lives of the electorate they represent. As well as consulting the public to set policing priorities, they will also hold the local Chief Constable accountable for the performance of the force.
But the question is; how will they go about doing this? How will their success be measured? And how will the public recognise a sustainable difference in their communities?
In order to make the service better you need to spend more time preventing and solving crime but wait; this means you need more resource surely? Well, perhaps not. The amount of time police forces spend on paperwork, chasing things which are not their remit and meeting arbitrary targets is time away from the value-added work of prevention and solution.
Drawing on our proven SO Change (Social + Organisational Change) approach to simultaneously driving efficiencies AND supporting sustainable social change at the heart of communities, we’ve developed some key pointers for improving services:
- Be clear about purpose: Is it about preventing and solving crime or filling in forms and meeting arbitrary targets?
- Understand the demands that are placed on the force: How many demands are chasing repeat calls or calls which are not really for the service?
- Get to grips with the response: How much time is lost before an officer gets to the scene of a crime, and how much time is spent in meeting targets instead of solving crime?
- How does the force integrate? Consider your working relationships with the full range of other organisations, agencies and partners. Employ people-centred engagement and communications to ensure they work seamlessly together rather than pull against each other.
- Where is the true learning in the force? Take a systemic approach to align the total service, to ensure it meets its ‘true purpose’ and isn’t just about ticking boxes and meeting targets.
We’re currently working with many complex organisations to help them align themselves to their true purpose and understand the things that get in the way of them doing the good job they are capable of.
To discuss how we could help you embed new ‘business as usual’ processes which are capable of delivering better outcomes, contact our Organisational Change team – Jaime Beckett, 0776 463 5472 / Jaime.beckett@icecreates.com
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One Comment
As we are all aware, the Area Health Services have now been shrunk back to siamlir to what they were about 5 years ago. When they expanded the areas and put various health facilities under one umbrella, they increased the administration requirments for each of those areas. What I cant understand is the DOH have put another layer of bureaucrats for the new Local Health Networks (which are smaller than the now defunct AHS) at a huge cost to the taxpayers. How can they justify this waste and at the same time winge about the cost of improving patient care at the coalface? Having worked as a nurse for nearly 30 yrs, I continue to get very frustrated at the upside-down pyramid’ that comprises the DOH.