NPIA puts case for single support body
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has released a report
responding to the Governments police reform consultation document and
says that there are real benefits to delivering its support services
from a single organisation.
The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) has released a report responding to the Governments police reform consultation document and says that there are real benefits to delivering its support services from a single organisation.
The NPIA published its report this week and offered the Government feedback on its views over the proposed policing reforms in terms of the national landscape.
It argued that working from one single unit is and would be far more effective than having the NPIAs activities disbanded to different bodies.
We do argue, on the basis of our experience in working closely with ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers), APA (Association of Police Authorities) and the Home Office in providing critical support services and programmes to police forces since 2007, that there are real benefits in delivering these from a single organisation.
This will make for the simplest landscape, the clearest governance and the most effective and efficient delivery of national support services to policing, the report said.
The NPIA was originally set up in response to a number of pressures, including the loss of confidence by the police service in the precursor organisations, a wish to reduce the clutter of the policing landscape whilst strengthening the services ability to access national support services and to create a greater ownership by the police service of improvement and innovation.
However, the Government has put forward proposals to disband the NPIA and place its various responsibilities in different bodies, such as ACPO.
Since the NPIA came into force, it has taken on a number of additional responsibilities, and the report says it has done so at a reduced cost.
It added that the NPIA has acquired many additional responsibilities since it began, despite the resource budget delegated by the Home Office for 2010-11 being £44 million (11 per cent) less than when the agency was created.
The Government proposals have suggested that some of the NPIAs responsibilities will be taken on by the National Crime Agency, which will absorb the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). Discussions have already taken place with SOCA about how best to achieve the smoothest transition.
The report, which addresses the national landscape and the way in which NPIA functions might be directed in future, pointed out that if such a move is eventually made, then one of the most straightforward ways of achieving transition with minimum disruption to the delivery of essential services would be to create an Operations Support Directorate within the National Crime Agency (NCA), into which many NPIA functions could migrate.
However, it also said that this could broaden the remit of the NCA and, therefore, increase the risk of it being distracted from its operational focus.
Other suggestions in the report for the future delivery of NPIA functions include:
Some NPIA services sit well with ACPO. It acknowledges the substantial leadership that ACPO provides to the police service. Indeed, NPIA services, products and programmes are delivered, virtually without exception, under the guidance of an ACPO lead. However, proposals to relocate these activities are predicated on the basis of further reforms of ACPO.
To migrate substantial functions back into the Home Office would be to risk confusion between setting strategy on the one hand and the delivery of objectives on the other.
The NPIAs services are mutually reinforcing when delivered fundamentally by the same organisational vehicle.