Designing the future shape of policing in England and Wales

Police reform continues to be high on the agendas of both political and operational leaders. It has moved from ambition to White Paper, to design thinking and the Independent Review of Force Structures. As the ‘what’ starts to emerge, thought needs to be given to the ‘how’ – specifically in coherent delivery of the force re-organisations and their alignment with a new National Police Service (NPS).

The findings of the Independent Review are expected shortly, with the assumption that it will recommend significantly fewer forces. But we do not need to wait until the detail is known to think about the method used to deliver the preferred solution. There are several options for how to reduce the number of forces, each with their own strengths and challenges. To decide on the right option, the driving priorities need to be understood, ie, is the goal speed of new forces being established; cost of change; design quality; operational outcomes; alignment with the NPS or a mix of all of these? Identifying the priorities will highlight risks and trade-offs for what will be a once in a generation change.

Policing has a poor track record in bringing forces together either formally or informally and even ‘successful’ mergers have taken time to work. To minimise this risk – and start planning the roadmap – a conscious design approach should be taken now rather than allowing uncontrolled amalgamation.

Experience from policing, local government and wider public sector reform suggests that the act of bringing organisations together in itself will not be sufficient to deliver better efficiency or effectiveness outcomes. Indeed, while larger organisations can create savings and improve performance, this only happens when they are deliberately and carefully transitioned. The absence of a clear end-state design risks forces pursuing their own arrangements in the short term, making future reform more complex – or impossible. A ‘worst case scenario’ would be poorly stitched together ‘super forces’ that fail to achieve the efficiencies and effectiveness desired, while also creating new structures that work neither together nor with the NPS in an integrated national system.

The challenge, therefore, is to design new forces within a national system that deliver stronger local policing, better specialist capabilities, greater efficiencies and improved public outcomes. The approach outlined below focuses on the macro-design challenges associated with amalgamating existing forces – but wider issues will also need to be addressed, for example, what sits nationally, regionally and locally; how to preserve local policing in larger structures; and how to overcome practical issues around legislation, local funding, technology estates, contracts, terms and conditions

For force restructuring we have identified three broad models.

Lead force absorption model

This would be an acquisition-based approach with the largest force in each new area absorbing smaller forces into the existing force structure (possibly with some opportunity to redesign the ‘absorbing’ force before others were included). The largest force would provide the leadership team, operating model, governance framework, technology standards and support services into which the other forces would transition over time.

This would be the fastest route to implementation and potentially the lowest transition risk and would require the least organisational design and have lower upfront costs than creating entirely new organisations. However, this is not without its challenges, particularly around cultural resistance to being ‘taken over’ rather than amalgamated – potentially further exacerbated if an area has two similar sized ‘large’ forces. The regional identity will be dominated by the largest force, risking a loss of goodwill during implementation (and potentially public resistance). Equally, existing practices of the lead force may become embedded without challenge – while not necessarily being the most efficient or effective.

While this has an attraction in its speed and practicality it risks resistance and maintaining legacy structures and behaviours rather than creating genuinely new models. At worst it could create a new force in name only and have a long tail of legacy issues. From a national coherence perspective, the opportunity to create a common force design will be missed – potentially making integration with the NPS more difficult than needed.

Best of breed model

This approach requires design collaboration and openness from the outset to take the most efficient elements of each legacy force to design the new body. It needs cross-force governance and objective criteria to assess how each force currently organises and performs – and from that, as far as possible, develop an approach that builds on the strengths of each force within the region. This would give greater equality in the new design and reduce a risk of ‘winners and losers’.

Identifying common practice in key areas such as frontline policing, operational support, and enabling services would potentially allow different forces to lead aspects of the new design, with governance to ensure even-handedness and resolve issues.

This would, however, likely be the slowest implementation approach and, while superficially ‘fair’, could still lead to local issues when combining departments. It also risks silo designs which ultimately do not fit together – potentially because ‘best of breed’ functions could be resource rich, which could not happen in every area. While this approach would deliver a tailored design for the new regional force it would – as with the first option – see multiple models created across UK policing, minimising standardisation and seeing the NPS having to integrate with multiple ways of working.

Common regional design model

The final option starts with a clean-sheet to create a common design into which all forces would integrate. A central standard operating model for regional policing would be devised based on clear design principles and best practice from across current policing, which then sees every new force created around that blueprint (potentially with some limited local adaptions). A common design would specify: leadership structures; local policing arrangements; specialist capability arrangements; governance; performance measures; workforce structures and support services.

This approach would create national consistency, enabling easier working with the NPS and facilitate movement of officers and staff between forces. It would also make technology integration – and data sharing – simpler if designed in from the start. Standardisation in this way would deliver the greatest efficiencies at scale and allow common issues to be addressed with a national solution. Ultimately, it would provide greater clarity and consistency to the public and partners. It would not be without its challenges with central design effort required up front – and agreement needed from existing forces who may be concerned it is being imposed without sufficient consideration of local risks and context. This would likely have a longer lead time than the first option but after design, the migration path for forces would be similar and national learnings could achieve efficiencies across the piece.

This model maximises standardisation and efficiency and could create a truly modern regional policing system. However, it needs strong national leadership and disciplined implementation.

Each option has merit and the priorities for police reform will drive the best route. There may be a desire to combine models – join forces ‘as is’ and then move to a new design over time but the risk is that change would slow after the initial activity as priorities move on, leaving the job half done and policing playing catch up rather than getting ahead of the game.

A Roadmap for force reform

Regardless of which structural option is chosen, reform should follow a phased sequence. There are some recommended key steps that should be followed:

Define the future state – establish:

• A clear end-state design that addresses issues around what functions are delivered nationally, regionally and locally
• The role and purpose of the NPS – and how local policing needs to align
• Governance and accountability arrangements
• A common demand data model – and measure demand data within each force
• The financial challenges, ie, different precept levels/funding formula. This will need deliberate – and difficult – political choices but this presents an opportunity to deal with funding formula review and council tax precept alignment over time. Not doing so risks undermining policing by consent if one geographic area feels they are paying more for a poorer service, with their corresponding neighbours gaining from their investment

Without this clarity, force design will always be at best speculative and at worst muddled.

• Align before restructuring – before any formal restructuring, forces should move towards the future design making the necessary internal changes for alignment in structures, practices and language with regard to operating models; technology; finance; and workforce.
• Establish transitional governance – this should develop shadow governance; transition boards; programme management teams; and regional chief officer teams. This creates leadership continuity before any legal merger occur.

Within each new force the following path should be followed to bring functions together:

• Merge enabling services – the first operational integrations should focus on supporting business functions e.g. HR, Finance. This creates early synergies, reduces organisational complexity, and enables support to be in place before operations move.
• Integrate operational support functions – once support services are stabilised, forces should integrate: Control rooms; specialist operations; intelligence; major crime; armed policing and regional specialist resources. This creates operational benefits while maintaining local policing continuity.
• Create local policing areas – only after support and specialist functions have stabilised should changes to local policing structures (NHP, response, volume crime investigations etc.) be implemented given the complexity and direct public-facing nature of the services.

 Conclusion

As the shape of a new policing system becomes clearer the hard work of delivery starts, and this needs to start with design. While much of the focus has been on the national level, policing is always local and one of the stated aims of the White Paper is for enhanced local policing. Delay or failure in the creation of new forces risks damaging policing’s ability to deliver and with that, negative impacts on public trust and confidence.

A clearly defined design and implementation approach will minimise risk, optimise outcomes and enhance timescales.

Richard Davis is Police and Law Enforcement expert at PA Consulting