Operational Effectiveness

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• In recent years a reduction in crime has been achieved against a background of rising overall demand for service and increasing complexity in the environment in which policing operates. Society has changed in the last forty years. As a consequence of these changes and a lack of capability and capacity, gaps in the ability to deliver have emerged resulting in falling confidence in the police service. The need to deal with fear and insecurity in communities, violent crime and the links between neighbourhood and serious and organised crime suggest the time for change.
  
  

• If we are to increase capacity and capability then bureaucracy must be reduced, in the police, the criminal justice system and local and capital government systems. Better use of IT needs to be identified and implemented. However, there are several routes to enhanced effectiveness:
  
  a) Re-balance priority setting and therefore move resources from redundant priorities to new ones.
  
  b) Add priorities at neighbourhood and level two but increase resources to match (e.g. the USA has seen a nine year incremental increase in resources directed specifically at neighbourhood priorities decided in 1993. This has resulted in an increase in police staff of over a quarter).
  
  c) Strategic alliances, with 'teeth', that press forces to work together within some statutory or regulatory framework. This brings opportunities to release resources by joint efforts in procurement or back office support. However, while it brings fewer resource opportunities operationally, it builds more capacity to tackle serious and organised criminals than is presently achieved.
  
  d) Decide on the criteria that define a strategic force and examine forces to see if they meet this criteria i.e. being capable, independent and efficient.
  
  

• Cold hard research is needed to identify the evidence for and against each option. A decision can then be made as to which route offers the best organisation and structure to deliver the service which is required.
  

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