Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

OVERVIEW
“The economics of policing are
also important if there is to be an
effective debate. Too little attention
is given to diminishing returns.”
and statements are the same ones who
lambast the police when something is
challenged – perhaps years later.
Collaboration was, for a time, the
only game in town. While no-one would
want to justify 43 ways of doing the
same thing, there are some activities
which benefit from a more localised, less
remote, approach. Again the issue is the
overall quality of the service. The CS
stringencies have tended to focus the
agenda on cost alone.
Many public services, and the police
service is not the only example, would
benefit from an ‘index of demand’,
which would show the real change in
outputs and outcome over a period. To
be meaningful it would have to include
indicators of need – the socio-economic
factors which create the demand for
crime, public order, community safety,
and protective services.
It would combine these with a parallel
series of indicators, which measure the
capacity of the service – including IS
and IT process improvement, training
and specialist equipment.
Optimising resources
It would raise some interesting questions.
For instance, does technology such
as DNA and automatic number plate
recognition generate more work or help
deal with it more effectively
The economics of policing are also
important if there is to be an effective
debate. Too little attention is given
to diminishing returns. As PCCs will
find, chasing a marginal increase in
detection rates might actually consume
a disproportionate amount of resources,
which might offer a much better overall
outcome if they were allocated to
another area where the potential for
improvement was greater.
In the short term, most of the costs
of policing are essentially fixed, so the
issue is about optimising the use of those
resources. Indicators do exist – including
crime rates, detection rates, public
satisfaction, frontline policing – but more
sophisticated measures of outcomes are
needed.
Expectations are also relevant to the
current debate. Crime reduction and
public safety is the core business of
policing, but in the wider community
everyone has high expectations of the
police service, be it ministers, the media,
or the public. The people have come to
expect that whatever the problem, the
police will come along immediately and
deal with it.
The service faces further challenges
over the next few years. The potential
impact of the first round of spending
cuts appears to have been contained, and
crime rates have not risen as much as
some observers predicted. It is only year
two of what could now be a seven- or
eight-year journey, however, and during
that time, policing will face a quadruple
challenge
direct cuts in central funding
shifting of burdens from bodies such
as the Home Office and NCA
a reduction in the support – both
financial and in kind – from partner
organisations and the voluntary sector
as they themselves adjust to the new
world
a potential increase in crime and
disorder as the CS cuts extend and
communities come to terms with the
forthcoming changes in welfare
benefits.
Policing is not only affected by the
national financial crisis, it is also part of
the solution.
The future
PCCs will arrive on the scene at a
critical point in the journey. It remains
to be seen how far they will want to
enhance services, and whether this will
put them on a collision course with
ministers. Certainly the channelling of
new funding streams to commissioners,
and the procurement of services from a
wider local market, will change some of
the long-established dynamics.
Looking further into the future,
if the new arrangement successfully
delivers better policing and community
safety outcomes, and the public feel
much better served, will the concept
be extended further and if so might we
witness the seeds of a debate about the
structure of public services
Policing has come a long way from
its roots, and its role now extends
into sectors where other services such
as fire and rescue, criminal justice,
local councils, and several others
operate. Over the next decade might
we eventually see amalgamation and
realignment of some of our longestablished
public services
20 | POLICING UK