Evaluation of police and fire reform year 4: international perspectives

12 Conclusions

Key findings

• There are a set of shared experiences across the international case studies considered in this report of the challenges associated with police and fire reform. These range from the complexities of designing new structures and processes for the operation of the reformed organisations to strategic questions regarding the balance between centralised and local functions.
• Although the focus has been on reform, what is described in this report is a process of planned organisational change and therefore the wider research literature on organisational change is highly relevant to understanding the different challenges and opportunities likely to be encountered during the reform journey.
• There are a set of wider lessons to be drawn from the analysis in this report which are relevant not just to police and fire services but also to organisational change in other public services. These wider lessons relate to issues of expectations management, the sequencing and ecosystem of organisational change, risk mitigation, and the opportunities to develop as learning organisations through the reform journey.

12.1 Shared experiences of organisational change internationally

Throughout this report, there has been a clear focus on what conclusions can be drawn from this analysis of the international experience of reform of police and fire and rescue services and the following section attempts to synthesise this learning into a set of wider lessons for police and fire services as well as wider public services undergoing or planning reform. 

Before elaborating on these lessons, however, it is important to make the following points that emerge from the analysis presented here:

• Despite differences of context, there is a strong sense across the international case studies considered here of similarities in the experiences of reform, and in particular the challenges associated with reform. These have included the designing of new police and fire districts, establishing new processes for the distribution and accessing of resources, and rebuilding relationships with partner organisations and stakeholders following periods of significant organisational change. 
• Furthermore, it is also clear that Scotland’s reform of its police and fire and rescue services has followed a very similar path and encountered many of the same challenges as those in the international case studies considered in this report. Scotland is not unique, for example, in trying to establish an effective working relationship between centralised functions and local delivery; Scotland is similar to other places in trying to develop effective partnership working between service providers; and Scotland, like other places and other services and sectors, continues to seek robust ways of measuring preventative and partnership activity. 
• There are, of course, also some important differences between Scotland and the international case studies considered and arguably the most relevant relates to the financial context of reform. Against the background of wider UK economic and fiscal pressures, a key driver for reform in Scotland has been to establish more financially sustainable models of service delivery. This has meant that the pace and direction of reform in Scotland has been informed by budgetary considerations which have been of less relevance in many of the other case studies presented here such as the Netherlands and New Zealand.
• Although in all the case studies considered in this report, as well as in Scotland, the language used has been about ‘reform’, what is being attempted is a process of planned ‘organisational change’. 

In practice, however, the kind of organisational change described in this report involves a complex interplay between both planned, top-down approaches to change and more emergent approaches involving continuous adaptation to changing circumstances and conditions. From this perspective, much of what is being recommended on the basis of these international perspectives echoes and underlines the findings from a long tradition of organisational change studies (for example, the need for a vision and strategy; support for strong leadership; open and honest communication; the development of enabling structures; and the need to anchor new approaches in the culture of the new organisation). Although from the perspective of organisational change studies, the experiences and lessons detailed in this report might therefore not be considered as surprising or unexpected, when planning or undertaking reform of police and fire services, this research has shown how experiences from other services and sectors can be valuable in shaping planning and delivery of organisational change. 

12.2 Wider lessons of police and fire international experience of organisational change

Drawing together the various elements from the experiences of the different international case studies of police and fire reform provides some pointers towards wider lessons for future organisational change in police, fire and other sectors. 

These wider lessons include:

• Expectations management – the language and discourse around reform can sometimes be unhelpful and lead to unrealistic expectations regarding how quickly and at what scale change can be achieved. This partly reflects perceptions that reform is an event rather than a process. 

While some aspects of reform do happen quickly – for example, the appointment of new leadership teams, the renaming and rebranding of organisations – more fundamental changes around culture, vision and strategy, governance, investment in an enabling infrastructure – are often the focus of complex processes of negotiation, contestation and implementation, may take months and years to achieve and where the pace and direction of change will often depend on a range of financial, political and organisational factors. 

Against this background, the language of reform may be unhelpful if it is used to imply rapid transformational change when the reality may be slower, more incremental and developmental change. Looking ahead, findings from this evaluation and drawing on experiences from the international case studies and Scotland, the language of change rather than reform may be more helpful for services planning or undertaking organisational change.

• The sequencing of organisational change – a strong metaphor running through the narratives of reform articulated by a range of stakeholders is the notion of reform as a journey, which takes time, and is a process of planned organisational change rather than a one-off event. 

This has then informed a notion of ‘stages’ on the reform journey, typically in the Scottish context in terms of phases of ‘integration’, ‘consolidation’ and ‘transformation’. What this obscures, however, is what constitutes the main strategic focus during these different phases and here there are important choices to be made. For example, in some jurisdictions (notably Scotland) the priorities during the early phases of reform have centred on establishing new structures and processes (rather than on the knowledge and skills of staff which have come later), while in other places (notably Norway) the focus has been on people and investing in new training, skills and equipment for frontline staff.

• The ecosystem of organisational change and interdependencies between police and fire services and other parts of the public sector/ other sectors (e.g. third sector) – both the police and fire and rescue services are embedded in a complex ecosystem of relationships with a wide range of partner organisations which means that there are strong networks of inter-dependencies. Periods of reform can create significant tensions within these networks. This is partly because the organisations undergoing reform may be changing at a pace which partner organisations may find challenging to adjust and adapt to but also because during periods of reform the organisational focus of police and fire services may be on prioritising internal change rather than on maintaining external relationships. This can mean partner organisations may be unaware of what is happening and therefore unable to react quickly to the emergence of new approaches and priorities. 

Findings from this research have illustrated the importance of prioritising external relationships with stakeholders during periods of organisational change to ensure that they can be maintained and developed further during and following organisational change. In the international case study areas and in Scotland, evidence from this evaluation found that police and fire services were working collaboratively with a wide range of public, third and private sector partners.

• Risk mitigation and on-going risk management – the cumulative evidence from the evaluation of police and fire reform in Scotland and internationally is that there are a range of strategic risks associated with this process which need to be carefully managed. These risks include those associated with communication (both internal and external), performance, skills (particularly relating to the range of skills needed to execute large scale organisational change) and leadership (recognising that different styles of leadership may be required at different stages of the reform journey). 

For services planning reform, this research has found that the careful mapping of risk at the outset of the reform process in order to mitigate the most serious risks identified and then the continuing review of risk needs to be an organisational priority.

• The opportunity for police and fire services to develop as a learning organisation – while periods of structural reform present significant challenges, they also provide important opportunities for organisational development beyond the specific aims of reform. 

In particular, reform creates an environment in which there can be a strategic focus on the use of evidence (drawn from both professional experience and research) to inform decision-making, reflection on the inter-relationships within and between organisations to develop a theory of change, and the routine use of evaluation to assess whether the changes introduced are yielding the anticipated outcomes. 

In this way reform provides the opportunity for police and fire services to develop as learning organisations, skilled in creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and modifying their culture and behaviour to reflect new knowledge, insights and contexts. There is, then, active management of the knowledge process and scope for learning to translate into new ways of operating. 

The international context discussed in this report is important in this regard because of the opportunities it opens up for comparative analysis, sharing practice and building networks. It also provides important insights into what we have learned so far about the outcomes of reform in different jurisdictions and where there are still gaps in our knowledge.