Evaluation of police and fire reform year 4: international perspectives

6 Police: Learning from international perspectives

Key findings: Learning from international perspectives

• Have clear aims for reform before beginning and do not lose sight of these.
• Reform typically requires a culture change in the police service in line with new ways of working and new priorities which can be challenging. Explaining to staff why reform is taking place and allowing staff to have autonomy about implementation of the strategy can aid culture change.
• Reform is a journey with multiple stages, so patience and stamina are required.
• Making a series of incremental changes, rather than trying to make all changes at once, will help the workforce navigate the new environment.
• Honest two-way communication with staff, partners and the community about the reasons for reform, the timescales of reform and what can and cannot be achieved is vital. It is essential to listen to others views and experiences and use them to inform the reform journey.

Strong, stable and consistent leadership is essential through organisational change as this helps to provide a single clear vision and direction of change.

This report has examined the impact of reform within the police service internationally by focusing on local policing, partnership working, prevention and measuring impact and outcomes. One of the purposes of this exploration is to learn the wider lessons from organisations across the world that have also experienced some level of police reform. This chapter draws together the wider lessons learned from Norway, Manchester, the Netherlands and New Zealand, as well as bringing together advice based on the findings from these international case studies of organisational change.

6.1 Have clear aims for reform

Many of the interviewees felt that having clear aims were important before starting the reform journey and that it was also important to not lose sight of these through the organisational change process.

Have a clear purpose: Ask the following questions from the start: why are you going through reform? What is the purpose? What does the end-point look like? (even if the end-point changes as you go through the reform journey). 

Don’t neglect the initial aims of reform: Keep in mind what you initially wanted to achieve. For example, if one of the initial aims was to improve community policing, then this should not be neglected during the reform process.

Take a systematic approach to reform: The police are part of a wider system of public services and as such it is important to create a common purpose and vision for reform.

6.2 Recognise the importance of culture

Each of the four case studies recognised that reform requires cultural change and discussed the challenges of changing the culture of the police service as part of their organisational change process. 

Resistance to change: One of the commonly described barriers to cultural change discussed by the interviewees in the case study areas is the prevalence of a culture of resistance to change, which is seen as part of a wider resistance to change within police services.

This resistance is also described as being a barrier to changes taking place, delaying the shift to new working practices.

“And the cultural issues within the organisation is…holding the changes back a lot more than we could expect…or maybe we should have expected it! But it takes longer to…turn the organisation in to working in new methods.” (Interviewee: Norway)

Build change resilience from the start: This is particularly important as there may be much resistance to change amongst staff. As such change resilience can partly be achieved by explaining ‘why’ to staff, listening and allowing staff to have autonomy about implementation of the strategy.

6.3 Be patient because change takes time

It is generally viewed by the four international case studies that it takes time to reform an organisation, whether that be culturally, as described above, or structurally. 

Set realistic expectations: There was a view that some of the early expectations were unrealistic about what reform could achieve within certain timescales. However, interviewees recognised that reform takes time and that, as with cultural change, there is a need to be patient. 

For the Netherlands and Norway, the time it has taken to instigate changes as part of the reform process was described as unexpected. 

“A key lesson is that we absolutely underestimated the…scale of the reform...The reform started in 2013… we're half way (through) 2018 now. It's still not …in practice, it has still not been …it's still not finished.” (Interviewee: Netherlands)

Have stamina: You can be ambitious, but you need to have the stamina to go through the whole process of reform which takes time and requires patience.

6.4 Make incremental changes

One explanation put forward by an academic in the Netherlands for why reform has taken years to implement is that they tried to change everything about the organisation and police work at the same time, which was viewed as too much. Instead it was believed that those who are reforming should be specific about what the problems are and try to do something about that, rather than changing everything at the same time. 

6.5 Prioritise communication 

Be honest in your communication with staff, partners and the community: One of the key elements identified was the need for clear communication, both at the national level, with local police officers and with partners and the community. This includes explaining and being clear why your organisation is reforming, the timescale of reform, what can and cannot be achieved, and setting realistic expectations of the challenges that would be faced within the police service and making sure everyone was aware of how they should be tackled. During this process it is also essential to listen to others views and experiences and use them to inform the reform journey.

Need to explain the reasons behind reform to police officers: It was viewed as important to explain the reasons behind the reform and the purpose for specific changes to those within the police service. 

“Communication was viewed as crucial to explain the purpose of reform but also to explain why reform was happening. In the Netherlands it was felt that communication was poor between senior officers and local police officers, which led to local officers not being involved in the reform process.” (Interviewee: Netherlands)

Listen to the local community: Interviewees in New Zealand and Norway explained that one of their key lessons was to listen to the local community. This is described as easier than trying to reform by only changing things within the police service. They advise against becoming too inward looking and suggest instead that it is important to understand the impact that changes might have on the local community. 

“I think…in every reform, you tend to look very inwardly, and not pick up on…what's going on in …your local community. You…become very sort of self-centred, and we should have been more agile when it comes to understanding the community around us.” (Interviewee: Norway)

Local engagement includes asking the community to identify the key issues and potential solutions and how they can work together to tackle them. 

“Engagement with our communities is about not us telling them what the issues are and what the solutions are, but actually saying to them, “what are the problems? What are the solutions?...and how can we work together?” I think that’s the key, for me anyway.” (Interviewee: New Zealand)

6.6 Ensure strong and stable leadership

Strong, stable and consistent leadership is needed: Strongly linked to the need for good communication was the view that strong, stable and consistent leadership is essential through organisational change as this helps to provide a single clear vision and direction of change. 

Linked to this is the view that having consistent leadership and commitment over the long-term is essential to instigate reform of a large institution.

“I think you need to be in it for the long game, and therefore it takes that leadership, that vision, and that commitment to that beyond a couple of years, or beyond someone…a Chief Officer retiring after a few years or whatever, it really does need that long-term commitment.” (Interviewee: Manchester)

A view from an interviewee in Manchester was that strong leadership is required politically and across the public services to drive the reform agenda. Without political consensus and buy-in it would be difficult to start the reform journey. 

Senior officers in New Zealand felt that they have had strong leadership from their Commissioner who has been able to clearly communicate what they are trying to achieve, including being clear on key priorities and the strategic plan which helps provide consistency across the service. This ‘strategic program of change’ has been managed effectively allowing them to deliver projects on time and to budget.

6.7 Focus on the future needs and role of the workforce

The interviewees offered the following advice about planning and designing a large-scale change in an organisation. 

Supporting the workforce through change: From the start of the reform process ask some key questions about: how the restructure will affect the current workforce and how that workforce might need to be supported and developed to adapt to change; what IT infrastructure will be needed and what type of information-sharing platforms will you need to develop; and finally, what cultural changes will be needed in order to successfully implement these changes? 

Don’t lose the balance of the policing function: Ensure all policing roles are maintained including response, community policing and prevention. This includes not taking personnel away from prevention work when major cases arise.

6.8 Recognise the importance of partnerships

Chapter 3 outlined partnership working across the international case studies including the impact of changes, challenges and opportunities. Interviewees in Manchester identified partnership working as being essential in their reform journey. It was suggested that reform is something which should be done in partnership and even that better results can be achieved by working in an integrated way, especially as different social agencies are experiencing similar issues. 

“When we work in a more integrated way we get better results…We’re all sharing the same issues and the same people so why not…why don’t we work together more?” (Interviewee: Manchester)