1.

Media scaremongering

At no point have any police forces sold off their frontline services to the private sector. What they
have been doing is contracting out some of these services such as custody, call handling and
managing police station front counters to the private sector for a limited duration. So privatisation
is probably the wrong word for what the police have been doing since it implies a far greater degree
of market penetration than is actually happening. Outsourcing is a much better word. So why are
we talking about the privatisation of the police? Because this is how newspapers have framed the
debate. They have peppered their headlines with the word privatisation in anticipation that it will
strike fear in the heart of the public and, in turn, shift more copies. A more nuanced commentary on
police outsourcing does not have the same fear-inducing effect. This has, predictably, caused
problems for senior police officers who are being called upon to justify the privatisation of what
many regard as an inherently governmental service when they are not in fact privatising anything at
all. (And, yes, I am fully aware that I have shamelessly employed the same attention-grabbing tactic
in the title of this blog!)

2. Public Fear

Of course, the reason why such media scaremongering has been so effective is because many
members of the public are truly fearful of what might happen if police forces are over-exposed to the
market. While barely a day passes without some form of public outrage directed towards instances
of police malpractice or incompetence, at a deep level the average citizen does hold the idea of the
police close to their heart. Generations of children have grown up being instructed by their parents to
dial 999 if ever they find themselves in imminent danger. Uniformed police officers give talks in
schools to educate young people about the protective role of the police in a civilized society. Cops
are frequently depicted as the good guys in pursuit of the bad guys in popular television and
cinema. All of which serve to inculcate the benevolent liberal conception of the police into our
cultural make up. Privatising or more accurately outsourcing this core public service
understandably sparks fear and anxiety among the public. This makes the task of senior police
officers even harder. A fearful public spurred on by a scaremongering media is not an easy audience
to persuade.

3. Scepticism in the senior ranks

While the Home Office exerts significant influence over the direction of police policy, Chief
Constables and now Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) nevertheless enjoy considerable
autonomy when weighing up different policy options. The enduring principle of constabulary
independence means that, if they want to, the 43 police forces can do things in 43 different ways. So
it has been with outsourcing. Some have embraced outsourcing, others have rejected it outright.
Why? Certainly there are structural factors at play. Some forces have more access to council tax
revenues than others do, providing some insulation from central government budget cuts, and
making radical policy responses less necessary. Some have more fat to trim from their
bureaucracies than others do, meaning more savings can be made through internal rationalisation.
However, there is another key factor. Many senior police officers are simply not comfortable with or
are actively hostile towards a greater role for the private sector. Not only have they gone through
the same processes of childhood socialisation as every other citizen, but in their adult careers they
have then chosen to embody ideals of the police theyve even sworn an oath to the Queen. So
they refuse to engage with the market and seek other ways out of their financial dire straits. This
means that in some forces outsourcing never enters onto the agenda as a matter of principle. And
for those forces that do entertain this option, they are faced with scepticism not only from the public,
but from their colleagues too.
4. Inexperience in contracting out

But lets assume that there are some forces with a challenging structural context and a senior
command group who are prepared to give outsourcing a go and there are a few then surely its
simply a matter of dotting the is and crossing the ts, right? Not quite. The world of public sector
outsourcing is a complex one, especially for an institution which has almost no experience of its
intricacies. When putting together a proposal, interested private sector providers will want to know
the business processes and unit costs of every single service included in the invitation for tender.
However, police forces dont think in terms of business processes and unit costs. They think in terms
of victims and criminals, evidence and arrests. Gathering this information together can therefore be
a long and painstaking task of self examination which may never reach a conclusion, especially in
such a tricky political environment. This is something that Surrey Police and West Midlands Police
found out the hard way when their controversial 1.5 billion outsourcing deal failed to see daylight
after years of effort.

5. Staffing the contract

Just for a minute, lets say that there are forces with a challenging structural context, a senior
command group who are prepared to give outsourcing a go, and who have sufficient knowledge of
their business processes and unit costs to put together an outsourcing deal before the media, public
and colleagues make such a move politically impossible and there is in fact only one such force,
Lincolnshire then surely meaningful outsourcing is doable? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that it is
undeniable that in December 2011 Lincolnshire Police signed a 229 million contract with G4S to
deliver 18 services areas including some on the frontline over a 10-15 year period. No, in the
sense that despite this major transformation in Lincolnshire Polices organisational structure, some
things really havent changed that much. This is in part by choice. Lincolnshire Police have been
careful to strike a balance between protecting their distinctive public service ethos and reaping
rewards from the business process outsourcing expertise of G4S. But it is also in part a
consequence of how the contract has been staffed. G4S have not simply replaced Lincolnshire
Police staff with G4S staff indeed, it would be illegal to do so rather they have inherited the
Lincolnshire Police staff already in position through TUPE regulations. This means that, in many
instances, the individual responsible for delivering the outsourced service has worked for
Lincolnshire Police their entire life and approaches the job in exactly the same as they had done
before G4S arrived on the scene. Other than their ID badge which now reads Lincolnshire Police-
G4S, not much has changed. Sceptics will no doubt breath a little sigh of relief, for it appears as
though their worst fears are not being realised. But for those who are trying to initiate change in the
police, it represents just one more barrier to outsourcing.