Public value and policing

Paul Skidmore
Public value and policing

Contents

Aims of The Work Foundation project 4

1. Introduction 5

2. Putting citizens first 6

2.1 A changing environment 7
2.2 Three priorities 10

3. What is public value? 12

3.1 Public value and policing: an historical perspective 13
3.2 What do we know about public value in UK policing? 20

Conclusion 25

Bibliography 26


Public value and policing

List of Boxes, Tables and Figures

Box 1: Views from senior officers – 1 8

Box 2: Views from senior officers – 2 9
Box 3: Views from senior officers – 3 10

Table 1: Comparing perspectives – traditional public administration, new

public management and public value 14

Figure 1: Moore’s strategic triangle 12

Figure 2: Trends in crime, 1995 to 2003-04 (indexed 1995) 20
Figure 3: Public perceptions of changing crime levels, 2002-03 to 2003-04 21
Figure 4: Proportion saying that they generally trust a particular profession
to tell the truth 22
Figure 5: Net public satisfaction with various professions 22
Figure 6: The public’s expectations of policing locally and expectations
of crime levels 23
Figure 7: Perceptions by contact with the police 24


Public value and policing

Aims of The Work Foundation project

Building on existing academic and policy work around public value, The Work
Foundation’s project aims to help policymakers, public managers and institutions
understand the concept of public value and see how it can be applied in practice.

Public value addresses many of the contemporary concerns facing public

managers. These include problems of securing legitimacy for decision making,
resource allocation and measuring service outcomes. This research project draws
together different strands of the current debate around public value, clarifies
its elements and seeks to further understanding of this topical and important
conceptual innovation in public service delivery.

The project’s objectives are to:

• provide a clear definition of public value
• provide public managers with a set of guiding principles that orient
institutions to the creation of public value
• use sector and case studies to illustrate how organisations might
understand where gaps occur in achieving public value
• clarify the components and processes of public value in order to facilitate
its future capture and measurement.

Sponsors
The project is sponsored by the following organisations:
• BBC
• The Capita Group plc
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• Home Office
• London Borough of Lewisham
• Metropolitan Police
• The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement (formerly the NHS
Modernisation Agency)
• OfCOM
• Quality and Improvement Agency (formerly the Learning and Skills
Development Agency)
• Royal Opera House.

About this report

This sector paper is one of several reports in this series that examine how public
value has been adopted by various sectors like local government, policing, skills,
broadcasting, arts and culture, and health. These sectors are the most relevant to
our sponsor group. Please note that the views represented in this report are those
of the author and may not necessarily represent those of the project’s sponsors.


Public value and policing

1. Introduction

The coming decades present a set of compelling and disruptive challenges to

policing and to the police service. This paper explores some of these challenges
and how the concept of ‘public value’ might illuminate them.

The concept of public value improves on earlier philosophies of public

management in that it offers an account focused on the public’s expectations,
but anchored in the real-life experiences and dilemmas of public managers. This
results in a richer and more multifaceted story about the value of various activities
and outcomes associated with public services, many of which are missed by more
simplistic accounts. In particular, public value draws attention to the role of public
sector leaders in actively seeking new forms of direct engagement, dialogue and
deliberation with their citizens/users, rather than relying on the channels of formal
politics to establish what the public values and confer legitimacy on the actions of
public managers.

In policing, a public value framework helps to identify three priorities:

1. Reshaping the ‘market’ in policing services to deploy public resources more
efficiently and effectively
. Creating open, transparent and democratic settings in which to manage
relationships – including political relationships – and balance different
stakeholders’ expectations
3. Reasserting the values, legitimacy and independence of the police service
by proactively searching for new, practical ways to express them rather
than retreating into splendid isolation.

This paper begins by examining the current policy context for policing and the
operational environment that surrounds it. It goes on to explore the concept
of public value using an historical perspective to identify some of its defining
features. Finally, it looks at various data sources that offer us a picture of the public
value created by policing.


Public value and policing

2. Putting citizens first

A new logic has taken root in government thinking about public service reform.
After more than a decade of trying to improve the performance of schools,
hospitals, police forces and other services from the centre through performance
management, targets, contract-based accountability and inspection, the focus has
shifted to engaging citizens and users in the design and delivery of services.

According to David Miliband MP, one of the current government’s leading thinkers
on public service reform:
‘…the key lies in the engagement of users of services, not treating them
simply as passive recipients, but engaging them as active partners in the
creation and development of high quality services; call it empowerment or
engagement, putting the public back into public services is the key to their
transformation.’

In policing, the new mantra is ‘citizen-focused policing’. As the then Home

Secretary Charles Clarke told a conference in January 2005:
‘It must seem sometimes that there is a process of perpetual change, but
society is changing fast around us. We have to find the right way to change
in order to meet those challenges. That’s why the citizen-focused policing
relationship is central to everything we do.’

The key implication of this principle is a new – or perhaps more accurately,

renewed – focus on neighbourhood policing. The police reform white paper,
Building Communities, Beating Crime: A better police service for the 21st century,
states:
‘The government believes that, as a starting point, we need revitalised
neighbourhood policing for today’s world. Our clear view is that increasing
public trust and confidence in policing – while important in its own right
– will also be a real benefit for the police service itself. It will help make
policing more effective.’

In a sense, this emphasis on citizens and communities as partners in policing harks

back to the founding ethos of the police force as set out in Sir Robert Peel’s nine
principles of policing more than 150 years ago. However, it is clear that the level
of community engagement envisaged goes well beyond that to which the police
service has historically been accustomed. According to the white paper it means a
step change:
‘…from traditional notions of policing simply by consent or people’s passive
acquiescence, to policing with the proactive engagement and co-operation


Speech by David Miliband MP, Minister of State, Cabinet Office, ‘Putting the Public Back into Public
Services’, Guardian Public Services Summit, London, 2 February 2005. Available at:
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_cabinet_office/speeches/miliband/html/index.asp

Speech by Charles Clarke MP at the Citizen-Focused Policing Conference, London, January 2005.
Available at: http://www.policereform.gov.uk/docs/cfp_report.pdf

Home Office, Building Communities, Beating Crime: A better police service for the 21st century,
London, Stationery Office, 2004


Public value and policing

of communities. But if people are to engage, then they need to be confident

that they will be treated well, and their voices heard and acted upon.’

The key elements of this new agenda for policing are:

• creating neighbourhood policing teams in every neighbourhood, built in
part on…
• workforce remodelling with a focus on a more diverse and flexible mix of
skills, especially through the use of para-professional support – community
support officers, wardens, special constables etc – working alongside
teams of uniformed officers on priorities developed through…
• a more responsive approach to customer service and community
engagement, including new approaches to public participation
in setting local priorities rather than relying on ineffective public
meetings, and embedding this local focus with…
• clearer lines of accountability and greater powers for local councillors
in community advocacy, including the right to ‘trigger’ certain actions
from local forces where the community feels they are not responding
to their needs.

2.1 A changing environment

These changes come at a time when the policing operating environment is in flux.
New ways of working and organising – some driven from within the police service
and others from without – call into question traditional assumptions and create
new uncertainties and dilemmas.

2.1.1 Can the police do it all?

Mounting public concern about prevalent antisocial and nuisance behaviour and
its impact on quality of life is creating a demand for the police to focus on local
issues and Level 1 crime. At the same time, a national and global security situation
characterised by instability and new threats calls for action to tackle Level 3
threats – terrorist networks, organised crime, drugs and people trafficking, and
cyber-crime. Is it sustainable to cover such a wide terrain? Is it integral to the
police service’s values to be omni-competent or could more be hived off to
specialist agencies? Is it an operational necessity, since national intelligence needs
local roots? The terrorist attacks on London in July 2005 brought these questions
into sharp relief, with co-operative, high-trust relationships with local communities
(particularly with the British Muslim community) seeming both more necessary
and less feasible than ever. Linked to the growth of partnership working, some
senior officers profess concern that the police’s ‘can-do’ attitude is resulting
in mission creep, often not accompanied by formal recognition or additional
resources. On this view, resources are being spread ever more thinly across an
expanding range of priorities, and clarity about the core purposes of policing is
being lost.


Ibid

Ibid

The terms ‘Level 3’ and ‘Level 1’ come from the National Intelligence Model (NIM)


Public value and policing

Box 1: Views from senior officers – 1

‘We bring it [over-reach] on ourselves…We don’t trust anyone else to do anything but us.’
‘What is success for us? Is it detection rates? Is it social trust? Is it quality of life?’
‘The question is: if we can’t do all this, what do we shelve?’

2.1.2 Can the police bridge the perception gap?

Stubbornly high levels of public fear of crime, despite solid evidence that real
crime rates are falling, points to a gap between public perception and the reality
on the ground that raises real questions about what the police service is for and
where it should focus its efforts. Is reassurance the real work of policing? Is it a
distraction from the job of catching crooks? Can anyone but the police service be
trusted to engage in reassurance?

2.1.3 Can independence and accountability go hand in hand?

Complaints from police officers about political interference and the applicability
of national performance management frameworks to diverse local contexts
show that operational independence and political impartiality remain live
concerns. However, underdeveloped approaches to community engagement
in many forces highlight a lack of clarity about how to strike a proper balance
between independence and democratic accountability to local communities and
representatives. The police reform white paper places community engagement
front and centre, and is honest about the amount of work that is left to do:
‘Research has shown [formal public meetings] to be ineffective for strategic
consultation on priority setting. While these groups can sometimes be
effective as a local problem-solving forum, they are often poorly attended
and not representative of the whole community. Many authorities have
constituted, abandoned or supplemented such groups with other forms of
engagement, but progress has been variable in and between authorities.
Moving beyond relying on public meetings as a sole form of engagement is
a key aim of our reforms.’
It proposes a new duty on crime and disorder reduction partnerships (CDRPs) to
create a menu of opportunities for engagement, and proposes a mechanism to
enable local communities to trigger action by police to tackle a problem in their
neighbourhood that is not being addressed.


Home Office, Building Communities, Beating Crime: A better police service for the 21st century,
London, Stationery Office, 2004

Ibid


Public value and policing

Box 2: Views from senior officers – 2

‘Do we police what we count? We took our eye off the ball on antisocial behaviour in the
past because it wasn’t measured and you don’t focus on what you’re not held to account
for.’
‘How do you involve local councillors in neighbourhood policing when they’re only elected
by 30 per cent of the population, and anyway it’s the other 70 per cent that most need
policing?’
‘The model we’ve got now is absolutely fantastic. We’re responsive as BCU [basic command
unit] commanders, but we’re not puppets that can have their strings pulled.’
‘Impartiality sometimes means we don’t engage with politics and we’re not able to fight our
corner.’

2.1.4 Can the values of the police survive the end of its ‘monopoly’ on policing?
A number of actors from the wider ‘policing family’ are beginning to encroach
into areas in which the police service traditionally had a monopoly. Security
companies, voluntary organisations and local authorities increasingly provide
reassurance services such as neighbourhood wardens. Specialist services such as
forensics, divers, helicopters, the management of custody suites, cyber-crime and
other high-value investigation services are or could soon be offered by private
providers. Does this present a threat to the police service’s values? Is it inevitable?
If it delivers efficient and effective services, then is that not sufficient justification
to endorse it? Where should the boundaries of a reshaped market in policing
services be drawn? What role might the police service play as quality assurers,
brokers, commissioners and co-ordinators in this more diverse market? What new
skills might this require from managers in the police service?

2.1.5 Can the police and other agencies learn to work together?
Since 1984, the police has been expected to operate through multi-agency
partnerships, particularly in the delivery of crime prevention activity. The
‘joining-up’ agenda gathered pace after the election of the Labour government
in 1997. Section 17 of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act placed a duty on local
authorities ‘to exercise its various functions with due regard to the likely effect
of the exercise of those functions on, and the need to do all it reasonably can to
prevent crime and disorder in its area.’ Crime and disorder reduction partnerships,
linking the police to local authorities, other statutory agencies, the private sector
and community and voluntary groups are now an important focus for policing
activities. However, concerns about how well partnerships are working remain.
Particular problems arise when the administrative boundaries of different partners
(local authorities, health, police) are not coterminous. BCU commanders routinely
report that partnerships often become talking shops, and that concrete action


Home Office, Crime Prevention, interdepartmental circular 8/84, London, Home Office, 1984 and
cited in Bright J, Turning the Tide, London, DEMOS, 1997


Public value and policing

only happens when and if the police drive it. Other officers believe that the police
themselves must share some of the responsibility for their reluctance to trust
other agencies and refusal to compromise their operational independence.

Box 3: Views from senior officers – 3

‘If what really matters is fear of crime and reassurance, and that agenda is too broad for us to
manage by ourselves, we need to work in partnership and be evaluated as such.’
‘Fear of crime is such a big responsibility. We’ve got to be careful about trying to manage it.’
‘The only thing that changes in policing is technology.’

2.1.6 Can the bases of policing as a profession be remade and reinforced in this
changing environment?
All of this serves to amplify uncertainties about the status of policing as a
profession and the sustainability of the bases on which it has historically been
built. Sworn-officer status remains the bedrock of the profession, but entry
points and career paths are becoming more diverse, with growing numbers of
specialist and civilian roles. As in teaching and medicine, the delegation of police
activities and powers to para-professionals (particularly community support
officers) was strongly resisted by the profession, but is now generally welcomed
although questions about operational control persist. The creation of the Serious
and Organised Crime Agency as a non-police organisation has raised fears about
fragmentation and ‘brain drain’. Despite the police’s history of robust performance
in the political sphere, many argue that the police service lacks a clear, unified
voice in articulating its vision for the profession because of the separation
between the Police Federation, the Police Superintendents’ Association and the
Association of Chief Police Officers.

2.2 Three priorities

Taken together, these challenges point towards three strategic priorities for the
police service over the next decade and beyond:
1. Searching for smarter and more efficient ways to deploy resources if
the police service is to sustain its commitment to tackling both the very
local and the national priorities. This includes slimming down the middle
tier of police forces to create fewer, larger forces, encouraging greater
collaboration between forces with different specialisms, and embracing a
role for a more diverse range of policing service providers, including the
private sector where it brings benefits.

10
Public value and policing

. Finding new ways to manage and balance the competing expectations

of different stakeholders, and being prepared for these decisions to be
made, scrutinised and validated in more open, transparent and democratic
settings.
3. Reasserting the values, legitimacy and claim to independence of the police
service not by retreating into splendid isolation, but by proactively and
publicly looking to build new kinds of processes and relationships that
make them real.

11
Public value and policing

3. What is public value?

Figure 1: Moore’s strategic triangle

Legitimacy and support
(Authorising environment)

Operational capacity Value, mission, goals

(Operating environment) (Envisioning environment)

The concept of public value could provide a practical framework for helping the
police service respond to the three imperatives outlined at the end of the previous
section. Indeed, the three elements of the ‘strategic triangle’ outlined by Mark
Moore10 correspond neatly to the three priorities identified.

Public value takes as its starting point the idea that managers in the police and
other public services cannot take the underlying purpose of their institution, its
legitimacy or the value it creates for citizens to be self-evident simply because
they are public institutions whose mandate has been supplied by democratically
elected governments. Instead, they need to:

Moore M H, Creating Public Value: Strategic management in government, Cambridge, MA, Harvard
10

University Press, 1995

12
Public value and policing

• be more proactive and flexible in searching for valued purposes

(through activities that meet the changing needs of citizens)
• provide opportunities for citizens and other stakeholders to authorise
these purposes (through processes of accountability and deliberation)
• be doing more to identify and represent the value their work creates
(through better, more rounded and more accessible evaluation of their
performance).

In a 2002 paper, the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit contrasted public value with
two earlier traditions in public management: the traditional public management
associated with the post-war welfare state and the new public management
associated with the contract and accountability regimes introduced by
Conservative governments in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s.11 Table 1 on the next
page lists its main findings.

3.1 Public value and policing: an historical perspective

Building on this analysis of public management traditions along a number of
different dimensions, this section looks at some key historical developments in
policing policy and practice as an heuristic device for shedding light on what
a public value framework for contemporary policing might mean. These are
organised around the following themes:
• definition(s) of the public interest
• model of accountability
• social integration, communication and policing style.

3.1.1 1830-1910: Municipal policing

The development of policing coincided with the growth of the administrative
power of local government in the mid-nineteenth century. Through the 1829
Metropolitan Police Act, Sir Robert Peel established in London the first modern
police force.

Public interest
In an echo of current debates about balancing civil liberties with public safety,
an argument raged between those who objected to interference with traditional
British liberties and those, like Peel, who believed that the defence of those
liberties required a standing police force able to restore order and tackle the
perceived lawlessness that had accompanied rapid social change, dislocation and
urbanisation caused by the Industrial Revolution. As he is reported to have told
Wellington: ‘I want to teach people that liberty does not consist in having your
house robbed by organised gangs of thieves, and in leaving the principal streets
of London in the nightly possession of drunken women and vagabonds.’12

11
Kelly G, Muers S and Mulgan G, Creating Public Value: An analytical framework for public service
reform, London, Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, 2 002. Available from: http://www.strategy.gov.
uk/downloads/files/public_value2.pdf
12
http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/the-bobby/bibliography/sir-robert-peel
13
Public value and policing

Table 1: Comparing perspectives – traditional public administration, new

public management and public value

Traditional public ‘New public Public value

management management’
Public interest Defined by politicians/ Aggregation of individual Individual and public
experts preferences demonstrated preferences (resulting
by customer choice from public deliberation)
Performance Managing inputs Managing inputs and Multiple objectives
objectives outputs - service outputs
- satisfaction
- outcomes
- maintaining
trust/legitimacy
Dominant model Upwards through Upwards through Multiple
of accountability departments to politicians performance contracts: - citizens as overseers
and through them to sometimes outwards of government
Parliament to customers through - customers as users
market mechanisms - taxpayers as funders
Preferred system Hierarchical department Private sector or tightly Menu of alternatives
of delivery or self-regulating defined arm’s-length selected pragmatically
profession public agency (public sector agencies,
private companies, JVCs,
community interest
companies, community
groups as well as
increasing role for user
choice)
Approach to public Public sector has Sceptical of public sector No one sector has a
service ethos monopoly on service ethos (leads to inefficiency monopoly on ethos, and
ethos, and all public and empire building) no one ethos is always
bodies have it – favours customer service appropriate. As a valuable
resource it needs to be
carefully managed
Role of public Limited to voting in Limited – apart from use Crucial – multifaceted
participation elections and pressure on of customer satisfaction (customers, citizens, key
elected representatives surveys stakeholders)
Goal of managers Respond to political Meet agreed performance Respond to citizen/user
direction targets preferences, renew
mandate and trust
through guaranteeing
quality services
Source: Strategy Unit, 2002

14
Public value and policing

Accountability
The controversy over the reforms created an asymmetry in policing structures
that has lasted until this day. Unable to press for a national police force, the
Metropolitan Police was limited only to a (relatively small) part of London where
crime was felt to be most out of control. It was also under the direction of the
Home Secretary, although operational control lay with two commissioners.
However, the success of the new force in tackling crime (and evidence that it
displaced crime into areas that were more poorly policed) quickly led to the
expansion of policing across other parts of the country. The 1835 Municipal
Corporations Act required every borough to maintain a police force, which ‘watch
committees’ established by each town or city authority controlled. The 1839 Rural
Constabulary Act authorised county magistrates, which at that stage were the
principal form of local government at the county-level, to appoint chief constables
to look after policing in their area. Slow progress to develop policing in some
areas, along with the desire on the part of the Home Office for greater uniformity
and central control, led to the 1856 County and Borough Police Act. This required
an adequate, paid police force in every area and proposed amalgamation where
necessary. Counties and boroughs would receive help from central government
meeting the additional costs in return for submitting to annual inspections from
and demonstrating efficiency to an Inspectorate of Constabulary. 1888 saw the
introduction of county councils and the creation of standing joint committees
made up of magistrates and councillors to oversee police forces.

Social integration, communication and policing style

Respecting Peel’s belief that the absence of crime and not the visible appearance
of activity to tackle it ought to be the police’s measure of success, the early
emphasis was on crime prevention. This began to shift towards detection later
in this period, as evidenced by growing specialisation. A Criminal Investigations
Department (CID) was formed with 200 detectives in 1877, and in 1883 a Special
Irish Branch was created to deal with the threat from Irish nationalist forces.

Initially, the police faced considerable public hostility. Winning support for its
activities was a top priority. The idea that the police should be socially integrated
into the communities that they were policing was crucial to gaining public
acceptance for its new role and for this significant extension of the reach of the
state into people’s everyday lives. Peel’s nine principles of policing affirmed the
requirement:
‘[…to] maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality
to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are
the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give
full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the
interests of community welfare and existence.’13

13
http://www.nwpolice.org/peel.html

15
Public value and policing

Even the colour and design of the police’s uniforms was intended to allay public
anxieties that it was simply a new arm of the military. Some early successes in
addressing crime were sufficient to win tacit consent, although the police in many
places remained amateurish and were widely criticised for being corrupt and
unreliable.

3.1.2 1910-1960: Progressive nationalisation

A major shake-up in policing was inaugurated by the First World War and gathered
pace for the next 50 years.

Public interest
The dominant concern during this period was the reliability and independence
of the police service. Two key issues prompted this. First, the demands of a war
being fought on a hitherto unimaginable scale prompted much greater levels of
central interference and control. Watch committees lost much of their influence
and where it was expedient, forces were amalgamated. Second, the police strikes
of 1918-19 raised fears about national security. The committee set up in response
recommended that wages be increased and set centrally – the first of a number
of key steps to shift control over policing towards the centre. The key decision
was to proclaim the independence of chief constables from local government
accountability. The 1919 Police Act strengthened chief constables’ powers. Then, in
1930 the Fisher versus Oldham Corporation case declared that a police constable
was the servant of the Crown, not the local authority. And if the constable was
ultimately accountable to the law, then so should be the chief constable.

Accountability
From this crucial point springs much of the present discussion of police and local
accountability. Whatever responsibilities local authorities might have for
community safety in their area, democratic control of local policing was now
viewed as ‘political’ and therefore unacceptable. These views were amplified by the
rise of communism and fears of what the growing strength of the Labour Party in
local authorities might mean. More Home Office involvement in the appointment
of chief constables, the development of common training and career pathways,
and shared protocols, recording practices and infrastructure all helped shift the
police from a fragmented, amateurish, democratically accountable local force to a
uniform, professional, independent national force. Accusations of corruption in the
1950s led to a Royal Commission and a new Police Act in 1964, which completed
the shift to the centre. A further wave of amalgamations over the next ten years
created the 43 forces that exist today, consolidating the power of chief constables
and distancing the police from local communities. Watch committees were
abolished and replaced with police authorities with fewer powers and a more
limited democratic component. Accountability was vested in a new tripartite

16
Public value and policing

relationship between chief constables, police authorities and the Home Secretary,
which acted as a check on the exercise of undue prerogative by any one of the
three.

Social integration, communication and policing style

It is difficult to say whether the departure from formal local democratic
accountability had any material impact on public perceptions, not least since
routine interaction with local ‘bobbies on the beat’ continued to be the norm. But
some have argued that the growing professionalisation of the police service, the
declining power of local accountability structures and the growing prioritisation of
technical knowledge embedded in the police over local knowledge embedded in
communities contributed to a growing divide between the police and the public.
A conscious effort was made to win back public support, playing on the rise of
mass media and films and television programmes like The Blue Lamp and Dixon
of Dock Green.

3.1.3 1960s-1990s: The end of innocence

This period of profound and disruptive social change, punctuated by a series of
crises, created new challenges for the police.

Public interest
The definition of the public interest in this period can be encapsulated in the
words ‘law and order’. It was also in this period that crime began to rise, starting
in 1954 when there were 9.7 indictable offences per 1,000 people. When recorded
crime peaked in the early 1990s there were 109.4 per 1,000 people. From the
1960s to the 1990s the number of homicides per million population more than
doubled. This undoubtedly influenced, but arguably was not the sole cause of,
the emergence of law and order as a salient political issue, particularly for the
Conservative Party. A linked series of issues – economic crisis, urban poverty,
perceived trade union power, racism and problems integrating with ethnic
minority communities – contributed to a breakdown of social order in some places
that heightened the sense of a crisis of governability. The 1986 Public Order Act
might be viewed as the first in a series of measures (of which ASBOs are perhaps
the latest incarnation) to create new categories of disorder so as to legitimise
greater police powers. The start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland created new
policing challenges and threats to national security. At the same time, the desire
to strengthen police powers was offset by anxieties about their abuse after a
number of scandals. The two key measures in this regard were: the 1984 Police and
Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act, which increased police powers over search, entry,
seizure and arrest while strengthening suspects’ rights; and the 1985 Offences Act,
which sought to create a structural separation between the investigation of crimes
and decisions to prosecute them by establishing the Crown Prosecution Service.

17
Public value and policing

Accountability
Accountability again figured prominently in this period with a number of
different currents of change playing a part. First, and most prominently, the
Thatcher government’s mass mobilisation of the police service in its conflict
with the National Union of Mineworkers during the miners’ strike was hugely
divisive, particularly in the primarily northern areas affected by it. Many viewed
it as politicisation, with the police becoming an arm of the state rather than
a servant of the law. For a number of serving senior police officers today, the
miners’ strike was a key formative moment in their early careers that helps to
explain their hostility to political interference. Second, there was a resurgence of
central-local antagonisms as police authorities in a few large Labour-controlled
cities began to exercise their rights more forcefully; a rebellion swiftly crushed by
the Conservative government’s abolition of the Greater London Council and the
metropolitan county councils. Third, a number of key miscarriages of justice linked
to Irish terrorism came to light in which police misconduct figured prominently,
prompting new calls for greater scrutiny and democratic accountability. Finally, a
Police Complaints Authority was established in the 1984 PACE Act to deal with
grievances about police conduct.

Social integration, communication and policing style

The clash with the miners was only one illustration of the perceived social isolation
of the police from the communities they were policing. Routine arming of the
police became more common in this period, leading one commentator to
identify a shift from ‘endearing incompetence’ to ‘armed professionalism’. Riots
in Brixton, Toxteth and other inner-city areas in the early 1980s highlighted
mounting social dysfunction, and also deteriorating relationships between
police and ethnic minority communities, who had not been consulted about a
number of controversial operations. Lord Scarman’s 1981 report called for better
consultative arrangements. Twenty years later, race and the police would again
figure prominently in public debates as Lord Macpherson’s inquiry into the murder
of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, uncovered a culture of ‘institutional racism’
in the Metropolitan Police that had contributed to a bungled investigation of the
crime.

3.1.4 1990-present: Micro-management, micro-policing

Since the early 1990s, developments in policing have been dominated by
two distinct reform imperatives: technical, with the extension of inspection,
performance measurement and contract-based accountability regimes associated
with new public management; and community based, with a new focus on
neighbourhoods and the quality-of-life issues closest to people’s lives.

18
Public value and policing

Public interest
In line with the Major government’s public service reform philosophy, a number
of initiatives sought to modernise the management of the police service and
bring it closer to its ‘customers’. A 1993 police reform white paper proposed
reorganising the police to give managers more freedom to manage their forces
and to work more closely with the public. The 1993 Sheehy report advocated
modernising police pay and management structures. A 1994 Police and
Magistrates’ Courts Act reduced the size of police authorities, and transferred
direct management functions and control over budgets to chief constables. New
Labour deepened this managerialism in a number of respects. The 2002 Police
Reform Act gave significant powers to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary
and a new Police Standards Unit. Annual policing plans published by the Home
Secretary, the collection and monitoring of performance data and powers to
require forces to take remedial action to address identified failings all marked a
significant redefinition of the public interest as ‘objectively’ defined and inspected
performance quality. At the same time, the growing salience of antisocial
behaviour from the mid 1990s (perhaps a reaction to the fall-off in levels of more
serious crime) led to a simultaneous concern to restore the highly localised
community reassurance function of the police to its former prominence.

Accountability
Alongside the extension of performance management has been a growth in
partnership working, including with communities themselves. As consultation
became a policy buzzword in the early 1990s, police duties to engage local
communities were extended in the 1994 Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act.
The1998 Crime and Disorder Act legislated for the establishment of crime and
disorder reduction partnerships in each local authority. Innovative forms of joint
accountability have taken root in some of these partnerships, for example with the
police and health authorities in an area working to the same target for reducing
drug misuse.

Social integration, communication and policing style

The vision of neighbourhood policing implies a significant shift in policing style
and the police’s infrastructure for engagement. A key step has been the growth
of the extended police family, with the accreditation and devolution of functions
to community support officers, neighbourhood wardens and other para-
professionals. The 2004 police reform white paper acknowledges that much
remains to be done in creating mechanisms for local people to feed into police
decision making in their area without falling back on the tired format of poorly
attended public meetings.

19
Public value and policing

3.2 What do we know about public value in UK policing?

This brief historical account of developments in policing has helped to flesh out
the origins of some key contemporary debates. Let us now turn to what we know
about levels of public value in UK policing.

Because it is such an expansive concept, it is important to address a number of

different issues when considering the public value that the police service currently
creates (or destroys), including:
• outcomes
• social values and perceptions
• trust
• public satisfaction and expectations
• customer service
• staffing and spending.

3.2.1 Outcomes
Levels of crime in the UK peaked in 1995 and have been falling steadily since then
according to the British Crime Survey (BCS).14

Figure 2: Trends in crime, 1995 to 2003-04 (indexed 1995)

100

80

60

40

ALL BCS CRIME Domestic burglary All vehicle theft All violence

0
1995 1997 1999 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04
interviews interviews interviews

Source: British Crime Survey

14
Walker A, Kershaw C and Nicholas S, Crime in England and Wales 2005-06, London, Home Office,
2006

20
Public value and policing

The BCS also suggests that the risk of becoming a victim of crime has fallen from
40 per cent in 1995 to 26 per cent, the lowest level recorded since the BCS began
in 1981.15 However, this masks variations between offences. Even taking into
account changes in recording practices, violent crime increased between 1998
and 2004, and gun crime almost doubled in the same period.

3.2.2 Social values and perceptions

Crucially, however, the public’s fear of crime has not responded to falling levels of
crime. Two-thirds of people believe that the national crime rate over the last two
years has risen ‘a lot’ or ‘a little more’. In a pattern that is reflected in other public
services, people tend to have a more positive view of the situation locally than
the national picture. Only half believe crime in their area has risen ‘a lot’ or ‘a little
more’. The persistent fear of crime helps to explain the political emphasis on the
‘reassurance agenda’ in policing.

Figure 3: Public perceptions of changing crime levels, 2002-03 to 2003-04

80
A little more crime A lot more crime
70
38
60
Percentage perceiving more crime (%)

31

50
22
20
40

30
35 34
31
34 34 20
29

10

0
2002/03 2003/04 2002/03 2003/04
interviews interviews interviews interviews
Whole country Local area

Source: British Crime Survey

3.2.3 Trust
Trust in policing as measured by survey responses has been largely steady for
the last two decades, although it is below some other public service professionals
(doctors and teachers) and other parts of the criminal justice system (judges).16

15
http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk
16
MORI Data

21
Public value and policing

Figure 4: Proportion saying that they generally trust a particular profession

to tell the truth

100
90
80 1983
70
60 1993
50
40
30
1997
20
10 2005
0
s

rs

es

ls

rs

ts

s
or

er

st

ist

nt

an
lic

cia
so

de

lis
dg

r ie
ch
ct

va
nt

po

ici
na
es

ea
offi
Ju
Do

/p
a

ie

er

lit
of

ur
Te

sl
Sc

ls
an

Po
Th

n
Pr

Jo
es
io
vi
m

sin
Ci

un
gy

Bu
er

e
ad
Cl

Tr

Source: MORI

3.2.4 Public satisfaction and expectations

Net public satisfaction with the police lies below that of other public servants.17

Figure 5: Net public satisfaction with various professions

Accountants
Net satisfaction with various professions
Doctors
100
Nurses
80
Teachers
60
The police
40
Politicians generally
20

0 Government ministers

-20 Dentists

-40 Lawyers
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Judges

Source: MORI

The public’s expectations of policing in their area are generally more positive than
their expectations of crime levels.

17
MORI Data

22
Public value and policing

Figure 6: The public’s expectations of policing locally and expectations of

crime levels

Thinking about the way your area is policed over

35 the next few years do you expect it to get...?

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
-5
Mar 02

May 02

Jul 02

Sep 02

Nov 02

Jan 03

Mar 03

May 03

Jul 03

Sep 03

Nov 03

Jan 04

Mar 04

May 04

Jul 04

Sep 04

Nov 04

Jan 05
Better Worse Net better

Source: IPSOS/MORI

3.2.5 Customer service

In contrast to other public services where familiarity breeds favourability, personal
interaction with the police has a negative impact on citizens’ perceptions of it. As
Figure 7 overleaf shows, the police were more likely to be rated as doing a good
job by people who had no contact with them over the previous year (77 per cent)
than by those who had been in contact with them over the previous year (72
per cent).18 In other words, the police’s poor performance on customer service
destroys public value.

3.2.6 Staffing and spending

Public spending on policing rose to £10.8billion in 2003-04, an increase of 19 per
cent in real terms since 1997.19

Police numbers have increased dramatically in the last few years to reach an all-
time high. In March 1997 there were 127,158 police officers and by February 2005
there were 140,135.20 The government plans to provide every community in the
country with its own dedicated neighbourhood policing team by 2008.21

18
Nicholas S and Walker A (eds), Crime in England and Wales 2002-03: Supplementary Volume 2:
Crime, disorder and the criminal justice system – public attitudes and perceptions, London, Home
Office, January 2004 available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb0204.pdf. See also
MORI research for OPSR available at http://www.mori.com/pubinfo/aea/contacting-the-police.pdf
19
http://www.policereform.gov.uk/docs/national_policing_plan/npp2004-7.html
20
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/n_story.asp?item_id=1246; http://www.policereform.gov.uk/
docs/press_notice_09504.html
21
http://www.national-pcsos.co.uk

23
Public value and policing

Figure 7: Perceptions by contact with the police

90
Percentage saying local police do a very or fairly good job

80 77 78
75 74
72 71
69 69
70
61
60

50

40

30

20

10

0
All Some No Victim Non- Stopped Stopped Public- Police-
adults contact contact of crime victim of on foot in a initiated initiated
crime vehicle contact contact

Source: Home Office, 2004

In thinking about the public value of policing, it is worth thinking about a broader
definition of ‘the policing family’. For instance, there are now also 12,500 special
constables and 4,599 community support officers (CSOs) working alongside the
police. The number of CSOs will rise to 20,000 by 2008.

Looking even more broadly, according to the Security Industry Association’s 2003
strategic analysis, the revenue of the UK’s private security industry is £3-4billion
per annum and there are around half a million security operatives working in the
industry.

24
Public value and policing

Conclusion

Rather than attempt to summarise and reiterate the paper’s content, this
conclusion offers a set of eight propositions about public value in policing. These
are deliberately provocative and intended to capture and reflect key aspects of the
current debate, while also pointing towards key areas where further discussion is
needed.

1. The choice for the police service is not between democracy or not, but
between more or less democracy and what kind. Majoritarian institutions are
not the only way to rebuild democratic legitimacy.
. Transparency is a non-negotiable for the public, but it does not lie in league
tables.
3. Independence is a non-negotiable for the police, but it does not lie in ‘splendid
isolation’. Impartiality cannot mean the police always knows best.
4. To be meaningful, public engagement needs to be expressed in practical
relationships, not abstract structures. Community participation can help solve
problems for police officers; it need not be simply a way of causing them.
5. The capacity of policing to create public value is greater than the capacity of
the police to create public value. Rather than resisting growth of the policing
family, the police should harness and shape it.
6. Partnership is an activity, not a structure. It needs to be made real through
practical expressions such as: shared and interdependent targets, joint
inspection, joint training, pooled budgets and shared data.
7. The great debate about the fate of the ‘43 forces’ is a distraction from the
central question of how the police becomes more agile at every level. Building
networks that cut across force, regional and even national boundaries is the
only way that the police will be able to deal with increasingly network-based
patterns of criminality.
8. The bases on which the police’s status as a profession were once seen to rest
are increasingly vulnerable. Rather than a defensive profession trying to shore
them up, the police needs to become an activist profession capable of forging
new ones.

25
Public value and policing

Bibliography

Bright J, Turning the Tide, London, DEMOS, 1997

Clarke C, speech at the Citizen-Focused Policing Conference, London, January 2005.

Available at: http://www.policereform.gov.uk/docs/cfp_report.pdf

Home Office, Building Communities, Beating Crime: A better police service for the 21st century,
London, Stationery Office, 2004

Kelly G, Muers S and Mulgan G, Creating Public Value: An analytical framework for public
service reform, London, Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office, 2002. Available at: http://www.
strategy.gov.uk/downloads/files/public_value2.pdf

Miliband D, ‘Putting the Public Back into Public Services’, Guardian Public Services Summit,
London, 2 February 2005. Available at: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_
cabinet_office/speeches/miliband/html/index.asp

Moore M H, Creating Public Value: Strategic management in government, Cambridge, MA,

Harvard University Press, 1995

Nicholas S and Walker A (eds), Crime in England and Wales 2002-03: Supplementary Volume
2: Crime, disorder and the criminal justice system – public attitudes and perceptions, London,
Home Office, January 2004. Available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/
hosb0204.pdf

Office of Public Services Reform, Contacting the Police: Customer satisfaction survey,
London, OPSR, 2003. Available at http://www.mori.com/pubinfo/aea/contacting-the-
police.pdf

Walker A, Kershaw C and Nicholas S, Crime in England and Wales 2005-06, London, Home
Office, 2006

26
Public value and policing

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written
permission of the publishers. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired out
or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form, binding or cover other than
that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

27
We provide:
Research
Consultancy
Leadership
Advocacy
Partnership

© The Work Foundation

Registered as a charity no: 290003

First published: November 2006

The Work Foundation

3 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5DG

Telephone: 020 7004 7100

Email: enquiries@theworkfoundation.com

Website: www.theworkfoundation.com