Shifting oversight: the evolution of modern police performance management in England and Wales

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the evolution of police performance management (PM) in England and Wales from 1979 to 2023 using the punctuated equilibrium model of organizational evolution. Through an analysis of four successive Governments, we identify three major shifts in the approach to police PM. We argue that continued changes to PM systems, frameworks, and cultures have led to a move from a centrally driven performance management agenda to a more fragmented but locally based approach, focused less on data collection and output measures, and more on improvements in outcomes. We consider the implications for PM of broader public sector bodies.

KEYWORDS:

• Police performance management
• performance measurement
• punctuated equilibrium
• organizational evolution
• KPIs

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Khuat Quang Huy for his support in developing Figure 1.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Generative-AI tool usage disclaimer

The production of this manuscript was supported with the use of the GPT-4 LLM (accessed through ChatGPT) for draft text production and improvement of text. The authors edited all output and take full responsibility for the accuracy of the content presented.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. For a detailed account of police force organizational structure in England and Wales, see (Reiner 2010)

2. These changes are compiled from the following documents: ‘Policing the 21^st Century: Reconnecting police and the people’ (Home Office 2010), ‘Spending Review 2010’ (HM Treasury 2010) and the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act (2011).

3. HMIC, as it was formerly known, took on responsibility for fire and rescue service inspections and was renamed HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services on 19 July 2017.

4. A ten-year plan setting out a strategy for policing in England and Wales between 2015 and 2025: https://assets.production.copweb.aws.college.police.uk/s3fs-public/policing_vision_2025.pdf.

5. See for example, Sir Robert Peel’s fifth principle of policing: to seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy (Home Office 2012).

6. For example, an independent review commissioned by the Home Office on the use of targets in policing found that the police need to do more to tackle a culture of ‘narrow target-chasing’. See Sutherland and Davies (2018).