Policing Social Citizens: a rambling mini rant

Towards the end of June, Emma Daniel has organised a get together (a mix of Tedx & unconference) with the purpose of "generating conversations about policing in a social era". You can find more here. I plan to be there.

I expect that those attending will be active users of social media, may well have written about social media and its implication for daily living / professional practice and will, of course, have an abiding interest in all matters relating to police work, justice and community safety. And there may even be some people who don't fall into any of those categories! Although be warned, unconferences aim to engage participants not merely lecture to passive audiences (as this blog outlines).

Emma has been seeking people to write blogs in order to help build the buzz for this event and I am happy to oblige being a dutiful British citizen.

So this is it. (Do I need to write more Emma?)

...
As I have already blogged, I was approached the other day by the Deputy PCC for Thames Valley asking for my advice on how to engage young people. An easy start is just to Google 'engaging young people uk'. I got 'about 32,900,000 results in 0.42 seconds'. So there are lots of resources out there to advise. But I suspect they all take time, planning, money, commitment to listening and, probably, humility. But it can be done. (And I suspect there is at least one person in the Thames Valley Police who knows a lot about engaging with young people...)

My basic advice to the Deputy PCC, that night, was that you have to go to them, where they are. His immediate reaction was to look anxious and say that they could not possibly visit all the youth clubs and schools and so forth. I breathed in and said, he didn't have to, a fair few would be sufficient to get some real insight.

But had our conversation gone on longer, I would have been wanting to talk with him about social media and how many young people live a good chunk of their lives online. (As do many of us.) Going to where they are, means going online. It also means interacting online.

I have just checked out the @TV_PCC timeline over the last couple of weeks: it is all either announcements or retweets of announcements. I don't observe any dialogue with anyone on this account. Here is the tweet of the event I attended:

And note the words: "talking to the public". Not with, or listening to etc. And the whole room arrangement speaks volumes as well. If I had been there first, I would have put the chairs in a circle.

But back to social media: there is so much to learn. But you have to engage. You have to listen. You have to really, really want to hear what people are saying.

So my topic for the event in June is: How do you get people (involved in policing etc), who don't get social media, to get it?

(Bit of a rambling rant, Emma, but I hope it will do!)

UPDATE 0902 | 200214: just spotted this story via @SteveBachelder's scoopit: Meet the teenage crime commissioners working with West Midlands Police - note that they were elected too.

Police for hire?

A couple of weeks ago, Police Professional published an excellent article (by Parkinson & Johnson) beginning with this paragraph:

Last week, following the publication of a Court of Appeal judgment, it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) had agreed to assist Virgin Media in a private fraud investigation. In exchange, Virgin Media had agreed to give a cash donation to the police amounting to 25 per cent of any compensation recovered in the private prosecution that followed. During the investigation officers involved had used restricted powers, including their powers of search and arrest.

Let those words sink in for a while....

So, a fraud was (strongly?) suspected. The investigation required police powers to uncover all the evidence. It was not of great public concern but mattered a great deal to the company in question. The police were paid a portion of the 'bounty' (re)gained.

The article asks and prompts some important questions, which I summarise as:

• Could this be the beginning of wealthy benefactors skewing police resource deployment in their favour?
• Could the police service (especially a strapped for cash one) end up chasing after the cases where there are financial rewards and leave others behind (which might be causing more harm)?
• Since corporate fraud is unlikely to attract much public attention, do the companies suffering it have to do so in silence, hire private investigators (with no legal powers) or will we see more cases like this in the future?
• How will all this play out in the public domain: will such sponsored action on fraud attract more or less public trust and confidence?

So what now? Are such investigations destined to become yet another income stream for the police (like adverts on the sides of police cars?) or do we have a moment to pause and think what are the choices, options and decisions...

• Should the police ever take money for what may be termed standard policing work?
• Should the police make a point of targeting even more criminals whose ill-gotten gains can be sequestered for the public purse?
• Should private investigators be given extra powers so that companies can hire commercial entities to do these kinds of fraud investigations? 
• Should large corporations be required to take out insurance policies against fraud which would provide cash for the police investigating such crime?
• Has anyone spoken with the wider public as to what they think?
• If the police do more of the same, how will they ensure that other parts of policing are not losing resources?
• Should the police always make a surplus in such instances and then plough that 'profit' back into less well funded community policing (say)?
• If companies can 'hire' the police, could a rich landowner do likewise to recover an expensive combine harvester that has been stolen (and pay for the privilege)?
• Is there a argument for making in house investigators special police officers on a temporary basis so that police powers can be legally deployed?
• Should more be done to persuade the public that fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion are not victimless crimes?
• What strategic investment should the police now be making into becoming more commercial as it were... a lot, little or none?

What if #Robocop had a Twitter account?

SPOILER Alert: do not read this if you have not yet seen Robocop (2014) (and plan to...)

It has been a very long time since I saw the original Robocop, so I came to the 2014 version reasonably fresh. That said, as is often the case these days, you see almost the whole movie cut down for the trailers. So I was 'freshish' and waiting to be entertained / entranced / possibly frightened of the future. And I was: all three. This is a very tightly directed film with the kind of seamless special effects that filmmakers couldn't even dream of in the 1980s.

The story plays out a standard trajectory of how large corporations will stop at nothing, even murder, to add more money to the bottom line. (Do you remember Rollerball? This was where this narrative first came to my attention.) And do the good (& ethical) guys win in this year's Robocop? What do you think...! The acting is nothing to write home about: I felt both Keaton & Oldman were a tad too restrained, but then maybe my Beetle Juice / Fifth Element overdrive was kicking in. This is a slick & subtle SciFi movie with more ethical dilemmas than many. A film worth seeing.

Of course, Robocop faces the ultimate challenge as his wife is threatened: can he override his programming to protect the woman he loves or not? (I won't spoil it for you, but I think you probably know the answer...) And it is this point I will use as springboard for reflecting on leadership: what is the role of love in leadership?

And so now I am going to spoil it for you: Robocop shows that love is the ultimate & irresistible motivation for him. Likewise, all good leaders need to know what is their ultimate motivation. Understanding what a leader truly loves is the first step to understanding her/his leadership.

It is also the first step in understanding our own.... in the context of your leadership, who/what do you truly love?
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This is the thirteenth  of my new series of blogs about leadership ideas to be found in the movies of our time. You can read here as why I am doing this. Please subscribe to this blog if you want to read more. Thanks. Click here to see all the other similar postings.

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I have just copied this over from my other blog: jonharveyassociates.blogspot.co.uk as it seemed relevant here too. In the context of the events surrounding @MentalHealthCop (see blog below) I thought it apposite to ask the title question. One of my answers would be:

What would yours be?

Mental Health Cop

This is a very short blog to express my extreme disappointment at the suspension of the twitter account run by @MentalHealthCop. His twitter feed and associated blog (also inaccessible at present) have received international acclaim and he has been given awards by Mind and others. His contribution towards helping police officers and other public service professionals in how best to respond to people with mental health problems, especially in times of crisis is without compare. His blogs and tweets are what the internet was made for!

The suspension happened some time late yesterday as far as I know and resulted in a twitter storm of great concern and surprise.

I don't know why his twitter account has been suspended: the statement from his constabulary is now up on their West Midlands website here. The statement says:

Statement about suspension of ‘Mental Health Cop’ Twitter account
West Midlands Police has a force social media policy which details how channels, such as Twitter, should be used by officers in both an official and personal capacity. As a force, the Corporate Communications Department monitors all corporate use and should any inappropriate or operationally sensitive communication be identified, this will be taken up with the individual. In serious cases, the matter would be referred to the force’s Professional Standards Department. Recent monitoring has led to the suspension of an account operated by a response inspector whose focus was on mental health policing. Certain aspects of the officer’s communication is currently being investigated for alleged misuse of a force account and as such it would be inappropriate for the account to continue whilst further enquiries are made. Any breaches of force policy are taken extremely seriously and will be thoroughly and professionally investigated. ACC Garry Forsyth said: “Our policy is intended to enable officers and staff to communicate with our communities effectively to offer an insight into our work. “It does impose some restrictions but we are, of course, an organisation that holds sensitive information so we have to ensure that there is some restraint. I also can’t imagine any organisation that would want its employees to be openly critical of it - or indeed allow it. “The policy is not intended to discourage personal perspectives and I believe a human element assists with engagement."
West Midlands Police has been at the forefront of encouraging officers and staff to use social media to directly engage and communicate with the public for many years.
Twitter and blogs provide an opportunity for officers to communicate directly with the people we serve, giving them up-to-date information about policing in their area, and allowing the public to relate to the police. From neighbourhood PCSOs and PCs right through to Deputy Chief Constables, our social media accounts have featured everything from daily activity of local neighbourhood teams and arrests being made by response officers, to the work of contact centres, police dogs, the force helicopter, and the lighter side of a police officer’s day. Click here to view a copy of the force's Social and Digital Media Policy.

Saturday 15 February 2014

The officer concerned with making the decision has been on twitter this morning responding to the concerns being expressed by the growing number of police and police associated twitter accounts. You can read some of the exchanges here. I also recommend that you follow @GarryForsythWMP for updates on this matter.

I expect some sort of 'due process' must now ensue.

But I repeat: the blogs and tweets of @MentalHealthCop must continue. The resource that he has created is simply invaluable.

Adding depth to crime data in our funny old world

Last night, I travelled to Aylesbury for an evening "Have Your Say" meeting with the Thames Valley PCC, one Anthony Stansfeld. Also in attendance and on the panel was the Deputy PCC, David Carroll, the new Local Area Commander, Supt Gez Chiariello, his deputy CI Olly Wright, and the Community Safety Manager for AVDC, Kay Aitken.

There were 7 members of the public present. Although another person joined towards the end of the meeting.

The panel talked at us for over an hour. We sat patiently listening to them having their say.

We then got to ask a few questions which ranged from Aylesbury town centre safety and the role of the local Neighbourhood Action Group, whether there was endemic corruption in Thames Valley Police associated with tackling organised crime and how to get funding for programmes to divert young people from crime. I went prepared (as you might expect) with a number of questions.

I chose to highlight he fact that while Aylesbury Vale is a relatively low crime area, there are some significantly worrying trends in the wrong direction with certain types of crime. We then got into an interesting and useful debate, albeit briefly, about how raw data on crimes recorded could be coloured by adding in degree of harm to victims. For example, a "burglary dwelling" which resulted in the loss of an irreplaceable and treasured heirloom versus a "burglary non dwelling" loss of a drill from a farm shed both add '1' to the crime figures. The published data simply does not have the real depth and 'colour' about harm. (Which of course then begs the question about resource deployment across the Thames Valley...)

Before we went onto the next question, the PCC said "good question" and looked reflective.

After the meeting broke up, both the Deputy PCC came over to me to seek my thoughts on how they might get to hear from more young people. (Or even just younger people as I reckon the average age last night was well over 50). A short while later the PCC wandered over too. We talked and I suggested that even if a young person had turned up they would probably have left after ten minutes of being talked at (I nearly did). I also suggested that if they wanted to engage with younger people then they had to go to them, where they are: in schools, youth clubs, pubs even.

So there we were, the three of us, talking about community engagement and how to do it better.

It is a funny old world really...

This is what you get when you call citizens 'customers'...

News broke this morning that a local council is charging residents £7.50 (or 4 for £30) for sandbags to help protect their homes from flood damage (c/o Tom Pride's blog). No doubt this council is strapped for cash and I would expect has trained staff to think of the citizens and taxpayers that they serve as "customers". So it comes as no surprise really that they would see sandbags in this crisis as something of an income generation opportunity. After all, isn't that what you do with customers: you charge them for the services you provide and make a profit.

Simples.

Except, just imagine what would happen if all public services did this? You are burgled and the police officer arrives at your door with a hand held credit card reader to take payment before any investigation happens. Indeed, there is probably already a call out charge to pay. Or you are raped and you are later sent a bill for "DNA and other forensic services"... Am I joking? Yes, I hope so. But...

I have blogged before on why "customer" is such a stupid word to describe the complex relationships that public services have with their citizens / users / taxpayers / voters / partners / community representatives etc etc etc.

And here today in the middle of flooding and storm crises, we have a local council charging people for the help that they need, for the help that (I guess) they thought they had already paid their council tax for, because some smart person thought "we can recoup our costs here and maybe even make a bit on top". Such good customer service... 

Now I am all for income generation and other creative ways to generate resources for public services. But this has to be done in a principled way!

Safer Internet Day 2014

Just to acknowledge the existence of this day today. A good initiative.

I cannot claim to have done much today but I was in a primary school yesterday in my voluntary role for the NSPCC/ChildLine Schools Service, giving a short assembly to some 9/10/11 year olds about child abuse, including online abuse.

If you do not know much about the "ground-breaking ChildLine Schools Service", please check us out. The service is growing and growing and is always in need of new volunteers. And if you cannot give your time, you can make a regular donation to the NSPCC. And if that is not possible for you, please let other people know about the service. Spreading the word is vital!

And you can always teach someone the 'Underwear Rule':

Privates are private
Always remember your body belongs to you
No means no
Talk about secrets that upset you
Speak up, someone can help

A dash cam moment?

Last night at about 1800 I was driving home, turning off the A5 at the Old Stratford roundabout onto the A422. It is a roundabout I know well, with very clear lanes for which exit you intend to take. I was in the correct lane and just as I was about to exit the roundabout, a large white Mercedes 4x4 cut me up from the next lane, switching lanes and diving in front of me. I beeped my horn and flashed my lights to indicate to him that he had made a serious error (I had to brake quite hard to avoid hitting him). Here is a picture of the road in daylight (it was dark last night). I have tried to represent the position of the vehicles. Mine is the red one. (Thank you Google Streetview)

I was travelling at about 30mph I reckon. You might be wondering what the black cross is for. That is the position the man stopped his car to get out and shout at me, pointing at his indicator lights, as if him indicating as he switched lanes, gave him the right to cut me up...

I remained in my car, shouting "you cut me up - you were in the wrong lane!" though I am not sure he heard me... I should add that he had stopped very quickly, perhaps wanting me to hit his rear end. I did not and managed to brake (a second time) in safety.

If I had been a police officer, I expect I would have remembered his number plate accurately. All I can recall now is BU13 EHM, but I could well be wrong.

So this has got me wondering: should I buy a dash cam? What do you think? Are there any readers out there who have? What would you recommend? 

Babylon 999 and barefoot specials

SPOILER ALERT: do not read this until after you have watched the TV programme.

I watched the much heralded Babylon on Channel 4 last night. It was a gripping, somewhat realistic and dark comedy about the march of social media in the Met Police. I say comedy (which is how it was billed) but there were few 'laugh out loud' moments (if any). Indeed it was laced with deep but almost off hand tragedy. Its pacey and disaggregated story line was a mix of 'In the thick of it', 'Love Actually' and 'Black Mirror'.

As a pilot, it satisfied. (As a one off, it didn't.) Some important trails were laid down during this opening episode but few were anywhere close to being resolved. I would also like to think that the Met is a little more on top of social media that the programme portrayed. I am not close enough to real live gold command to know whether the lamentable use of technology & leadership in communicating with the armed response unit on the ground reflected reality or not. I sincerely hope not.

However, it made one very strong point: the prevalence of smart phones is a game changer for policing. I know we know this already, but this programme made it very real. And I don't mean the rather crass scene where the PC is about to thump the lead protester but desists due to being on camera. No. I mean the scene where the woman photographs the number plate of the sniper and sends that information in to police control.

This is modern day policing by consent, with an active and supportive citizenry: empowered, enabled and inclined to take action to support the maintenance of the Queen's Peace. In other words, we the public are here to help, and we have a good deal of technology at our disposal. The opportunity for the police service is to keep on growing trust, confidence and accessibility so that community safety can be co-created with a legion of 'barefoot smart phone specials'.

How well are the police doing in making the most of this opportunity?

Being in touch?

A while back I inquired of my OPCC (using FoI):

How many items/threads of correspondence (letters and emails) from members of the public has the PCC received in his first year of office?

I received this reply:

Approximately 200 e-mails/letters have been received within the office per month since his appointment.

So that makes about 2400 items of correspondence from the public. There are about 2.1 million people living in Thames Valley, so I equate this to about 1 million households (give or take). So that means approximately 0.24% of the households have got in touch. (I am assuming here that the 200 items are all from separate people and does not include follow up letters or emails.)

0.24%

It would be interesting to compare what % of the population get in touch with their councillor or MP. (Do you have those figures?)

This does seem very low. I would link this to the work that my colleague Bernard Rix is conducting at the moment into the levels and quality of public engagement that PCCs are practising. (Details here)

But what % of the population would you expect to want to be in touch with the PCC?

Pledge to buzz off

Do you remember when Paul Daniels said he would leave the country if Labour won the 1997 general election? (But where does he live now?)

I predict that between now and May 2015, there will be a succession of celebrities, bankers, property owners and company directors who will be rolled out in the pages of the Sun, Express and Mail saying that they too will leave the country if Labour are elected to power.

So I thought I would be helpful and create an easy to sign certificate for these would be ex-pats:

This is not copyright so, if you are like Paul Daniels, please feel free to download, copy off, sign and upload to your twitter account or blog.

Who is going to sign this first?

Transforming the Probation Service (or should that be 'terrorforming'..?)

Yesterday, I learnt some more about what the Government is doing to our probation service. It has been called 'transforming rehabilitation'. From my understanding, it feels more like terraforming or even terrorforming... the probation services.

As I tweeted a couple of days ago: in a world where a joined up justice system remains a pipe dream, to fragment it further into NPS & CRCs is dangerously incompetent

Evidently the government is speeding ahead with these reforms in the hope that all will be done, dusted and 'unpickable' in time for the next election (which I presume the government is expecting to lose?) This speed is unseemly and high risk. The chance of significant cracks opening up in a service that is already straining to make rehabilitation work is, in my view, highly likely.

But allow me to take a longer term view and imagine that the new arrangements remain for some years to come. These are my predictions of what will happen:

• There will be slow but inexorable exodus of experienced probation officers from both the Community Rehabilitation Companies and the National Probation Service. These will be replaced by more junior staff with fewer qualifications. 
• Rehabilitation rates (as measured by re-convictions for example) will not improve in most areas and, in a few will, worsen. The government of the day will ensure there are one or two flagships who do manage to make improvements (but the level of central support to achieve this will be glossed over).
• Criminal justice agency partners (the other parts of the National Offender Management Service, the police, local authorities, housing agencies etc) will become very frustrated that where there was one organisation to liaise with there will now be two or even three if you include the contract management structure from regional NOMS. 
• The CRCs will develop robust (but covert) strategies to get more of their clients reassessed as high risk so that they can shift responsibility over to the NPS. They will do this saying publicly that it is all about ensuring community safety. Privately they will be glad that this will improve their rehab rates (and therefore Payments by Results) and reduce their workload.
• In contrast the NPS will do all that it can to assess 'objectively' an offender as low to medium risk and make the CRC pick them up as a client. However, this will increase the chances that offenders will be 'breached' and sent back to jail. More offenders will return to jail as a consequence.
• Some offenders will fall between stools.
• Staff at an operational level will become even better at 'gaming' the targets & objectives to ensure their backs are covered. 
• Payment by Results will be replaced as the owners of the CRCs will quickly realise they are not getting any return on their investments. 
• Overtime, the CRCs will be bought out such that there will only be between two and three owners. These organisations might be hedge funds or some of the existing private sector players in the justice 'market place'. Some of the architects of this new model who currently work in the Ministry of Justice will find their way onto the boards of these companies.
• The National Probation Service will creak and be broken down again into smaller local units. These too will then be outsourced and sold off. The remaining vestiges of NOMS will struggle to contract manage the new CRCs and the new local NPS mark two units

I know this is a bleak picture but probably the risk register for this programme of change reads far worse. I will continue to admire the grit, compassion and determination of all the staff involved in this grand exercise of deck chair moving. I am sure they will make it work as best they can. And I hope their physical and mental health remain intact.

The challenge will come in May 2015 if a Labour (led?) government is elected as to what they will do with the mess of governance left behind by the current administration. If I were in charge, I would invest in top notch, commercially wise and wily contract managers in NOMS to squeeze every ounce of outcomes out of the CRCs and be very bullish about any clients being reassessed as higher risk. And I would do this as a deliberate strategy to make either the owners default their contract or give up the ghost. On this basis,  progressively, I would bring the CRCs back under public control. 

What would you do?

Come on Vodafone (and Three, EE and Virgin etc)

Yesterday I took part in a Guardian Public Leaders discussion on digital policing. The discussion was wide ranging and the panel included two people (yes that is TWO people) from Vodafone. You can see the panel list and discussion here.

As we were talking about online crime as part of the discussion, I posted this question three times (in slightly different versions):

Please can you justify how you (Vodafone and other phone providers) charge people who have had their mobile phones stolen and then used to engage in fraudulent activity. You have had the technology for years to add a bar/threshold on mobile phone use - why have you not applied that to contract phone users?

Did I get an answer...? What do you think!

For me it is about time that those who (almost certainly accidentally, I would imagine and hope) collude with internet based crime are held to account. And I include credit card companies, banks, ISPs, mobile phone companies (and the like) who, at times, have profited from the fraud and abuse going on in the virtual world.

So what about it everyone? Time to pull the plug on fraudsters and abusers, whose crimes you are helping to facilitate? I know that you have done lots to make such crimes more difficult - but there is still more to do!

I don't doubt it is complicated to do all this and I expect the criminals are moving fast too. But you could just respond to my question above...?

Digital policing: what next?

The Guardian are hosting one of their regular Friday lunchtime webchats on this subject tomorrow. There are some excellent panelists lined up to seed the debate and I am honoured to be taking part. The prompt questions include:

• Are the digital skills of police forces up to scratch and, if not, why not and what are the implications?
• What technologies are available that will enhance policing?
• What examples are there of excellent digital policing?
• What skills and resources do police need improve their use of digital?
• How can we share good digital practice across police forces?

...and I thought digital policing was all about catching light fingered thieves.... (I'll get my coat)

Last May (where did those months go!) I facilitated an event on digital local services as part of my work with ITW. It was an informative and inspirational day which sought to examine the hurdles ahead for local councils and other services wishing to 'go digital'. It was also a joy for me that day to work with my daughter, Jess Harvey, who produced this visual summary of many of the key points that were raised:

There is a full 7Mb version of this pic here if you wish to download it.

I look forward to the debate tomorrow lunchtime. 

270114 | 1232 UPDATE: The Guardian have published their round up of some of the key comments made during the online discussion. You can access it here.

Crowd sourcing the shape of things to come (policing and crime governance)

OK. To cut to the quick: like many people concerned with the future of policing and community safety outcomes, I think the current PCC based governance structure needs to be replaced as soon as possible. The question is with what? I will go into my rationale (briefly) further on, but here is my proposed replacement, in a fairly small nutshell:

The 40+ force model in England & Wales needs replacing with one that is corralled into about ten Strategic Justice Boards. Community policing priorities would be determined by council Local Justice Boards (similar to the Stevens Commission) and led by local members. These would be the building blocks for local accountability and would be coterminous with Health & Well Being Boards (with whom they would have much in common.) The LJBs would also have some influence over the practice of other justice related bodies.

The Strategic Justice Boards would be elected every four years. These SJBs would consist of between 7 and 9 people which, by dint of using a proportional electoral system, would reflect both majority and minority political interests (including independents) in a fair way. The person who received the most votes would become the de facto ‘Strategic Justice Commissioner’, and the others her/his deputies. The SJBs would appoint the Chief Constable, Chief Prosecution Officer, Chief Offending Management Officer (and so forth). They would set precepts and budgets, commission other allied (third sector) services, drive forward collaboration, coordinate strategic / ‘non community policing’ etc.

SJB decision making would be scrutinised by a small but adequately funded body elected by a standing conference of all LJB members once every two years. This ‘Justice Panel’ would have the power to call in and challenge any decisions made by the SJB. Three or more LJBs would also have the power to call in decisions. SJBs and LJBs would be statutorily required to consult with the public and place improved victim outcomes, reducing the fear of crime and improved confidence in the justice system at the heart of all that they do. SJB and LJB members would have both geographic and specialist concerns to focus upon.

I would be the first to admit that this model is not complete and needs refining (hence the title of this blog). I am very happy to hear about what you foresee as problems with this model, how you would improve it or indeed why it cannot possibly work (etc.) Please get in touch!

And as for the reasons why (in no particular order):

• Systems of public governance that are overly dependent upon the calibre of single individuals are hazardous if not downright dangerous. Efficient decision making is good, but not better than effective decision making.
• 40+ systems of IT / HR / serious crime investigation (etc etc) need to give way to a smaller number which will open up the channels for more efficient working and greater evidence based practice.
• Individual citizens and communities want to know to whom to go to complain and influence local policing and justice services. PCCs are not nearly local enough.
• The justice agencies need to be joined up at the level of budget and governance: only this will properly drive collaboration and partnership working forward.
• Tribal politics has its part to play when elections happen but justice and policing services are too precious and important to us all to allow narrow tribalism to dominate. A pluralist, proportional board is more likely to make better decisions in the long term interests of all.
• Good scrutiny is essential and needs to be built in from the start (and not added as a limp afterthought as happened with the current police & crime panels).
• Local government leaders are most concerned with their locality and creating a board made up council leaders (as advocated by the Stevens Commission) is impractical, in my opinion and arguably unconstitutional (in that it would involve central government dictating to local government who should join a strategic policing board).
• The governance of policing cannot now be allowed to slip back into something like police authorities which though they had their advantages (not least in their diversity), were mostly invisible to the public. 
• By dint of local political demographics, in several areas, the PCC selection processes have become more important than the electoral ones. This has also resulted in a set of PCCs that does not reflect the diversity of society and has the potential to damage community relations between the police and the public.

But what do you think?

Should we make this system of governance happen?

And if this does not happen, what should happen?

I understand that the Conservative Party are considering expanding the role of the PCCs to encompass more (direct budgetary and commissioning) power (by a single individual) over other justice agencies. Do you want to see this happen?

(And for the constitutional geeks: yes you are correct. There would be insufficient time between the 2015 general election and the 2016 PCC election to put my arrangements into place. But there are ways around this…)

Finally I would like to record my thanks to the John Roberts, Roy Bailey, and Françoise Richardson of the Reading Criminal Justice Association for convening the conference last Saturday and to everyone who came along, especially our lightening speakers. It was a thoroughly useful and stimulating day. As facilitator, I was able to dip into various conversations although (as facilitator), I was slightly less engaged in those conversations than I would have liked to have been. The conversations on that day have helped me formulate the ideas above. Please watch this space for a report of the day that Roy is assembling. 

Follow the leader!

Many people in management positions think they can just claim to be a leader. This is not so. Equally people in leadership positions think that they can lay claim to being a manager. This is also not true.

Leadership is an honour that is earned and awarded as a consequence of people following your ideas & example and often being prepared to do so even when this is not easy or comfortable. So no one can claim to be a leader. Leadership is acclaimed.

And then there are leaders (who are not managers but may well be politicians or chairs of boards) who try to claim that improvements (never the opposite of course...) in results with which they have had little or no real influence over, are in fact down to them. But this is not so: good management is performed with due sweat and focus. Management is enacted with people (not wafted down from on high).

There are many managers who become leaders by dint of their vision and inspiration. And indeed there are some leaders who develop a focus and a role which means they edge into management (although I think that this can be hazardous).

But please do not conflate leadership and management: they are not one and the same.

And also be very suspicious of leaders who wish to claim responsibility for results in the good times but are suddenly unavailable when things are not so good.

Meanwhile, here is an extract from a recent meeting of the Home Affairs Select Committee:

Q220 Mr Clappison: In making the case for your posts, may I ask each of you what you regard to be your most significant achievement?

Anthony Stansfeld: I set three priorities, but it is always difficult in an area as diverse as Thames. One was to reduce household burglary, which I have done very effectively, I hope-when I say I have done it, I mean the police have done it. I set another one on vulnerable people. You are aware of what went on in Oxford and the serious problems we had with that. Some 25 extra police officers were moved into child sexual abuse and exploitation. We are putting together multi-agency hubs to sort that out through the three areas, which is frightfully important. It is no good the police and everybody else doing it in isolation; that doesn’t work. You have got to operate together in one office.

I made one that was slightly contentious, which was rural crime, but two thirds of my population live in rural areas or small towns, and we had a massive problem with serious organised crime and the stealing of heavy machinery and plant, allied with intimidation across a wide area. We have reduced that quite a lot, but I have got a long way to go on that. I think that my three priorities have not been entirely achieved, but we have made huge progress on all three.

And here is a link to the most recent performance data for Aylesbury Vale where I live. There are some ups and downs… I wonder why...

For the 999th time: targets do not work!

Somehow, this idea that setting targets improves performance and standards across the public sector and the commercial world has gripped politicians, chief execs and managers in a haze of long running hysteria that is only matched by a belief in witchcraft from the 17th century.

And I really cannot be bothered to go over again, the arguments for why targets do not work. (But if you really want to know, here are links to my other blog posts or just read anything by Simon Guilfoyle or John Seddon. And if want to go back a bit, why not read about W. Edwards Deming too.)

So I refuse to get all hot under my collar about the latest 'scandal' about the police fiddling crime data. Anyone who has been involved with the police service (as I have been for 25 years) knows that crime data is often (to use a technical term) 'finagled'! But then so are education performance league tables, and health stats, and the government's own research into PbR etc etc etc...! Why? Because people want to put on a good show, don't like getting beaten up or bullied (or 'performance managed' as it often called), think it doesn't really matter anyway, everyone's doing it, because it isn't really lying to guild the truth a little and so forth. And the fact that every senior manager and politician knows this but then seeks to ignore it or pretend that it can be smoothed out with ethical audits of data collection is living in la la land.

OK. Maybe I am being a bit polemical here. But seriously, when parliamentary select committees start putting on severe expressions and wanting to expose this scandal in policing, and the Daily Mail publishes articles entitled "How we can't trust the crime figures: After Plebgate, now watchdog says police statistics are unreliable", I think I am allowed a bit of hyperbole myself!

So what to do? I have been trying to do my bit by a) exposing the mythology of targets and b) asking the good people at ONS if they could make the Crime Survey of England and Wales have a bit more geographical granularity. Please see my blog post here as a starting point. And then I have been involved in a conversation with them:

191113 Email to crimestatistics@ons.gsi.gov.uk: Would it be feasible to have this survey broken down into police areas? I look forward to your reply. Many thanks

251113 Reply: Theoretically, police force area data are available from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, although due to reductions in sample sizes, we do not feel estimates at this geography level are sufficiently robust and we would advise against using them. 

271113 My response back to them: Many thanks for your helpful response. As psychology graduate, I appreciate the issue of sample size and significance etc. Are you able to estimate how much extra resource would be required to increase the samples to a size whereby individual forces & PCCs could more reliably use the data to compare trends over time and across the country? If so, I would be keen to know what that resource would be. Thank you.

161213 Their reply: My apologies for the slow reply. The difficulty with considering the sample size is that it varies for different crime type estimates. In order to get an overall count of crime at force level, the sample size may not need to be a great deal larger than it is currently. However, in order to measure specific types of crime by force, the sample would need to be extremely large. We're investigating whether we can feasibly calculate some figures for you, but I hope this information is still useful. 

161213 My most recent email to them: Many thanks for your email and insights contained therein. Most useful. I am trying to establish the principle of whether NCS E&W data could be collected in such a way that local communities would be able to know about trends in crime in their areas that are not dependent on reporting crimes to the police (which we know to be an underestimate and unreliable for other reasons). This would allow people to judge how safe their area and critically appraise the performance of their Police & Crime Commissioner. Whilst the link between what PCCs do and local crime figures (as measured by your surveys) is at best tenuous, it is the key measure that the government used (in part) to justify the value of PCCs. Please continue to investigate the feasibility of whether such figures can be calculated. Thank you.

And that is where the trail ends for the time being. But I am hopeful that this could lead to something. But I am just me. What could be achieved if it were the Public Accounts Select Committee or Home Affairs Select Committee that were asking these questions of ONS? Has the Home Secretary ever asked such questions?

I wonder...


UPDATE 0912|160114: As if my magic, up pops my own PCC with this headlined story in Police Oracle. Force targets 'will improve performance' says PCC. Ah well...

Aylesbury Vale CCG Conflict of Interest (part 4)

Last night I received this reply to my last email from Lou Patten, Chief Office of Aylesbury Vale CCG. (Part three blog below: with my letter to her and links to parts one and two)

Dear Jon

Re: Aylesbury Vale CCG Conflict of Interest

Thank you for our email dated Wednesday 8th January regarding your ongoing queries about our conflict of interest policy and behaviours.

In terms of the Companies House records for Vale Health, I have relayed your comments back to the Company Secretary so that he can contact you directly once the process of updating the annual return has been undertaken.

With reference to your concern about Vale Health Ltd, I write to confirm that Aylesbury Vale CCG is the lead contractor for the Out of Hours service and Minor Injuries & Illness Unit (MIIU) that is contracted through Bucks Urgent Care, of which Vale Health is a partner within a Joint Venture arrangement. It is important to note that the existing contract with Bucks Urgent Care was awarded by the Buckinghamshire Primary Care Trust (not the CCG, as it was before our time) and passed to us as a legacy contract.

In terms of wider commissioning processes, it is our intention to be as open and transparent throughout the whole commissioning cycle, as this gets the best results for our patients. We actively seek to engage our stakeholders in helping us describe what the ‘gold standard’ service looks like. This engagement will include not only our public and patients but also potential providers of those services, as this offers the greatest opportunity for developing innovative and high quality services.

As you state, strategic commissioning is a complicated process to determine the health needs, wants and preferences of our community. Within this large and multi modal process we aim to offer our public, patients and all stakeholders – including potential providers of services – the opportunity to influence not only the shape of our strategy but also how individual services should be commissioned.

For example, we need to take into account the views of local hospital Consultants and GPs when we describe services for patients, as they have significant intelligence about the clinical quality and safety of the services being shaped for procurement. Such discussions therefore include clinicians from several of our local hospital providers, who are arguably part of your ‘systemic’ network of interests, as their hospital could be intending to bid for the service.

Where commissioning and procurement decisions have to be made, our Conflict of Interest policy gives us clear guidance on how to handle actual or perceived conflicts. If our Executive team were conflicted to the point that there were not enough non-conflicted members to be quorate then the decision would be passed to the Governing Body.

We remain of the view that we cannot remove ourselves from the many perceived or actual network of interests across our health and social care commissioners and providers. However, we do not see this as a systemic problem, rather as an opportunity to embrace our stakeholders’ engagement in order to maximise innovation and high quality commissioning in the knowledge that we have a very clear process for handling commissioning decisions in the event of a perceived or actual conflict of interest.

Yours sincerely
Lou Patten
Chief Officer
Aylesbury Vale CCG

__________

Here is my reply to her:

Dear Lou

Thank you for your reply to my last email. Many thanks for ensuring that the Vale Health Secretary will alert me when the process of updating the annual return has been undertaken. Thank you also for the information about Vale Health and the legacy contract that the CCG inherited.

Of course, like you, I see the value in engaging with the widest possible set of people in developing your commissioning plans. However, I fail to understand how this justifies many members of your Executive Team having a personal financial interest in the outcomes of that commissioning process. It seems to me that the current arrangements mean that:

• Other commercial / non-commercial providers are not party to, in the same way, the deliberations of the CCG. In other words, by having such a predominant interest in one commercial provider, the CCG is supporting a non-level playing field for all potential bidders / providers. Is this fair?
• Aside from being transparent about what interests different parties hold (and I note that you have not addressed my concern about the absence of any accessible information on your website) and arrangements to ‘step outside the room’ when a critical decision is being taken, you seem relaxed about all other ways in which the interests of the Executive Team might influence the spending of public money. If this is never an issue, why do members of government have to place their investments in blind trusts? 

Moreover, you do not seem to countenance the possibility that the fact that members of the Executive team have financial interests in a provider (not just Vale Health, but others too for all that I currently know) might possibly have a bearing one day on the provision of publicly funded health services to the extent that commissioning becomes structured more around financial gain than health gain.

Indeed you seem to embrace the advantages of having a majority of your Executive team being shareholders in a local commercial (for-profit) provider “as an opportunity to embrace our stakeholders’ engagement in order to maximise innovation and high quality commissioning”. I am really not sure that the general public would see it in this way. Have you consulted them on this aspect of the CCG? I, for one, see this as a very slippery slope which holds the potential of the NHS being run for financial rather than health interests. It is very simple to solve the potential problem now.

Finally, please will you address the point that I have raised twice about the absence of any performance links working on your website. I am sure you wish the public to support your approach to commissioning as one that is yielding positive health outcomes for the people of Aylesbury Vale. At the moment, the public have little idea as to what is being achieved with our money as your website is providing no easy access to performance data.

Thank you, as before, for your attention to these matters.

Sincerely yours

Jon

Dancing on the glass ceiling

Ten years ago, I was beginning to plan a series of Open Space events with the Metropolitan Police. I led the team from the Office for Public Management to work with Denise Milani, Carole Howlett, Catherine Crawford, Des Stout, Martin Wilson and (now Sir) Bernard Hogan-Howe (among others) on the design and process of the events.

The 4 workshops were held on four corners of London and involved over 800 women. There were one hundred and fifty seven separate discussion groups held over the four events.

You can read all about the events here in this archived entry from the Metropolitan Police Authority. You will see that a number of key points are summarised under various headings including:

To address the macho culture, which consists of a range of norms and behaviours from working long hours to tacit acceptance of sexual harassment and assault, sexist language and behaviour and the use of gender specific language.

So that was ten years ago. The question I have now for women and men from the Met is: have things improved for women working in the Met Police since then? (I really hope so.)

...

Personal note: It is an odd and poignant coincidence that I happened to be thinking of this piece of work today. I dug out the information because I am looking into bidding to do some similar work for another client. The link to that tender arrived to my inbox this afternoon. My colleague and good friend Kate Dixon was part of the OPM project team. Indeed Kate, as "event historian", led on producing the report of the events.

It is with the saddest of ironies (the events were also about the service provided by the Met to London women) that Kate was a victim of domestic violence last year. She was killed by a former boyfriend who appeared in court today to plead guilty to manslaughter. (Time will tell as to whether he is finally convicted of that or murder.)

Kate was simply the most amazing person and touched the lives of many people. Her funeral was attended by the leader of the council, the chief executive, the night security staff and everyone in between. Islington Council (where she was working) have planted a tree in memory of her. She is very sadly missed by her family, partner, friends and colleagues. RIP Kate.

Ultrabole & police conduct

It seems as if yesterday's court case ( Plebgate row: PC Keith Wallis admits misconduct over lies about Andrew Mitchell) has stirred up another whole new level of frothing tweets and debates concerning trust in the police. It seems to me that hyperbole is no longer an adequate word to describe the 'conclusions', claptrap and political point scoring this whole incident (which lasted but a few minutes) has generated. Hence the title of this blog.

In amongst the hoohah there are some wise words being spoken by the likes of Irene Curtis. You can see her interview on Channel 4 last night here. As I think I have said before: this story looks set to run and run, at least for a while yet until the court case between Mr Mitchell and the Police Office concerned happens (I understand they are both suing each other and the two actions will be heard at the same time).

And of course, the news yesterday followed on from the discussions concerning the Mark Duggan inquest verdict where more questions were raised about police trust.

The conduct of police officers remains in the spotlight which is one of the reasons why I embarked upon my research into the development of ethical practice in the police service. (You can see my blogs about this here and, a few days ago, here)

So far I have had 26 replies which have been inside or within a day or two of the Freedom of Information deadline. I wrote to 46 police services. So only just over half have replied on time. And a couple of those who have replied have said that since they cannot answer one of the questions, they need me to resubmit the other 7, which will take another 20 working days. This seems like a rather cunning wheeze to me (what do you think?) that, arguably, sits outside a fair interpretation of the law.

So I will be chasing the remaining 20 police forces next week although I wish I did not have to...

The results so far are interesting in that they highlight, I think, the need for an even greater focus on ethical practice in the police service. But I will be writing more soon.