Scottish Government

04 HMIC IN 2007-2008

Over the past decade the face of the Scottish police service has changed dramatically. It is to the Service's credit, that it nevertheless remains public-facing and committed to the principles of local policing. As HMIC we believe that we have shown ourselves both capable and willing to adapt to this changing environment, and we are proud of our reputation as one of the key drivers of the change agenda for the Scottish police service. This chapter considers how we intend to assist and support the Scottish forces and its key support agencies in the forthcoming year.

INTRODUCTION

Following the appointment of Mr Paddy Tomkins as HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary on 29 March 2007, we began a review of our inspection arrangements. This built on what had already been begun by our previous Chief Inspector, Mr Andrew Brown. Our purpose in doing so was to assess whether our methodology was still capable of meeting our stakeholders' needs. The exercise was also influenced by the review of scrutiny of public services in Scotland, led by Professor Lorne Crerar, underway at the time. The findings are likely to have a marked impact on the way that all inspection agencies operate in the future.

ENHANCING SELF ASSESSMENT

Over the years the complexity of inspection processes, not just for the police service but also within other Scottish public bodies, has grown. With this has come some criticism that our inspection methodology imposes unnecessarily heavy workloads on the service. It has also been argued that rather than HMIC reviewing activity every 18 months or so, forces and agencies should carry out their own, continuous self-assessment. Under this proposal, our role would be to measure the outcomes of such processes against an agreed compliance inspection regime. Such a change would help to streamline our work, creating the capacity for us to aid improvement across all forces and services at the same time, and react more quickly to emerging risks, challenges and opportunities. A self-assessment approach could also reduce the bureaucratic burden on forces and help police boards and authorities to meet their legal obligations to secure Best Value.

In considering options for a model that could be implemented in all forces in Scotland and the SPSA, we examined a number of systems currently in use and/or being developed. We also looked at what forces and services themselves already had in place. We found that while some were already using European Foundation for Quality Management ( EFQM) self-assessment models, others had incorporated very little in the way of structured self-assessment into their business planning cycles.

After careful consideration we have opted to introduce a self-assessment model based on that promoted by the European Foundation for Quality Management, adapted for the police service and accredited by Quality Scotland. This is likely to be an interim measure, as we hope eventually to move to the Public Service Improvement Framework ( PSIF) model, once the service has become more familiar with self-assessment and the PSIF model has matured. The PSIF incorporates self-assessment techniques aligned with EFQM and other frameworks such as the Investors in People Standard and Charter Mark. A common overarching framework that integrates other, currently separate assessment structures, can potentially further reduce duplication of effort and promote greater efficiency.

POLICING STANDARDS, PRIORITIES AND PERFORMANCE

For a national self-assessment process to be credible and therefore effective, it is necessary to identify the national and local standards and priorities against which performance should be measured. To this end, we have just completed an initial review of existing standards, covering the range of core public-facing policing activities from initial public access to the service to compiling crime reports for the procurator fiscal. Documentation from ACPOS, the Scottish Government, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service and other national bodies, as well as that relating to local service priorities at force level, were considered. We also took account of the Scottish Control Strategy, the Scottish Policing Performance Framework and the performance indicators published by Audit Scotland. As a result, we have now assembled a considerable number of manuals, guidance documents, memoranda of understanding and policies containing defined standards or from which standards might be inferred.

A major issue up until now has been a lack of co-ordination and cross-referencing of existing standards. As part of this exercise we have therefore endeavoured to link each standard to the relevant core area(s) of policing and/or underpinning process(es) ( e.g. diversity, professional ethics and so on). The result is a 'standards index' that gives a more coherent picture of what core areas of policing are already covered by standards and where there are gaps or overlaps.

Updating and maintaining the index will be a continuous process, as work will be necessary to fill identified gaps and incorporate new developments. We hope that ACPOS, as both the main architects of the standards and the leaders of the service, will take responsibility for this given the inevitable attendant benefits of having a current and accurate index. As well as providing a one-stop source of reference guidance, the index means that forces and their stakeholders, especially police boards/authorities and Scottish Ministers, will be better able to assess performance and delivery against accessible and consistent standards.

ENHANCED THEMATIC INSPECTION

Over the past ten years, we have published 22 thematic inspection reports, three of which were joint inspections with other scrutiny bodies. Feedback from stakeholders suggests that these thematic inspections are of particular value and provide significant momentum for change within specific areas of the service. We believe that a greater concentration on thematic inspections would allow us to be more flexible in adapting to changing need, and to benchmark practice across all forces and services rather than focusing on each force separately and at different times to a set timetable.

Our intention is therefore to increase the number of thematic inspections that we carry out. In order to do so we will now generally be conducting shorter, more focused pieces of work. Between May and July 2007 we consulted extensively with stakeholders on proposed topics for inspection and carried out a systematic assessment using the following agreed criteria: risk, relevance, room for improvement, lack of existing information/knowledge, and impact. This resulted in a list of inspection topics, some of which have to be finalised after further consultation with stakeholders, which we have called our thematic inspection prospectus and have presented in the table below. The programme is an ambitious one which will see us increase from an average in the last few years of one-and-a-half to two thematic inspections per year to around ten per year. (Please note that the first four thematic inspections, plus two further joint thematic inspections, were selected or agreed by us prior to full consultation with stakeholders.)

TABLE D - HMIC THEMATIC PROSPECTUS