Police Service Strength - Home Affairs Committee Contents


Joint memorandum submitted by Warwickshire Police Authority and Warwickshire Police

  I have attached a joint response from Warwickshire Police Authority and Warwickshire Police prepared following liaison with the Chief Constable on the information you requested, and comprised of an overview and answers to your specific questions.

The request is timely and important to the future of policing at the level and high standard it currently enjoys, in order to provide an effective, efficient and responsive service to local communities.

  From our response, I hope you will be able to appreciate the considerable work that has already been undertaken over recent years in Warwickshire in the areas you are interested in exploring. As a governing and scrutiny body on behalf of the public, we take our role seriously and have developed a very effective model of embedded governance which eradicates duplication of effort and time, but enables Members to engage strategically and appropriately in a range of structures and processes with the Force in relation to financial planning, workforce planning and sustainability.

OVERVIEW

  The Force will focus on delivering the maximum protection from harm from the resources available and seek every opportunity to improve the level of protection even in times when resources are reducing. We will aim to do this through different and more efficient ways of working and doing business.

The force completed a comprehensive strategic review in 2007 under the banner, 150Forward. This established the current force approach in terms of focussing all resources across the force on the fundamental objective of protecting people from harm. The 150Forward review programme also substantially re structured the force removing Basic Command Units and developing a directorate based command structure for the force, delivering considerable improvements to overall force performance and required financial efficiencies. Integral to the development of the force was a workforce development approach recognising that posts can be filled in many cases by not just officers but support staff at a lesser cost.

  On the back of 150Forward the force has developed a Medium Term Financial Plan which, based on assumed levels of future funding in respect of CSR, Council tax and Grant developed before the full extent of the economic climate became known, identified an overall funding gap of some £6.4 million per year. In response to this a sustainability strategy has been developed aimed at delivering £4.5 million of the cashable savings required over a three year period (£1.5 million in each of the years 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12). It should be emphasised that the £6.4 million gap is based on the current assumptions around the funding availability and budget requirements and is reviewed regularly in light of the updated financial position.

  The Police Authority have agreed the Sustainability Strategy, built around the needs of the Force to protect people from harm and enable the delivery of the overall direction resulting from 150Forward, but substantially aimed at delivering the further reductions in cost base identified as being necessary in the Medium Term Financial Plan. The Sustainability Strategy is kept under constant review against the emerging financial position, through the governance structures set out below, and will be adapted to meet any changing needs.

  The sustainability strategy has two key elements:

    (i) embedding behavioral and cultural change through leadership, targets, performance objectives as well as marketing and communication; and

    (ii) delivering the actions that enable us to work smarter and drive out waste, including investing in Challenge & Innovation on an invest-to-save basis to help "kick-start" the savings process, driving through "quick wins", the service review programme, reviewing the capital/corporate programme, exploring opportunities for outsourcing and collaboration, etc.

  The current focus of the sustainability strategy is the identification and reduction of waste and the delivery of on-going workforce development, which will each deliver a proportion of the cashable savings required. However, it is also recognised that other significant initiatives in terms of review of organisational structure and service delivery approaches incorporating fundamental service review will also be required to deliver all of the cashable savings required. A range of such service reviews is currently underway and will start to deliver cashable savings over coming months.

  Potential benefits that may be accrued through wider collaboration initiatives and working more extensively with partnerships are currently not factored into our planning assumptions. However, the Force is continuing to explore this route as a way of delivering greater protection and as contribution to the need to identify significant cashable savings.

  The Governance of the drive to sustainability through the Sustainability Strategy is delivered by the below structures and processes:

    (i) The Force Executive Board (FEB), which includes Police Authority embedded governance, has agreed the Strategy and sets the service review programme.

    (ii) The Business Improvement Board (BIB), which likewise has Police Authority embedded governance, tracks progress against the savings target, receives the findings of service reviews and agrees recommendations.

    (iii) The Efficiency and Productivity Management Group (EPMG) is responsible for driving forward service review recommendations and achievement of the savings target.

    (iv) The Police Authority Resource Assurance Group (RAG) further scrutinises and has oversight of the progress against the savings target and the force efficiency & productivity target.

    (v) The RAG will adapt the existing strategy against emerging financial information, providing the strategic direction for the Authority and force as we move forward. The experience the force gained through the 150Forward review programme is valuable in this context.

  On a final note, it should also be appreciated that the force has also had its maximum budget determined for 2009-10 and 2010-11 as part of the capping legislation.

ANSWERS TO SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

Number of Police officers and staff currently employed by the force

  As at 3 November 2009 Police Officer and Police Staff establishment is as follows:
Police Officer987.27
Police Staff897.32


How this figure has changed over the past five years (including details of business areas where reductions or increases have occurred if possible)

The table below shows how numbers have changed over the past five years:


2004-05 2005-062006-07 2007-082008-09 03/11/2009
Police Officers1,011.67 1,039.891,060.71,035.56 993.52987.27
Police Staff650.05677.8 753.95762.05831.78 897.32



  Over the past two years, police officer numbers have decreased and police staff numbers increased. This is due to the workforce development (wfd) programme which commenced in 2007 following a full review of the workforce mix and skills required for an acceptable, affordable and sustainable police service. This resulted in the identification of a number of police officer posts, which no longer required police powers and thus could be carried out by police staff.

  Comparing the workforce composition since 2004-05 to date, the biggest changes are highlighted below:

Police Staff

    — Increase in the number of PCSOs. — Increase in the number in the CID, Complaints, Intelligence, Traffic, Training, HOLMES, Criminal Justice (Judicial Services), Child/Sex/ Domestic (PVP).

    — Reductions in the number in Finance, HR, Property Services.

Police Officers

    — Increased numbers in Child/Sex/Domestic (PVP), Control Room, (PHD, Force Duty Inspectors etc), Criminal Justice (Judicial Services—Prisoner Processing Team). — Decrease in CID, Complaints, Firearms—Tactical (Firearms now part of Taskforce and classified as Response), Training, Intelligence.

Any comments on the relationship between these trends, the most recent CSR funding settlement, efficiency savings targets, the force's overall financial position and any other factors

  Warwickshire Police's Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) provides the detail of the current drive of the Sustainability Strategy.

Attached are documents that have been prepared between August and October 2009 for the Police Authority Treasurers Society (PATS). These provide the detail of the current view about the overall force financial position. The most significant paper is the Police Resourcing Paper B which sets out details of our impact assessment and planned approach for narrowing the funding gap identified within our Medium Term Financial Plan.

An indication of likely changes to the workforce during the remainder of 2009-10 and in 2010-11

  Warwickshire Police holds a monthly Workforce Management Group which tracks our police officer numbers within our budgetary and operational parameters against our actual establishment and strength.

This is carried out by the use of a predictive modeling report, taking into account retirements, average monthly leavers and also the workforce development of police officer posts. This prediction thus enables the Force to plan in transferee and student officer intakes. It is therefore predicted that our police officer numbers will change as follows:
31/03/10Establishment 958.83
Actual strength977.45


  

  The above figures have included the intention within our Sustainability Strategy that 15 police officer posts be subject to workforce development before 31 March 2010, this will thus result in our police staff establishment increasing accordingly.
31/03/11Establishment 929.83
Actual strength940.45


  Within 2010-11 our Sustainability Strategy includes the intention that a further 33 police officer posts will be subject of workforce development thus resulting in an increase to our police staff establishment.

  The numbers of Transferee and Student Officer intakes will be reviewed regularly to ensure police officer numbers and operational requirements are managed accordingly.

  Clearly, these changes are required and included in our current Sustainability Strategy, which is driven from our MTFP. As set out below if the assumptions within our MTFP need to be adjusted to reflect lower levels of available funding then we will need to revisit planning assumptions regarding number of staff across the force, including the balance between police officers and police staff numbers.

Given the apparent inevitability of public spending cuts, which will undoubtedly impact on the police service, what plans the force is putting in place to deal with reduced funding

  This point has largely been addressed within the overview provided earlier in this response. The following points should also be noted.

It should be noted that the force is already facing the requirement to identify £6.4 million of cashable savings in order to meet reduce its current funding gap.

  It is recognised, that the changing economic climate is likely to cause the assumptions made within the MTFP to be revised (current modeling assumes 2% increase year on year in government grant and 5% increase in council tax year on year). If these assumptions are required to be revised, resulting in a reduction in the funding envisaged through our MTFP, then given that our current financial position already requires the force to deliver cashable savings of the £6.4 million in order to achieve a balanced budget, such could only be achieved through more fundamental structural change or failing that a reduction in the range and/or level of services provided by the force.

  It is noted that each 1% in council tax equates to £330,000 and 1% of central government grant equates to £540,000.

November 2009





 
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Prepared 26 January 2010