Home Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Chartered Management Institute [LSP 17]

Executive Summary

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) fully supports the Government’s proposal to establish a College of Policing, the remit of which is to “enable the service to implement the standards it sets for training, development, skills and qualifications” and thereby to “raise the professional status of police officers and police staff”.

The College should operate as a centre of excellence, showcasing professional leadership and management development across the whole police service in England and Wales. It should be responsible for establishing best practice, designating (rather than setting) standards for leadership and management training, development and qualifications, and promoting professionally accredited learning.

CMI research shows that good leadership and management is the key to effective performance, to the engagement and motivation of officers and staff, and to gaining the public’s confidence. The development of these skills in the police service should start with first line supervisors and the learning process should continue throughout an individual’s career. The College of Policing has a major role to play in establishing this approach across all forces in England and Wales.

The College’s first task must be to create a competency framework, based on leadership and management best practice, and contextualised appropriately for the police sector. The College then needs to establish a qualifications framework, which reflects evidence-based, ethical standards aligned to business needs and representing value for money. Advice on publicly available funding for adult learning (eg apprenticeships, further and higher education and specific skills schemes) would also be useful for the College to supply.

The College of Policing needs to quickly establish its profile and reputation with its audience. It should focus on building a robust, value for money offering which cannot be obtained elsewhere, and membership should be quick and easy to access. In this way police forces will have a strong incentive to draw on its expertise, creating a “virtuous circle” of increasing the College’s brand and reputation, as well as strengthening leadership and management skills in the police service.

We believe that it is possible for one institution to balance numerous responsibilities and do not see a conflict of interest between the designation of appropriate standards (which are developed in partnership with appropriate Awarding Bodies such as CMI) and the delivery of training and testing. The key is to have effective governance, clear separation of functions, and transparency of activity.

The College should be responsible for police officers and civilian police employees alike—after all, police officers are civilians who have powers conferred on them by their warrant.

We look forward to working with existing stakeholders and the College of Policing to support the development of professional leadership and management skills in the police service. This will build on our existing partnerships with police forces around the country, as well as with key sector bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Police Superintendents Association (PSA), Skills for Justice and the Police Federation. It is important that the College has good links not only with the academic community, but also with professional and vocational stakeholders who can reflect the skills needs of police officers and staff on the ground.

CMI has a strong track record of working with police forces around England and Wales to help improve leadership and management skills. We are the only Chartered professional body in the UK dedicated to promoting the highest standards of management and leadership excellence. We represent 90,000 managers and leaders across all sectors, including 3,000 police officers and staff. We look forward to working with the police service to establish the College’s offering with regard to leadership and management development.

About CMI—our Track Record in the Police and Criminal Justice Sectors

CMI is responding to this call for evidence as the UK’s only chartered professional body for management and leadership. With 90,000 members across all sectors of the economy, and 3,000 in the police service, we represent managers from first line managers to the most senior levels of business and public sector organisations. We have 600 Approved Centres which deliver our qualifications, ranging from world-class universities, to technical colleges, employers and further education institutes.

We pride ourselves on taking best practice from a range of sectors and delivering professional leadership and management skills advice, products and services. We work with 54 police centres to deliver many leadership and management qualifications. We work closely with Skills for Justice to deliver leadership and management training and qualifications for the police, and have developed bespoke qualifications for the sector. We are the only awarding body to deliver the Multi Agency qualifications, which we developed in collaboration with Skills for Justice.

We are therefore well placed to respond to the questions posed by the Home Affairs Select Committee in its terms of reference for this inquiry. However, we have concentrated our response only on relevant questions raised by the terms of reference. For example, we are well-placed to respond to questions on setting and upholding standards and training, but we are not in a position to comment on police recruitment processes or the structure of the Metropolitan Police Force.

We have set out below our answers to the specific questions within our area of expertise. At the end of the document (see Annex A) we outline more information about our offering, including our qualifications and online learning resources, and some brief examples of work we have done with police forces around the country.

We would be happy to discuss our views more fully by giving oral evidence to the Committee’s Inquiry.

Specific Comments on the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference

We focus on the following questions as listed in the Inquiry’s terms of reference:

1.The College as a centre of excellence—encapsulating and disseminating best practice.

2.The value of good leadership and management and its effect on performance.

3.Creating a competency framework.

4.Creating a qualifications framework.

5.Lessons learned from other professional bodies.

6.The need to balance numerous responsibilities.

7.Breadth of responsibility.

1. The College of Policing—a centre of excellence for police leadership, education and training

1.1 We support and welcome the proposal to establish the College of Policing, which would be responsible for the key national standards, qualification frameworks, and leadership and training approaches for all 43 police forces in England and Wales. We understand the need for the sector to professionalise its skills so as to achieve consistency of standards across the country, and at different levels within the police. We also welcome the recognition that there has been an inconsistent approach to some aspects of leadership and management development, such as a lack of emphasis on frontline leadership, talent management, promotion systems and equality and diversity, and we look forward to helping the College establish itself as a centre of excellence in leadership and management.

2. The value of good leadership and management and its effect on performance

2.1 The link between good leadership and management and improved organisational performance is clear. CMI and Penna commissioned a research project in 2011 to investigate the return on investment of management and leadership development. Launched at an All Party Parliamentary Group meeting in February last year by the Rt Hon David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, the report1 surveyed 4,500 managers across all sectors of the UK economy. The results showed that organisational performance and management abilities are clearly correlated, with effective management development linked to a 23% variance in organisational performance, and a 32% variance in people performance. The research revealed that qualifications, in particular, hit a “sweet spot”, with managers rating business school and professional body qualifications as the most effective forms of development.

2.2 These results show that leadership and management skills are key to the police service successfully meeting their current challenges, and police forces are “brought up to date and up to scratch”, as described by the Committee Chair.

2.3 Following on from this piece of research, CMI then examined the value of management qualifications on UK managers and employers,2 and asked managers and leaders exactly why they valued professional management qualifications. Again, the results showed a strong link between professional management qualifications and improved performance, with 90% of respondents saying that their management qualification improved their performance at work. This helps to provide the evidence that investing in leadership and management qualifications at all levels of the police service, for police officers and civilian staff, will raise performance levels, increase employee engagement and ultimately, raise the public’s confidence in the professionalism of the police in England and Wales.

3. Creating a Competency Framework

3.1 It is important that in creating an appropriate competency framework for the police service, the College does not reinvent the wheel. The Sector Skills Council, Skills for Justice, will have the input from the police at all levels to advise on the competency framework, based on its existing Policing Professional Framework (https://www.skillsforjustice-ppf.com).

3.2 In addition, CMI has wide experience of developing competency frameworks based on the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Management and Leadership. The NOS covers six distinct competency areas and represent proven benchmarks of best practice:

Managing self and personal skills.

Providing direction.

Facilitating change.

Working with people.

Using resources.

Achieving results.

3.3 We also have experience of mapping competency frameworks in other sectors to the NOS. For example, we have carried out substantial work in the health sector, working with the former National Leadership Council (now replaced by the Leadership Academy) to map the NHS’s Leadership Framework to the NOS, and also to CMI’s qualifications. We would be happy to advise the College of Policing on the creation of a new competency framework for the police, and mapping it to the NOS for Management and Leadership.

4. Creating a Qualifications Framework

4.1 Again, CMI has extensive experience of advising sectors on appropriate leadership and management qualifications, using the Qualifications Credit Framework, which allows the learner to take vocational qualifications from basic team leading skills at Level 2 to strategic command skills at Level 8. The learner can determine the size and length of the qualification, from a bite-sized Award, through to Certificate and then a full Diploma.

4.2 Qualifications in leadership and management are essential at all levels of the police service, both for police officers and civilian staff, if the general public are to see the police as professionals, not just in terms of their technical competence (ie policing) but also in managing complex investigations, dealing with vulnerable people, managing teams and providing leadership in emergency situations.

4.3 Qualifications not only provide an individual with formal recognition of his or her skills while in service, but also allow the individual to gain valuable transferable skills, once they leave the police. Accredited learning also allows an individual to have their skills recognised by different employers and their peers.

5. Lessons Learned From Other Professional Bodies

5.1 As the only Chartered professional body for managers and leaders in the UK, we have many years of expertise in running a successful professional body which operates throughout the country at every level of management and leadership.

5.2 In our opinion, the College of Policing needs to quickly establish its profile and reputation with its audience. Its “brand” should be highly visible throughout the police sector, so that potential “customers” know what it offers and the value of that offering. Its membership application process should be easy accessible and quick to complete, and it should be transparent in terms of the different products and services it offers to different individuals, eg. civilian staff, front-line police officers up to the highest levels of police leadership.

5.3 Above all, the College’s offerings must represent value for money. It should be clear to the learner what the benefits are of developing their leadership and management skills, both in terms of individual and organisational outcomes. In this way police forces will have a strong incentive to draw on its expertise, creating a “virtuous circle” of increasing brand and reputation, as well as strengthening leadership and management skills in the police service.

6. The Need to Balance Numerous Responsibilities

6.1 We believe that it is possible for one institution to balance the numerous responsibilities as described in the Inquiry’s terms of reference, provided there are clear governance structures in place to provide the appropriate separation or “Chinese walls” that these diverse responsibilities would require. The College would have to create a structure which clearly separates the designation of education and training standards, for example, from any training function. Guarding the public interest should naturally follow as a consequence of the College disseminating best practice, designating professional standards and enhancing professional practice across the police service.

6.2 We do not see that there is a conflict of interest between the designation of appropriate standards (which are developed in partnership with appropriate Awarding Bodies such as the Chartered Management Institute) and the delivery of training and testing. However, the use of the words “standards setting” may be misleading. We do not believe it would be necessary or appropriate for the College to become an Awarding Body in its own right. Its role would be to designate the appropriate education and training standards for the police profession, rather than creating its own qualifications.

6.3 The key is to have effective governance, clear separation of functions, and transparency of activity.

7. Breadth of Responsibility

7.1 We believe that the College should be responsible for police officers and civilian police employees alike—after all, police officers are civilians who have powers conferred on them by their warrant.

Annex A

MORE ABOUT CMI AND WHAT WE OFFER

CMI Qualifications

A1. CMI has developed a wide range of leadership and management qualifications, covering all levels from Level 2 (GCSE) to Level 8 (PhD). Our QCF qualifications can be delivered in different sizes of learning, ie, in terms of an award, certificate or diploma . A list of our qualifications is attached at Annex A. As mentioned above, we have also worked with Skills for Justice to design bespoke qualifications for the police sector, eg. CMI Level 3 in Neighbourhood Management (QCF). We are also the only Awarding Body to offer qualifications in neighbourhood management and multi-agency working, and we have an excellent track record in delivering qualifications across the police service in England and Wales.

A2. We deliver our qualifications via our network of 600 approved centres, which span the country and include higher education institutions, further education colleges and individual employers. Through our approved centres we deliver CMI qualifications and qualifications awarded by other awarding bodies which have an accreditation arrangement with CMI. For example, students taking an MBA at London South Bank University also gain a Level 7 CMI qualification.

A3. In June 2010 CMI became accredited by Ofqual (Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator) to deliver two police management qualifications. The formal accreditation means that CMI is a nationally recognised provider of the highest standard of management qualifications for the police. The qualifications were part of a new career development programme and were used to confirm promotions for Sergeants and Inspectors within the force. They have now been superseded by new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) qualifications.

A4. Developed in partnership with Skills for Justice, the Sector Skills Council and standards setting body for the sector, CMI is able to offer senior police the opportunity to undertake the Level 4 Certificate in Police First Line Management (equivalent to a National Diploma) and the Level 5 Certificate in Police Management (equivalent to a university degree). These qualifications formalise learning and help officers to manage their own professional development and better plan, allocate and monitor work within their departments.

A5. Specifically, the qualifications ensure that senior police are assessed in terms of their personal effectiveness, leadership skills and ability to manage resources. Candidates undertaking the Level 4 qualification, for example, cover topics such as how they supervise and respond to critical incidents and how they prepare for law enforcement operations. Those undertaking the Certificate in Police Management are assessed for their ability to develop operational plans and identify threats and risks.

A6. Some of our approved centres work very closely with individual police forces, and build up good working relationships with them over many years. For example, Peak Management Service Ltd, in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, has delivered CMI Level 3 and Level 5 Diplomas to 60 individuals from South Yorkshire Police. Peak Management Service has run continuous Level 3 and Level 5 CMI Diploma programmes for the force, using some of the force’s staff as the centre’s associates to cut costs, but using Peak Management’s learning materials. This might be a funding model worth pursuing under the new structure.

Chartered Manager

A7. CMI is the only organisation able to award Chartered Manager status—this gives individuals the same professional recognition as other Chartered professionals such as Chartered Accountant and Chartered Surveyor. As with other Chartered professions, Chartered Manager is awarded on the basis of the individual’s demonstrated professional management and leadership skills, and requires individuals to keep up to date with continuing professional development and management best practice. There are over 2,300 Chartered Managers practising in the UK at the moment, with 50 of these from the police and justice sectors.

CMI’s Continuing Professional Development Offering

A9. CMI offers a range of products and services to support managers at every level to access learning resources and develop their skills. We have various products which support managers and leaders with their continuing professional development. Those taking our qualifications have access to ManagementDirect and all the resources it offers, as part of their learning materials.

A10. ManagementDirect is an online tool which covers a wide range of learning resources, including management best practice checklists, CMI’s library, access to our team of researchers who can find and recommend learning resources for our members, and access to a wide range of e-journals and e-books. ManagementDirect is being used by a range of public sector organisations, including Greater Manchester Police. It is a flexible portal which can be customised by the client, providing in-house training materials and access to company continuing professional development resources.

A.11 ManagementKnow helps managers assess their management knowledge, skills and experience. Developed in association with Cognisco, the leading employee assessment organisation, it has been designed to help managers spot their weaknesses in performance management and employee engagement in order to ensure the harm they cause to their teams is minimised. We have developed this tool in response to our research, which found that a lack of competence and misplaced confidence amongst bosses is creating a stressed out workforce.

A12. According to the research data, 74% of employees have made decisions they do not feel qualified to make because their manager is not supporting them. As a consequence one in three managers no longer have faith in what their manager does. Although the research findings are not specifically from the police sector, they demonstrate a general lack of professionalism and expertise in the UK management community as a whole, covering all sectors.

A13. The tool focuses on the two aspects of management competence—performance and engagement. As a result of measuring performance in both areas, managers are given a bespoke development programme designed to build on their existing knowledge and capabilities, and to plug any weaknesses or gaps.

CMI’s Work in the Police Sector—Some Examples

CMI approved centres in the police service

A14. CMI authorises a wide range of learning establishments, employers and training centres to deliver its qualifications. Many employers decide to become approved centres so they can deliver CMI-accredited learning to their staff.

A15. To date there are 600 CMI approved centres throughout the UK, including 41 in the police service. These range from the British Transport Police, City of London Police, Greater Manchester Police, Kent Police Force, the Metropolitan Police Force, North Yorkshire Police, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Surrey Police.

South Wales Police wins “Management team of the year 2012” Award

A16. At its annual Awards dinner CMI presents awards to outstanding management and leadership practitioners, both individuals and teams, in a range of categories. The 2012 winner of the “Management Team of the Year” award was South Wales Police Leadership, Equality and Development (LEAD) Team.

A17. South Wales Police polices 42% of the population of Wales and has a vision to be the best at understanding and responding to its communities’ needs. The LEAD team has overcome barriers and shown effective leadership in order to implement a Leadership Development Pathway for managers across the organisation, with the following results:

97% of its officers and staff are very satisfied with the leadership development they receive

The provision of community based equality and diversity training to managers has supported South Wales Police in rejoining the top 100 organisations in the 2012 Stonewall index.

Trevor Service, Police Service of Northern Ireland (development of qualification)

A18. Trevor Service is a police officer with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He works in the leadership department for the Northern Ireland Police College, and has developed a course in neighbourhood management for police officers and members of the local community.

A19. The challenge was to develop a leadership course that, in the post-conflict environment of Northern Ireland, could be taken by neighbourhood police officers and by representatives of different communities to improve their neighbourhood management skills and work with the police—without positioning it as a police course, as this would put off applicants from attending.

A20. Trevor wanted a course that would be useful for neighbourhood police officers and members of the community to help them solve problems in their local areas and improve quality of life—as well as offering a well-regarded external qualification. Trevor said at the time: “This is a unique step for us. We wanted to have communities trained in an external qualification along the same lines as neighbourhood police officers so they would understand each other’s objectives and work together. Offering the public the opportunity to attend our training courses was something we had never done before.”

A21. Trevor began developing a course for police officers and citizens by adapting workbooks designed by the National Police Improvement Agency, accredited by CMI as a Level 3 Introductory Certificate in Neighbourhood Management. He particularly welcomed the flexibility offered by CMI in rewriting the course to suit the needs of community representatives and the emphasis on practical tools to help them manage, rather than a wholly academic course. Applications for a place on a pilot course were oversubscribed and the course has been very popular. Trevor says: “Having the CMI on board did us a big favour because they saw it not as a police course but as a management course. Having a reputable external qualification is very valuable.”

CMI’s Accords with police professional bodies

A23. Three years ago CMI set up a membership agreement with the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales (PSAEW). This agreement was extended to become the Exclusive Police Association Offer as a consequence of including the Association of Police Superintendents of Scotland (ASPS) and Superintendents Association of Northern Ireland (SANI). It offers all members of these organisations membership of CMI at a discounted rate. CMI also has a General Police Offer membership offering to individuals who are not a member of any Police Associations. In this way police officers are able to access CMI’s resources, expertise and networking opportunities as well as the opportunity to take professional leadership and management qualifications.

CMI

October 2012