Home Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Association of Chief Police Officers [LSP 21]

Introduction

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Home Affairs Select Committee’s Inquiry into Leadership and Standards in the Police. With regard to the Committee’s terms of reference, this submission sets out a professional view from the operational leaders of policing on current opportunities and challenges facing the police service, with specific reference to the new College of Policing (CoP) and police leadership.

The coming changes in policing are framed by a decade of falling crime and increased public trust and satisfaction in the police. According to an Ipsos Mori poll conducted last year police officers are considered some of the most trustworthy professionals in the UK, ranked above Business Leaders, Civil Servants and politicians,1 evidence also supported by Sir Chris Kelly and his Committee on Standards in Public life’s most recent report2.

The resounding success of the Olympic and Paralympic games this year is a testament to the police officers, police staff and partners, who have met one of the greatest security challenges of our time with aplomb. Such achievements are a result of the careful planning that the service and its partners put into this event over the past four years. Police leaders have undoubtedly led from the front throughout this process.

Policing in the UK is built upon a relationship with the public. While the nature of policing attracts scrutiny and contentious debate that can put this relationship to the test, the bond remains strong and it must be continually nurtured. The College of Policing is a tremendous opportunity to establish policing as a recognised profession with a stronger body of evidence-based practice and professional ethics. It will allow policing to promote research, and take greater ownership of leadership development.

The Prime Minister, Home Secretary and this Committee have all publically noted that the police service has responded impressively to the challenges of reducing budgets, reform and change. We believe the future of police leadership will continue to move policing forward to better serve the public.

The Association of Chief Police Officers

The Association of Chief Police Officers brings together the expertise and experience of chief police officers from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. ACPO is an independent, professionally-led strategic body. In the public interest and, in equal and active partnership with Government and the Association of Police Authorities (APA) (and APCC in future), ACPO leads and coordinates the direction and development of the police service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Police and Justice Act 2006 confirms ACPO as a statutory consultee. In times of national need, ACPO, on behalf of all chief officers, coordinates the strategic policing response.

The functions of ACPO include facilitating decision making by chief constables at a national level, providing national policing coordination, national policing communication, national development of professional policing practice and providing oversight, through chief officers to some national policing units. In the absence of a federal model of policing it provides a voluntary structure to secure national agreements which underpin the ability of all forces to deliver consistent and interoperable policing to keep citizens safe and secure.

There are presently 307 members of ACPO, comprising chief officers holding a rank at or above Assistant Chief Constable (or Metropolitan Police Service equivalent: Commander). They also include senior police staff colleagues of equivalent status, for example heads of human resources and finance, and in some forces heads of communication and legal services.

The College of Policing

On 15 December 2011 the Home Secretary announced to Parliament that she intended to establish a Police Professional Body (PPB) whose mission “will be to develop the body of knowledge, standards of conduct, ethical values, skills and leadership and professional standards required by police officers and police staff in England and Wales, supporting them to more effectively fight crime. The professional body must work in the public interest and will include work on the following areas: ensuring police officers and staff have the qualifications and skills to provide a high quality service to the public, maintain their professional competence, keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date and uphold the highest standards of conduct and ethical values.” She further announced that the Police Minister would lead a Developing Professionalism Working Group (DPWG) which would work through detailed implementation. As of the 16 July the police service has been working toward a College of Policing.

ACPO President, Sir Hugh Orde welcomed the announcement, stating:

“Chief officers welcome today’s announcement of a College of Policing. The professional recognition that it will bring to the police service in future, for the skills and expertise officers and staff demonstrate daily, is a significant step for policing. A solid framework for working with universities and others to develop the evidence base for policing is also an exciting opportunity.

“What now lies ahead is the task of successfully transferring those important functions currently carried out by the National Police Improvement Agency in a smooth and timely manner. I am pleased to note that the Home Secretary has supported the continuation of the vital work conducted by the ACPO Business Areas and over the coming months chief officers who lead in these areas will ensure that relevant non-operational national policing continues to be delivered through the new structure.

“For the College of Policing to be a success we must now work to ensure that it represents the service as a whole.”

The objectives for the College of Policing are still being developed. But as of 16 July 2012, the Home Office stated that the College would:

Protect the public interest by:

promoting the values of effective policing;

learning from and supporting improvement in policing; and

maintaining ethics and values.

Set and enhance first-class national standards of professionalism to ensure excellence in operational policing by:

developing a set of nationally agreed standards for officers and staff to attain;

providing frameworks for standards to be tested and achievement rewarded; and

supporting national business areas.

Identify evidence of what works in policing and share best practice by:

providing access to a body of knowledge that is informed by evidence-based research and best practice; and

continuing to develop an understanding of the evolving threats to public safety and enable the service to retain the capabilities needed.

Support the education and professional development of police officers and staff by:

developing and maintaining the national policing curriculum, assessment and accreditation frameworks;

delivering leadership and specialist training;

accrediting and quality-assuring training providers; and

developing future leaders and expertise through effective talent management.

Enable and motivate staff and partners to work together to achieve a shared purpose by:

working with partners to make the best use of specialist knowledge;

supporting desired behaviours and actions that embody the service’s values; and

ensuring interoperability with partners and other sectors.

The College of Policing is seen by ACPO as a tremendous opportunity to set up policing as a recognised profession with a stronger base of evidence based practice and professional ethics. It will allow policing to take a greater ownership of leadership development and promote research.

It is vitally important that the College of Policing has the support of the police family as a whole. Whilst led by a Chief Constable (as Chief Executive, providing the critical link into Chief Constables’ Council), the Chair will be independent of policing and supported by a Board that will bring together the right mix of police and non-police individuals to provide essential oversight and challenge.

Its primary focus will be to develop policy in those areas where interoperability is critical, without constraining local freedom unless absolutely essential. It will set standards and disseminate best practice to police forces—independent of government and in an entirely transparent way.

Whilst initially the College will clearly inherit an essential legacy from National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), looking forward it will engage with universities and the wider academic world. This is an exciting prospect that could really build on the existing professionalism and expertise that exists in the service. It will assist in providing a framework for developing dynamic relationships with academia that have not been possible under current arrangements.

We are pleased to note the importance of that the ACPO Business Areas is recognised,3 and believe that it is sensible that the college builds on the existing ACPO Business Area structure. Whilst there will be a degree of complexity to this, it is right that the College owns the development of policy and practice, answering to the Chief Executive before Authorised Professional Practice (APP) is examined and signed off by Chief Constables’ Council and operationalised across the country.

Authorised Professional Practice

In September 2010 Chief Officers agreed a wide-ranging review of guidance across all ACPO business areas. This review resulted in the decision to consolidate and replace current guidance with Authorised Professional Practice (APP). APP streamlines existing guidance onto a single online platform and to date, has seen a 60% reduction in policy documents, equating to a reduction of thousands of pages of guidance. The central aim of the programme is to make critical operational information available in a much clearer and simpler way to frontline staff in police forces.

There is a huge amount of policing know-how and corporate memory encapsulated within these Business Areas. Given that it will be the task of the College to identify future challenges and how we might build the capacity and capability to deal them, it is important that it draws on these existing resources at practitioner level.

The police service and the College should ensure APP is built around evidence and is underpinned by tactical doctrine that sets out the design and intended effect of all frontline roles. The College should work with the police service to develop the curriculum and standards for training of officers in law, procedure and evidence-based practice to equip them with the knowledge to operate as independent professionals in the field.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) believes that with the imminent creation of the College of Policing and the development of the police service’s accumulated policy and guidance into a tighter body of APP, the time is right to recommend a renewed focus on the frontline police officer.4 The creation of a single, clear mission for policing, with resonance throughout the service, is of central importance to successfully establishing the professionalisation of these frontline roles.

ACPO has agreed a National Decision Model (NDM), a critical element of which is the “Statement of Mission and Values” (annexed5). This is a clear statement that for policing, all our decisions and each stage of our decision making process should be driven by our mission and values. The Statement of Mission and Values and the NDM provide a framework for all police officers, all police staff and all police leaders. This emphasis on our mission, values and ethics is consistent with the intentions of the new College of Policing.

NATIONAL DECISION MODEL

Police leaders will need to undertake to provide the required knowledge and to shape the infrastructure around the newly designed APP in the same way it has for what it currently designates as guidance. This approach would support an approach to pay and reward that recognises contribution, skills and expertise rather than experience.

Relationship with ACPO

ACPO has identified areas where there is clearly an overlap between aspects of the current role of ACPO within the policing landscape and some of the intended functions of the new College. ACPO has therefore been working constructively to review the role of ACPO going forward.

The College will have a clear focus on developing individual professionalism. However, ACPO has a role in developing service-wide operational approaches such as, neighbourhood policing and intelligence-led policing, and has provided a structure for operational decisions, co-ordination and communication at a regional and national level. Given the operational and constitutional responsibilities that are vested by law in Chief Constables; these roles may not sit comfortably within a standards body.

We firmly believe that the functions performed by ACPO—in particular the bringing together of the Chief Constables of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the operational leadership of the service, the important role of the President to consult with colleagues and, with their mandate, to speak on behalf of the service—should be retained. However, ACPO also recognises the need to change to provide the appropriate fit with the new College of Policing and provide sustainable governance and transparency to ACPO itself.

As noted, the Chief Executive of the College will be embedded in Chief Constables’ Council (CCC). But as the College is a non-operational and inclusive organisation (with the Police Federation of England and Wales, Superintendents Association of England and Wales, Police Staff Council and Police and Crime Commissioners on the board), operational police matters such as national incidents that require the professional voice of the leadership of the service to comment upon will remain the remit of the operational leaders of the service, at local, regional or national, level depending on the event.

It is ACPO’s view that the existing arrangement of Chief Constables’ Council needs to be delineated from the College and enshrined in statute. It is important that there is a separate forum for Chiefs to speak with one voice on national operations and policy, which would not be appropriate for a college. Our opinion is that there is also a key role for the ACPO president, who, after consultation with chief constables and having received their mandate, can speak on behalf of the whole service. There are also areas of national coordination such as the Police National Information Coordination Centre (PNICC) and counter terrorism that need to exist outside the CoP structure.

Our Workforce

ACPO provided a submission to the “Review of Remuneration and Conditions of Service for Police Officers and Staff” led by Tom Winsor, setting out a view on how we ensure a workforce, from top to bottom, which is recruited, trained and motivated to deliver the challenges of the future.

In this submission we stated that current reward packages are not “fit for purpose” and represent a significant missed opportunity to motivate our workforce at all levels. Tom Winsor has completed his review and the Police Arbitration Tribunal delivered their ruling on the first part of his recommendations on 09/01/12 and we expect the decision on the second part imminently.

Overall, the decisions appear to strike a balance between the need to achieve savings given the national economic situation and the financial pressures facing individual police officers. Chief officers would like see a greater move towards future longer term pay reform, which better reflects skills acquired over time served. We see this as an integral step to developing the leadership of the police service further and improving standards across the board.

Police staff: All colleagues are part of the professional policing family. Police staff and PCSOs now represent 38% of the police workforce in England and Wales, with staff represented at almost all management levels in forces and across all policing functions. The role of police staff is integral to modern policing. There has been some development activity common to both officers and staff. For example, NPIA courses, including the Strategic Command Course (SCC), are available to officers and staff alike. The College of Policing is an opportunity to enhance further an integrated, skilled and efficient workforce.

ACPO continues to consult and seek the best processes to ensure that the police service draws from an ever wider range of talented people. The police service has shown over recent years it has the capability, at all levels of the organisation, not only to deal with the most complex and challenging operational environments but also the business skills to redesign the organisation in the face of rapid reductions in budget and considerable structural change. Building on this knowledge base and experience, whilst finding innovative ways to attract talent is vital to the future of the service and will be a critical mission for the College.

Leadership Development in Policing and Other Sectors

“One of the real challenges that police leaders face is that we have all largely only ever worked for the police service and that has some real strengths in terms of shared history and ethos; all of us have been operational cops on the front line but it also carries with it some real challenges in that our outlook can be very narrow.”

Sir Peter Fahy QPM

Chief Constable, Greater Manchester Police and ACPO lead for Workforce Development

The police service does not operate in isolation. Increasingly, it operates in partnership with service providers across all sectors. National policing developments and security concerns as well as global trends and capability and capacity issues strengthen the need for stronger connections across the public and private sector. It is important to develop any future police leadership strategy based on best practice and collaboration across sectors to achieve the best outcomes.

Leadership development should include opportunities to gain experience of other sectors; and leadership programmes can benefit by involving colleagues from a range of backgrounds. The College of Policing presents a particular opportunity in this area. Well established bodies such as the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians are held in high regard and promote a sense of professionalism and expertise that enhance public trust and confidence. It is just such a position that the College of Policing should aspire to reach, and engaging with senior leaders within those and other relevant bodies should be a key milestone in the College’s establishment and development.

Officers can gain skills and experience of significant value by taking on roles and academic opportunities outside of the service, and as such, ACPO supports making it easier for officers to take career breaks or leave and re-enter the service after periods of outside employment.

The NPIA publication A Strategy for the 21^st Century, Leading Policing, explains some areas of best practice that policing can draw upon.6 The strategy maps out a development journey through the various ranks with a movement to externally accredited qualifications providing a mixture of theory and performance in the workplace.

We recognize that there is an opportunity in linking into the development activities of other organizations, where there is a clear benefit for policing. Established links with leadership training outside the police service include the Windsor Leadership Trust, the multi-agency Leading Powerful Partnerships course run by the NPIA and attendance on the Top Management Programme which used to be run by the Civil Service College. This is something the College of Policing will no-doubt continue.

Common components of leadership development programmes in recent years include more emphasis on emotional intelligence and ethical leadership, as well as personal leadership, operational leadership, and business skills.

Ethics and values are covered in all leadership development programmes in the UK police service. This allows participants to explore the dilemmas involved in modern policing. Speakers with experience of challenging operational situations and incidents which have led to public enquiries are used to provoke thinking. Participants are presented with an ethical framework and the approporiate tools for ethical decision making.

The Strategic Command Course (SCC) is aimed at superintendents, chief superintendents and police staff equivalents who are seeking promotion to chief officer rank (ie Assistant Chief Constable, Commander and Assistant Chief Officer).

The SCC (programme evaluation annexed7) is primarily delivered through a series of highly demanding strategic exercises, which are designed to stretch the participants’ knowledge, skills, attitudes and abilities across the following three key areas:

Business Skills.

Executive Skills.

Professional Policing Skills.

UK police officers and staff must pass the Senior Police National Assessment Centre (Senior PNAC) or Senior Staff Selection Process. Delegates from other agencies will be expected to have been selected on the basis of their ability to operate at executive level within their own organisation.

The Campaign for Leadership, part of the Work Foundation, maintains a large database of profiles of leaders in the UK across all sectors. The database, holds information on over 37,000 profiles of leaders, has been built over the past few years around individual leaders and their peers and staff completing a Liberating Leadership Profiling instrument. This tool gathers self-assessment and staff/peer perception data across thirty-eight constructs which have been identified from research to be critical in effective leadership performance. The constructs include the ability to show vision, inspire staff, approachability, fairness, trust in staff and willingness to seek feedback.

Over five thousand profiles of police leaders are included on the database. A comparative analysis of the database carried out by the Campaign for Leadership revealed that police leaders compare favourably with leaders in other parts of the public sector and other sectors.

The police service places great store on leadership qualities and perhaps has focused less on the management requirements. This has generally not become an issue when the workforce charged with delivery has been predominantly omnicompetent officers, who are entirely flexible and inherently resilient.

However with a climate that has rising demands and increasing public expectation set against a challenging financial landscape, policing is becoming more specialized and in almost every field there is a movement to accredited qualifications and a record of practical application. It is often the level of expertise which counts rather than the rank of an individual officer. ACPO has argued in its submission to the Winsor report that the pay and reward system needs to change to recognise these developments.

Entry Routes

Chief constables are already of the opinion that the business of policing should not be left to the police alone. Every force has experts brought in from outside in areas such as human resources, finance, investigation and IT. The quality of these individuals is high and they add real value to policing.

We want to ensure that the best people get to senior positions in policing, and that we harness valuable skills from other sectors in leadership roles where possible.

There is very little evidence available or research carried out as to how successful direct entry may or may not be for policing. In the absence of such objective evidence the debate has tended to become much polarised.

Currently, ACPO supports direct entry under the following provisos:

The Office of Constable must remain at the heart of British policing, as the bedrock of service culture and representation of independent law enforcement to the general public.

Those taking up officer roles must have the operational skills and experience to perform their role effectively and safely.

Those taking up officer roles must have the generic operational skills and experience to provide their Chief Constable with the required level of flexibility and capability to be deployed at their rank.

Robust and respected accreditation processes must be put in place to ensure that the skills and expertise required at each of the different ranks can be reliably and accurately assessed.

In terms of operational policing, the level of expertise, training and experience required is extremely specialised. ACPO is very conscious of the value the service takes from senior management teams with extensive operational experience, and the operational credibility and confidence this generates in officers in the field.

There may be some situations where a candidate from outside of the service has particular skills or experience for a role, however direct recruitment should never be at the expense of operational competence.

Given the level of risk managed by the service it is crucial that senior officers are competent from day one. Progression through the ranks provides a strong test over an extended period of the operational aptitude and ability that the public has a right to expect. However, we are aware that the requirement to serve in every rank limits the pool of individuals who may be selected for senior officer positions to those who have worked within the service for a significant period of time.

There are already many opportunities to join the service in higher positions as police staff members and it is only those roles considered to be highly operationally sensitive which are limited to experienced police officers. Civilian staff members are well represented at all levels including senior management teams and make an enormous contribution to service delivery across all forces.

ACPO believes that any direct entry should be considered solely on a role-by-role basis where the qualities of a specific position or candidate justify it.

We do not support the selection of a select group of recruits for immediate service at middle management level under an “officer class” model. This two-tier recruitment system seen in the military does not reflect the cultural and structural differences between the organisations—modern policing is built on a history of meritocracy, and equality of opportunity, which ACPO feels should continue to be respected.

All police officers and staff who have the potential to perform well in senior positions should be nurtured and developed from an early stage in their service, and therefore the emphasis should be placed on enhanced talent management and accelerated promotion processes in order to achieve this. In its submission to the Winsor Part 1 report, ACPO stated that accelerated promotion for exceptional talent, for both police officers and staff, should be a key element of increasing professionalism within policing.

Police Leadership and Standards

We live in an age where trust in authority is waning. A succession of events continues to undermine the public’s belief in those in positions of influence and status in society. The senior leadership of the police service recognises that policing is not immune from, and may often find itself in the eye of, this storm.

A great strength of British Policing is its openness and willingness to be held to account for our actions. Transparency is vital in all we do, for it breeds trust and confidence. High levels of accountability are critical if we are to maintain the consensual policing model that is so admired around the world, based on the citizen’s confidence and support.

Policing is a risk business and as such chief officers, on whose shoulders that collective risk is placed, inevitably become the focus of attention when things go wrong, given the nature of the business this is entirely right.

Policing takes place in society’s uncontrolled spaces and in these spaces, unfortunately, errors are made, situations develop, and outcomes are not always those originally intended. The buck stops with a Chief Constable and when an investigation is necessary, it will look toward the force leader. However, the existence of investigations is not a reflection on the quality of the leadership of the service, but a reflection of the necessary accountability structure of the police service.

Complaints against Chief Constables and senior officers are rare, considering the millions of contacts police forces have every year, and those that there are, are often low-level and unfounded. Yet, the fact that the investigation took place in the first place, often adds to the perception of a shady and untouchable leadership. The reporting of an investigation taking place is often what makes the headlines but the conclusion of an investigation, where no fault is found, rarely does. In a profession where confidence and integrity is fundamental perception can be as important as fact.

Recent events in some forces have demonstrated that, as in all forms of public life, there are undesirable individuals. The fact, however, that it has been the police service itself that has reported, investigated and then dispensed appropriate justice as a result of these incidents is testament, not to an introverted and unaccountable service, but to one that removes “bad apples” from the barrel when they are found.

The police service also recognises the need to assess the health and integrity of the barrel itself. The recent HMIC report on police integrity gives an encouraging picture about police integrity, but it does deliver some clear recommendations for organisational change and consistency across the service. Through ACPO and specifically the work of the Professional Standards and Professional Ethics portfolios, ACPO is responding very positively to those recommendations.

We also recognise that on its own it is not enough for British policing to be, in the Home Secretary’s words, “the finest in the world”, or to rely on rising trust and confidence figures. The service must respond positively and quickly to ensure that we are in the vanguard of public service leadership.

We plan to keep a focus on this significant challenge by working closely with HMIC and the College of Policing. This would be enhanced by the commissioning of external scrutiny in respect of integrity and senior police leadership. We will, through the Workforce Development/Professional Standards Business Area working with the Professional Ethics Business Area, develop a response which includes the development of robust standards, clear guidance for colleagues, training and information as well as tackling bad behaviour. The Association sees this as being absolutely a role for the leadership of the service. We recognise that only with clear and strong direction from the top will policing be able to demonstrate the openness, transparency and accountability needed to continue growth in public confidence and trust.

Much work has already been undertaken in this regard. ACPO Professional Standards portfolio has commissioned a report from Transparency International UK (annexed8), which makes recommendations about how we might achieve a more transparent corporate governance structure. The Association is currently assessing how best to take these recommendations forward. ACPO guidance has also been produced on gifts, gratuities, and hospitality as well as business interests and secondary employment. It is intended that forces will ensure their own policies and procedures fall in line with this. The emphasis going forward in relation to the application of standards will be consistency and transparency.The CoP opens up a significant opportunity for a more professional approach to standards, values and ethics and for police ethics to be as influential across the police service as medical ethics has been across medicine.”

The Future of Police Leadership

Police and Crime Commissioners will have a rich pool of candidates to choose from when they take office, and there is an abundance of talent coming up through the ranks who will lead the service in future. Do we need to voice some thoughts on process of how PCCs will select and also on Reg 11?

As above, ACPO believes that the College of Policing presents an opportunity for developing future police leaders further, but do not recognise that this automatically infers inefficiency, or deficiency, in the current pool. To strive for improvement is not an admission of failure but a sensible goal for an organisation that relies on strong leadership.

Chief Constables will need to continue to take responsibility for national talent management to ensure staff with clear potential for the most senior positions are identified at an early stage and get the best balance of operational experience, secondments and other opportunities. Facilitating talented people will continue to be a priority for ACPO and must be a priority for the College. A national training capacity and facility for policing excellence is absolutely essential in maintaining standards and bringing forth high calibre future leaders of the Service.

Talented people need to reach the senior positions at an early stage in their service but ambitious individuals must also appreciate the expectation that they will need to move forces to gain the full range of experience and this takes time. The accelerated promotion schemes and entry at Inspector level, as proposed by the Winsor Review, may broaden the base from which senior leaders are drawn from.

Should the proposals be accepted at the Police Arbitration Tribunal the service will watch closely what effect they have. As for “direct entry” at higher levels, eg. Superintendant ranks, it is felt that a pilot should be conducted before any such scheme was operationalised. The job description for a Chief Constable is seven pages long, and while many skills from other professions are transferable, the role is unique in public life and attempts to change it must be considered with caution.

Police forces already bring in individuals from a wide array of backgrounds in non-warranted roles. Assistant Chief Officers (who are members of police staff) play a vital and influential role in UK policing. They are regularly drawn from successful careers in finance, human resources, IT and more and bring a wealth of experience into policing.

It is important that development opportunities include working and training with other sectors and the opportunity to obtain mainstream qualifications through external providers. It is often suggested that senior officers lack the business skills to run an organisation the size of a police force. However, there is ample evidence of police leadership dealing with not only operational challenges but also with organisational change; never more has this been demonstrated than under the current CSR.

The development of business skills has been strengthened in both the Independent Commanders’ Course and SCC. At the same time it is inevitable that every middle or senior manager in the police service (and this is true for other sectors) is having to learn quickly the realities of managing in a time of uncertainty where the need to deliver more for less is paramount. A copy of the most recent SCC programme and evaluation is annexed to this submission.9

It is critical that police leaders throughout their career are trained and assessed against mainstream standards which recognise the realities of the size and complexity of budgets and projects that police leaders are held accountable for but also that they are supported by professionals with particular expertise in finance, human resources and other business disciplines.

Policing is undoubtedly a vocation, which makes discussing matters of remuneration difficult. While we believe that private sector performance related payments should have no place in policing, it must also be recognised that the business of policing requires a unique and specialised skillset, with a salary that reflects this. Chief police officers work in unique, imprecise environments, and we rely on them to make split second decisions. There is no doubt that this should be recognised. However, we are clear that this should be done in a fair and transparent way, with regard to pressures on the public purse.

Conclusion

With seniority comes greater expectation and accountability, and those who lead must do so by example. The overwhelming majority of all those who work within policing—including those who lead the service—work tirelessly to serve their communities with commitment and integrity. The public quite rightly expects all police officers to demonstrate the very highest standards of professional conduct.

Police leaders are subject to a range of inspection and investigation regimes and the almost daily scrutiny of police authority members (and PCCs in future), the media, local politicians and members of the public. They deal with ever more complex operational situations and some of the most intractable social problems in the country. Individual cases will always attract attention and concern but put in the context of the challenges of modern policing and the progress made in reducing crime and improving police performance British police leadership compares well to other sectors and policing around the world. 

Policing has nothing to fear from greater accountability to the public. Police leadership is strengthened by independent oversight and challenge. The public interest is best served by having a lessons learned approach which encourages staff to report concerns and acknowledges that police professionals work in complex situations where social attitudes change over the years.

What must be recognised is that the public we serve overwhelmingly have confidence in the police. The police service is currently facing wide-ranging reforms but the commitment of police officers of all ranks to get on with the job is unwavering.

Association of Chief Police Officers

November 2012