Policing Insight is proud to publish the first tranche of finalists for the inaugural World Class Policing Awards which will be held at a special ceremony in Central London in November.
Each week, for the next six weeks, Policing Insight will publish nine shortlisted nominations for the World Class Policing Awards which reflect the range of innovative practice taking place across the police service, in the UK and overseas. A total of 54 projects have been nominated.
World Class Policing received well over 100 entries which have been rigorously judged against specific criteria by an expert panel consisting of senior police stakeholders.
Six winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony 14 November. One of the six winners will also scoop the overall prize.
The awards are listed alphabetically.
An all-Wales recruitment process
The four Welsh police forces needed to replace their individual recruitment processes with a shared e-recruitment platform, within a four-month timeframe. The project included procuring the platform, designing a suitable workflow, and introducing assessments that complied with the Police Education Qualification Framework. The result is a bilingual e-recruitment platform that saves time (cutting the recruitment to assessment centre process from eight weeks to 56 minutes), reduces costs, and delivers a better candidate experience.
Lead force: Dyfed Powys Police
Partners: Gwent Police, North Wales Police, South Wales Police
Checkpoint – improving life chances and reducing reoffending and harm to our communities
Durham Constabulary developed Checkpoint, a deferred prosecution scheme introduced at the earliest point in an individual’s offending career, to cut reoffending, reduce victim numbers and improve community safety. This voluntary diversion scheme offers a four-month contract as an alternative to prosecution, with interventions to address the underlying reasons for criminal behaviour, and specialist support for every offender. Over 2,000 people have completed Checkpoint, with reoffending rates reduced by 13%; other forces are now trialling the programme.
Lead force: Durham Constabulary
Partners: Crown Prosecution Service, Her Majesty Court and Tribunal Service, National Probation Service, Durham Tees Valley Community Rehabilitation Company, Department for Work and Pensions, Tees Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust, Youth Offending Service, NHS England, Public Health Mental Health and Drugs and Alcohol, Durham County Council, Darlington Borough Council, Durham Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office, and many third sector organisations local to County Durham and Darlington.
Community Peer Mentors
Community Peer Mentors reduce the demand on frontline policing while empowering vulnerable, often isolated people who are high-impact users of police resources. The volunteer mentors receive referrals from support agencies, and work with clients who have unfulfilled needs and feel let down by society. They instil self-confidence, offer them new coping strategies and help them to reintegrate into society. As well as benefitting individuals the project has saved 39,377 police staff hours and an estimated £984,413.
Lead force: Durham Constabulary
Partners: Durham Police, Crime and Victims Commissioner’s Office
Develop You
Develop You is a continuous, self-led professional development framework enabling individuals to reach their full potential, and helping to ensure the public receives an effective and professional service. The framework brings together a number of tools and developmental opportunities, providing personal growth, leadership skills and exposure to roles in and outside of policing. It has reduced the number of leavers across both forces who cite aspirational advancement as their main reason for leaving.
Lead force: Kent Police/Essex Police
Digital Device Detection Work
Digital device detection uses specialist police dogs to locate digital storage devices used by organised crime groups, paedophiles, terrorists and other criminals. Pioneered by PC Attwood, adopting skills in use in the US, the project has so far trained two police dogs in the UK to locate digital devices. This major evidence retrieval capability has already prevented one terrorist attack on mainland Britain, as well as assisting in numerous paedophile, murder and sexual offences investigations.
Lead force: Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, and Dorset Police Alliance
The Herbert Protocol
Missing people investigations can be stressful for all involved. Durham’s Herbert Protocol ensures vulnerable adults are known within their communities, regardless of whether they live in care or their own homes. Designed to prevent vulnerable adults from going missing, it also provides a joined-up safeguarding response, future proofing how police and agencies deal with vulnerable people. It reduces risk and harm, reduces police demand, saves time and money, limits crisis situations, and – most importantly – saves lives.
Lead force: Durham Constabulary
Partners: County Durham Fire and Rescue Services, private and council care homes throughout County Durham and Darlington, Alzheimer’s Society, Age UK Durham, Age UK Darlington, Durham County Council, Darlington County Council, Durham Adult safeguarding board, Darlington Adult Safeguarding Board, North East Ambulance Service, NHS – mental health County Durham and Darlington, Peoples Parliament Durham, Arriva Bus Company, Go north East Bus Company, Red Cross, Durham and Darlington Street and Traffic Wardens, Durham and Wear Search and Rescue, many faith organisations, charities and support organisations, shops and businesses, taxi companies, Waste Disposal Durham and Darlington.
Dyfed-Powys Police Serious & Organised Crime Team (SOCT)
Operation Ulysses was launched following an increase in heroin-related deaths, mainly in the Carmarthenshire/Ceredigion areas of Wales. The two-fold response by the Serious & Organised Crime Team saw undercover officers gathering intelligence and targeting street dealers, alongside a large-scale Level 2 investigation of those bringing significant amounts of heroin into Dyfed-Powys. As a result, all 44 defendants pleaded guilty to a multitude of Class A conspiracies, and were sentenced to over 249 years in prison.
Lead force: Dyfed-Powys Police
East Lancashire Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Team – outstanding and innovative investigation
This seven-strong team, formed in February 2016, tackles the threat of incredibly vulnerable people being inhumanly treated throughout Lancashire, and to date has charged 21 people with slavery offences. This includes the first victimless trafficking prosecution, and the largest trafficking sexual exploitation case in the UK – Operation Ludlow – which saw 10 people convicted of trafficking vulnerable women and sentenced to over 25 years’ imprisonment. The team has also built great relationships with the charity sector.
Lead force: Lancashire Constabulary
Fast-Track Detective Entry Scheme
Recognising the national and local shortage of detectives, and the need to support existing officers in delivering high-quality investigations, Suffolk Constabulary launched the fast-track detective entry recruitment scheme. This provides a robust ‘start to finish’ process uniquely tailored to investigations. The initial 10-week IPLDP training and supervised patrol is followed by an additional programme of investigative-based attachments. Every officer is assigned an individual PIP 2 tutor, and the scheme has a 100% National Investigator’s Exam pass rate.
Lead force: Suffolk Constabulary
Partners: NPCC National Portfolio for Recruitment, Retention, Resilience and Wellbeing
The World Class Policing Awards celebrate and acknowledge the best in all aspects of 21st century policing. The awards reflect that effective modern day policing requires partnership and collaboration, whether in teams of officers and staff; collaboration between forces; multi-agency operations; wider public sector involvement; and collaboration also with the supplier community and beyond.
The awards also recognise that successful outcomes and developments in policing come from a blend of innovative, committed and well trained personnel, serving, engaging and protecting the public, delivering good practice, using technology and systems to police efficiently and effectively.
This year’s awards are supported by National Police Chiefs Council, Police Superintendents’ Association, the Police Federation of England and Wales, the College of Policing, Police ICT and techUK.
The Founder sponsors for the World Class Policing Awards 2019 are Accenture, Sopra Steria, Chorus Intelligence, Grant Thornton and KPMG. Policing Insight (policinginsight.com) and Police Oracle (www.policeoracle.com) are the official Media Partners for the World Class Policing Awards 2019.
Entry for next year’s World Class Policing Awards 2020 will open in the new year.
Read about the other finalists here:
World Class Policing Awards: Final nine finalists announced!
This week, once again, the fantastic nominees cover the gamut of policing from the huge, coordinated response to the poisonings in Salisbury to an integrated anti-stalking unit and the use of video-game technology to create virtual police training scenarios.
World Class Policing Awards: Week five finalists announced!
This week, the brilliant nominees include an operation that has led to the arrest of thousands of drug dealers, a first aid programme for frontline officers that has already saved 15 lives and a telematics fleet system that ensures optimal use of vehicles.
World Class Policing Awards: Week four finalists announced!
This week, the brilliant nominees include an operation to foil an attempt to kill the UK Prime Minister, a project to better support children exposed to domestic abuse and a highly complex investigation that resulted in the conviction of a major organised crime group.
World Class Policing Awards: Nine more outstanding finalists published
This week, our outstanding nominations include a mobile technology project that has freed up over half a million officer hours a year and an intelligence officer whose work targeting online child abuse has led to 270 arrests.
World Class Policing Awards: More details of the outstanding finalists published!
This week, the outstanding nominations include a police cadet scheme for adults with learning difficulties, a new mobile fingerprint reader, a drink awareness project in Australia and many more.
World Class Policing Awards: Shortlisted nominations announced
Following rigorous judging of over 100 UK and overseas entries to the inaugural World Class Policing Awards, the shortlist of nominations has now been finalised! See if your force has made the final cut.
World Class Police Awards Judging Process
Nominations were submitted to an online portal by police forces themselves or by third parties. All nominations were required to have a ‘lead police force’ and be endorsed by the chief constable of that force. The judging panel then reviewed the submissions and scored the nominations out of ten with marks awarded for fulfilling the World Class Policing characteristics and for overall quality of the submission.
The shortlisted nominations all go forward to be represented at the awards ceremony and to be put forward for consideration by the judges when they select the overall winners.
The World Class Policing Awards judging panel
The World Class Policing Awards judging panel is comprised of experienced and expert representatives from across policing in the UK and overseas. They include:
- John Apter, Chair of the Police Federation for England & Wales
- Superintendent Danny Hatfield, Chief of Staff at Police Scotland
- Chief Superintendent Ian Wylie, Police Superintendents’ Association
- Rachel Tuffin, Director of Knowledge and Innovation at the College of Policing
- Ian Bell, CEO Police ICT Company
- Mark Evans OBE, Deputy Chief Executive: Service Delivery at New Zealand Police
- Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Metropolitan Police Service
- John Azah, Kingston Race and Equality Council
- Ben Bradford, Institute for Global Cities at UCL
- Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation
- Allan Fairley, Chair of techUK’s Justice & Emergency Services Committee
- Stephen Kavanagh QPM, former Chief Constable of Essex Police and Chair of the World Class Policing Steering Group
Nomination categories
The nominations could represent one or more categories across the range of policing activity:
- Victim support including improvements in identification of vulnerability
- New system/technology implementation
- Outstanding or complex investigations
- Operations delivering difference
- Projects driving change
- Crime prevention reducing harm in communities (real or virtual)
- Business change to tackle new and emerging offences
- Training and development in a changing world
- Employee and officer welfare building sustainable policing
The overall winners will be selected regardless of category but special commendations by category will be awarded where appropriate.
Characteristics of a successful World Class Policing Awards nomination
As well as explaining and evidencing why they represented examples of World Class Policing, the nominations also had to demonstrate and evidence some or all of the characteristics of World Class Policing:
- Did the activity demonstrate exceptional performance?
– Efficiency
– Effectiveness
– Improving police legitimacy
– Value for money
– Successful outcomes set out and achieved - Did the activity demonstrate progressive policing?
– Innovative strategy/tactics
– A new system or technology developed
– A new technique or practice
– The activity and benefit can replicated by other organisations
– Complexities that were overcome - Was the activity collaborative?
– A team effort or an effort across multiple teams
– Collaboration with another police force/agency
– Local collaboration with other agencies
– National collaboration with other agencies
– International collaboration with other forces/agencies
– Industry, academic or 3rd sector collaboration
– How were strategic hurdles overcome?
– Free up resource or demand reduction on non-police matters - Did the outcomes benefit the public/victims?
– Crime prevention/reduction
– Minimise risk or harm
– Victim/witness welfare
– Public engagement
– Free up resource or demand reduction
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable groups (young people, women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc) - Does the activity take into account officer/staff welfare?
– Improved working conditions
– Improved welfare or support
– Improved skills through training and development
– Improved job satisfaction
– Improved inclusion or reduction of stigma
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable officers and staff (women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc) - Does the activity benefit how suspects and offenders are handled for better outcomes?
– Early intervention
– Rehabilitation
– Restorative justice
– Reduce re-offending
– Positive handling of diverse and vulnerable suspects and offenders (young people, women, mentally infirm, BAME, LBGT+ etc)
The judges awarded points for these characteristics and for the overall quality of the submission, producing an overall mark out of ten. Those nominations scoring seven or above were selected for the shortlist to be represented and recognised at the awards ceremony.
The six winners including an overall winner will be selected by the judging panel on a further in-person judging day. Further commendations by category will be awarded where appropriate.
