Leadership

OPINION: The recent report of the Police Leadership Commission put forward a range of proposals for policing in England and Wales, including a National Academy of Police Leadership, a leadership recruitment ‘fast stream’, and a standardised promotion pipeline; but organisational psychologist Michael Stephenson argues that the report has “diagnosed a complex problem and prescribed a complicated-domain solution”, because but it never sorted the problem enough to know which question it was actually answering.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Former Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith shares his thoughts on leaving his role leading Warwickshire Police and joining one of the worlds largest technology companies. He reflects on how moving into the technology sector revealed the true scale of the digital and AI transformation facing policing. He argues that future success will depend on continuous learning, stronger technical expertise and leaders who can confidently manage teams where people and AI work together, while protecting public trust.

OPINION: In the latest in a regular series of articles from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), Emily Spurrell, APCC Chair, voices her support for many of the measures in the recent Police Leadership Commission report – including a leadership ‘fast stream’, a senior constable rank, and modernising recruitment, training and performance monitoring – but bemoans the lack of emphasis on driving improvement in the culture, ethics and inclusive leadership of forces.

OPINION: The recently published Police Leadership Commission’s Professionalism and Performance report offers a blunt verdict that leadership development is inconsistent, talent is wasted, and something structural must change, says Dr Aksar Bashir, Manager of West Midlands Police Force Contact Training Academy, who argues that while the report is a significant examination of police leadership in England and Wales, it offers mainly structural and managerial solutions to what are cultural and relational problems.

FEATURE: New research carried out among more than 1,500 mid-level police leaders and frontline officers in Australia suggests that while many of the leadership cohort have experienced the same level of traumatic experiences and operational burnout as the officers they are managing, they are also dealing with greater levels of organisational stress and demand without the support programmes that are now in place for their frontline colleagues, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

OPINION: While public debate around the recent Police Leadership Commission report focuses on proposals such as the National Academy of Police Leadership and new promotion pathways, The Open University’s Professor Clifford Stott, ACC Nick Caveney, Dr Jennifer Norman, and Dr Iain Raphael, argue that the report’s key contribution is on the issue of whether policing has the institutional capability to deliver and sustain the scale of change envisaged by both the Commission and the wider reform programme.

OPINION: Despite an increasing number of police leadership training programmes, forces and agencies face record officer attrition, collapsing recruitment pipelines, and a workforce that cites its own chain of command as the primary reason for leaving, says former officer and now public safety consultant Tim Kucerovy, who argues that tackling the ‘Promise Gap’ – the difference between what leadership says and what leadership does – is key to addressing attrition, culture, and community trust.

OPINION: The recently published report of the Police Leadership Commission highlights a range of key challenges for the service in England and Wales, explains Commission Co-chair and former home secretary David Blunkett, with “devastating” findings in relation to the recruitment, training and development, promotion, monitoring and appraisal of police officers among the issues addressed within the report’s 27 recommendations.

ANALYSIS: This week saw the publication of the Police Leadership Commission’s much anticipated report; in an exclusive article for Policing Insight, Open University Emeritus Professor Jean Hartley, one of the Commissioners who took a leading role in gathering evidence for this “root and branch analysis” of police leadership in England and Wales, highlights some of the report’s key findings and recommendations.

OPINION: Following the publication of the report and recommendations of the Police Leadership Commission this week, Supt Nick Smart, President of the Police Superintendents’ Association, highlights the continuing need for a definition of the policing mission in England and Wales, as well as some of the measures required to address the gaps in officer development, the move towards a learning culture, the importance of ensuring reforms are mandated, and the ongoing challenges around inadequate funding.

OPINION: Many police leaders are keen to improve diversity and representation within their workforce, but such ambitions should not undermine the credibility of appointments nor lead to a false choice between diversity and standards, argues Dr Robin Shusko, Chief of Campus Police at Frederick Community College in Maryland, who draws on her own experiences as well as efforts in Australia and the UK to define steps leaders can take to ensure they select from the widest pool of applicants, and make choices that withstand scrutiny.

FEATURE: A recently published Performance Improvement Review of New Zealand Police warns that an integrity reset is “urgently needed” within the service and is a “mission-critical challenge”, while concerns over “tribalism” – particularly at senior levels – as well as skills and training gaps, “underpowered and undervalued” corporate foundations, and the increasingly complex digital and transnational crime threats are all highlighted in the review, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: In the first of three articles exploring data-driven policing and artificial intelligence (AI), Wilfrid Laurier University Assistant Professor Dr Oliver R. Stoetzer highlights the importance of investing in both technological capability and personnel, the need for greater digital literacy across the workforce, and why the real challenge of technological development for law enforcement may be less about whether it will influence policing and more about how deliberately and effectively services prepare for that reality.

INTERVIEW: Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Nicole Simpson has been named the International Association of Women Police’s Officer of the Year, after demonstrating “exemplary leadership and investigative skills” in a series of high profile cases; she spoke to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons about the need to “think outside the box” and leave rank “at the door” when it comes to investigations, and the importance of instilling pride and confidence in young-in-service officers.

FEATURE: A new report from the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre highlights the strong alignment between officers and the public on aspirations for policing in England and Wales; but with operating constraints reducing neighbourhood policing to a “Cinderella service”, it argues for more open and honest communication with the public, as well as a stronger focus on fixing relationships within policing, if trust and legitimacy are to be maintained, reports Policing Insight’s Keith Potter.

FEATURE: A report from the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency exploring the ‘megatrends’ facing policing over the next five years and beyond is warning that as demand for policing becomes increasingly fragmented and shaped by external forces, law enforcement agencies will need to limit the expansion of their roles for the benefit of both the public and the workforce, while also addressing skills gaps and improving community collaboration, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

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ANALYSIS: With responsibility for the Police Race Action Plan (PRAP) for England and Wales now shifting from a central team to individual forces, Policing Insight’s Ian Weinfass examines the impact and legacy of the work done over the past five years, and speaks to stakeholders about the role of leadership and how the PRAP should be shaping policing in the future.

INTERVIEW: Ahead of this week’s first UK National Response Policing Conference, ACC Matt Boyle, the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Response Policing, spoke to Policing Insight’s Christine Townsend about changing perception of the response role as a specialism in its own right, the importance of response officers in the investigation process, and the need to recognise the role as the interaction where the public experience policing most directly.

LONG READ: With UK police forces facing a range of challenges including complex demand, declining trust and confidence, and widescale reform, the importance of leadership in policing has never been greater; in his second long-read article for Policing Insight, Dr Aksar Bashir of the West Midlands Police Force Contact Training Academy explores the SHIELD (support, health, inspiration, ethics, listening, development) leadership concept and how it could be a step towards “a more engaged workforce, an ethical service, and renewed public confidence”.

INTERVIEW: Deanna Cantrell, a former chief of police and now Director of Law Enforcement Partnerships for Axon, believes leaders need to adopt a “policing inside out” approach by applying the lessons learned from community engagement to leading their own teams – especially those young-in-service officers whose input is often overlooked when it comes to decision-making – as she explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: Policing, like many other organisations, often relies on the ‘don’t do’ approach to communicating and educating ethics to its workforce, with a focus on the punishments and consequences of misconduct and poor behaviour; but Dr Eva Tsahuridu and Jo Kerr of Victoria Police Registration & Services Board argue that while ‘negative ethics’ have a role to play, ‘positive ethics’ that develop a ‘what to do approach’ to recognising ethical issues and making ethical judgements are just as important.

OPINION: Until UK policing learns to look after its workforce better, the communities it serves will never really be safe, warns Graham Goulden, a former officer with a 30-year career and now a strong advocate for safe and supportive workplaces, who argues that the active bystander approach could help to change policing culture to provide the support that officers and staff need, and the service communities deserve.

OPINION: Independent researcher and governance adviser Vsevolod Shabad believes the language and internal communications architecture of British policing means that officers who highlight and escalate serious risk don’t always get the necessary response, and lack protection for their actions; with other high-risk professions having identified and addressed the same challenges, he looks at what policing can do restore the right for officers to speak clearly.