A collaborative approach could provide substantial savings to direct to the front line, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) has said in a new report on police funding and procurement.
The report, Getting together: a better deal for the public through joint working, is HMIC’s review of police spending, particularly in relation to serious organised crime and public order. Significant variation in the cost and effectiveness of the police service was encountered by HMIC, which it claimed could be resolved by collaboration.
In 2008/09 the police service spent £2.5 billion on procurement. HMIC says that £833 million of this is suitable for collaboration. By taking part in a multi-force forensic collaboration, one force managed to save £144,000 a year on submissions of DNA samples and got results twice as quickly.
HR and finance services cost police forces and authorities £211 million a year, the report states. Savings of between 15 and 30 per cent could be made from this, HMIC claims, through collaborative approaches.
While there are already a number of collaborative or joint projects in existence, HMIC says many are “ad hoc and short-term” and “often in response to an obvious threat”.
While police forces and authorities agree with collaboration in principle, the report states that putting this into practice is a struggle as none of the potential contributors believe it is in their interest to collaborate as they feel they will be putting in more than they gain; known as ‘net donor syndrome’.
HMIC proposes the Informed Choice Model (ICM) could promote collaboration by providing police forces and authorities with all the facts and figures; they will be able to more objectively select a collaborative approach that will reduce both cost and risk compared to a non-collaborative approach.
A framework to oversee the ICM is also proposed by HMIC in the form of a national Resource Coordination Board (RCB). The objective of the RCB would be to identify high-risk and high-cost policing services where collaboration or coordination may provide better outcomes for the public. The RCB will then advise the National Policing Board (NPB) for the first time on the ‘big picture’ of costs, risks and variations, allowing police forces and authorities to make more informed decisions.
This model alone, however, would still not prove sufficient incentive, HMIC suggests, proposing that while collaboration is most successful if done voluntarily and naturally, power would be given to the Home Secretary to mandate collaboration if forces and authorities fail to do so and are unable to explain a sufficient reason for this.
“Collaboration offers significant potential for forces and authorities to reduce costs and make the public safer. However, it is not an end in itself or the only option. HMIC believes the ICM will bring a greater clarity of thought to policing in these areas – exposing risks and costs to public scrutiny and stimulating creative and innovative approaches,” the report states.
“The weakest performance is generally seen in areas where forces are reluctant to agree priorities or coordinate resources.”
The report makes a total of four proposals, based on four months of research, between November 2008 and March 2009, and 720 joint ventures already in existence. The proposals are:
1.The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), in consultation with the Organised Crime and Partnership Board, should establish an agreed coordination function for the police response to serious organised crime.
2.ACPO should agree the preferred regional delivery model (subject to consideration of functionality, performance and costs) for tackling OCGs across force boundaries, or to agree an alternative approach.
3.The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) should scope the potential [investment/savings] of shared services across the police service.
4.The NPIA should monitor and support existing collaborative procurement work (Wave plan, national or regional frameworks and contracts to ensure the delivery of efficiencies).