Warwickshire PEEL 2016

A good understanding of leadership capabilities and expectations is critical to the effective functioning of forces. How forces engage with their workforces when setting leadership expectations is vital in ensuring that police staff and officers feel enabled to lead in an ethical way and to challenge the expectations appropriately.

Forces’ understanding should also extend to their leadership strengths and weaknesses across every rank and grade. This includes an understanding of leadership styles and personality types of individuals, and how they affect wider team dynamics. Forces should be able to take this knowledge and use it to adapt quickly to identify any gaps or issues in leadership.

Officers and staff spoke enthusiastically about the chief constable’s briefing sessions, which explained the force’s vision for 2020 as well as the values that employees are expected to demonstrate. The force has worked with employees to set its leadership expectations and these form an integral part of its vision and values. Its people strategy includes a list of expectations for all leaders, and the expectations are linked to the College of Policing leadership review and the force’s own learning and development strategy. The senior leadership and development manager provides the strategic lead for leadership for both Warwickshire and West Mercia Police and is supported by two leadership development and management staff and a team leader. A member of the chief officer team meets every newly promoted officer to discuss the force’s leadership expectations. Newly-promoted supervisors receive a booklet which explains leadership expectations, and this is also available on the force intranet. The staff survey offered employees the opportunity to challenge leadership across the organisation, and when HMIC inspectors attended leadership seminars, it was clear that employees felt confident about challenging senior officers.

Officers and staff understand the force’s leadership expectations, which are communicated widely across the organisation. Psychometric testing and 360-degree feedback are available on request, but the force does not routinely use these, or other methods of understanding leadership, and the force could do more to assess the effectiveness of its current leadership.

The force has recently changed its appraisal process. Officers and staff are now able to opt-out, although many employees that HMIC spoke to thought the appraisal system no longer existed. Employees who are seeking promotion are encouraged to complete performance appraisals, but it is unclear how the force will use appraisal information to assess leadership capacity and capability. The force is developing a comprehensive assessment of workforce skills and HMIC acknowledges that progress is being made, but it needs to do more to address gaps in its leadership capability.

The way in which a force identifies and develops leadership skills is crucial in making sure they perform well now and in the future. Forces should identify leadership development programmes, containing a broad range of approaches, beyond just formal training, to develop leadership.

Forces’ knowledge of their current leadership capability should also mean that they are aware of the leadership skills and experience they do not currently possess, and are seeking to recruit to address this.

The force has developed a database of people who have expressed an interest in working for the force, and runs recruitment campaigns aimed at the private sector. The force also supports Police Now, Fast Track, and Direct Entry (at inspector level) to attract talented people. Other recruitment initiatives include efforts to attract more women and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) candidates. Recruitment events at educational institutions and places of worship have resulted in 50 percent BAME and 50 percent female representation among officer recruits for the current year, helping to ensure that the force has a diverse talent pool from which it can develop potential future leaders. However, its approach to promoting from within is more traditional. HMIC recommend the use of similar innovations for internal recruitment and progression.

The force has a formal mentoring programme and is developing a leadership programme which concentrates on middle managers to help meet identified leadership gaps. Professional development days are being designed for chief inspectors and equivalent police staff grades. The force already runs twice-yearly development days for superintendent ranks. The force needs to assess the impact of these leadership development programmes. The force uses talent management schemes and a talent management grid to identify potential leaders within the force, but many officers and staff that HMIC spoke to did not know about them. HMIC heard from officers who had decided not to apply for promotion because they did not want to be posted to another area of the alliance. This could deter the best candidates from becoming senior leaders. HMIC also found inconsistencies in development opportunities across the force. Some local commanders proactively encourage staff development, but elsewhere, staff expressed concerns that temporary promotions were not equally available to everyone.

Good leadership encourages and develops a wide range of people, embraces change and actively supports the development of new ideas. While it is important for forces to ensure that they are representative of the communities they serve, truly diverse leadership teams are built around the wider experience, background and skills of individuals.

Warwickshire Police works with other forces to identify good ways of working in areas such as cyber-crime and in improving victim satisfaction. It has also commissioned Northamptonshire Police to review its use of stop and search powers. The force is also keen to disseminate its own experiences of forming the strategic alliance to other forces which are implementing or considering this type of alliance. The force encourages innovation at all levels. A chief inspector has been appointed to promote new ways of working and review suggestions which staff have submitted via the intranet and at “ask the boss” forums. Some employees we spoke to felt that the force responded positively to suggestions, but awareness of suggestion schemes was generally low. The force has invested in a change hub team of employees and interim staff, where front line staff work in ‘test bed’ environments.

The force understands diversity beyond the protected characteristics such as age, disability, or gender reassignment, set out in the Equality Act, and has employed a new specialist recruitment manager to improve workforce diversity. The chief officer team also monitors and makes regular changes to postings within the senior leadership teams across the force, moving senior staff and officers between teams to ensure the right blend of skills, and to provide opportunities for lateral development. The chief constable’s strategic diversity group promotes diversity at all levels and the force is helping officers who may be suffering from stress. Volunteer employees who have been trained by the charity MIND provide support.

The force supports the Realising Potential programme, which has resulted in one female and one BAME senior officer being promoted to assistant chief constable rank. It has also improved its promotion and selection process to reduce unconscious bias. The force has trained senior officers and staff, as well as HR professionals, to recognise and avoid unconscious bias, ensuring that at least one member of each police promotion interview panel has been trained in this way. Before any promotion process begins, panel members are briefed about the importance of avoiding unconscious bias, so that they always conduct interviews fairly and impartially.

However, the alliance’s policy of recruiting from across both forces and posting in either Warwickshire or West Mercia areas might possibly deter good candidates who are unable to commute long distances or relocate. HMIC heard from officers who had decided not to apply for promotion because they did not want to be posted to another area of the alliance. This approach may limit the force’s ability to develop diverse leadership teams.

HMIC recognises the force’s policy of its chief officer team deciding postings for chief inspectors and above. This helps ensure that the skills, abilities and relevance to the local policing environment are balanced in all senior teams.