Hampshire PEEL 2015

HMIC examined how well forces understand the strengths and weaknesses of leadership across the force and how well the workforce understands its leadership role. Strong, clear leadership across every rank and grade is vital to the effectiveness and efficiency of a modern and capable police force.

Hampshire Constabulary clearly values and understands the importance of effective leadership. The constabulary has communicated a clearly-defined set of leadership principles which its workforce knows well and is prominent in police buildings and on the intranet. The principles consist of behaviours that are designed to create an organisation where people know what is expected of them, are empowered to make decisions, work in an environment that is positive and stimulating, are recognised for the good work that they do, have the opportunity to develop, and can hold challenging discussions with their teams through face-to-face meetings with individual team members.

The chief constable meets with all officers and staff on promotion, which further strengthens the workforce’s knowledge of these expectations. This has resulted in officers and staff being familiar with the leadership principles and their purpose in their everyday role.

The constabulary also has a good understanding of workforce capacity and capability. A constabulary-wide staff survey identified a number of issues relating to poor leadership capability. To further build its knowledge of these issues, the constabulary held a series of focus groups, and used the information gathered to effectively strengthen their capabilities through the Leadership Programme.

HMIC examined the extent to which forces have set out a clear, compelling and realistic sense of future direction, because it is important to ensure that the workforce is motivated to build for the future and that the force knows the kinds of skills it is looking to develop. We were also interested to find out how well leaders are making use of new approaches to enable forces to meet future financial challenges.

During the last year the constabulary has implemented an unprecedented programme of change that has reshaped the organisation. It has taken care to explain the reasons for and consequences of change at all stages, and HMIC found that it had communicated these messages effectively.

The constabulary schedules all elements of the change programme to progress simultaneously, and the collective volume of communication with the workforce and public is considerable. The planned changes have completely reorganised the constabulary’s operating model, and will put in place a major estate reorganisation and improvements in information and communication technology. This scale of change sets out an ambitious yet realistic future way of working for the constabulary and introduces many new expectations for the way the workforce functions.

Hampshire Constabulary has also taken positive steps in implementing new and technological opportunities. The constabulary is a strong advocate of body-worn video and regularly seeks to exploit that capability. The constabulary has developed a professionally-produced best practice short film, which is publicly available and shows how the technology is used and the positive effect it can have. Frontline workers told us that they had confidence in using body-worn video and consider it an intrinsic part of their equipment.

HMIC examined how well forces identify and develop leadership, as good quality of leadership is key to ensuring that forces overcome their challenges of reducing crime and meeting the needs of victims. We were not looking for one particular style of leadership, but focused on how well leaders motivate their workforce and improve performance to provide a quality service to the public.

The constabulary has clearly demonstrated its ability to respond to workforce feedback by developing its Leadership Programme. This is comprised of nine modules of leadership development which are based on academic research and best practice. All supervisors attend the initial ‘Solid Foundations’ module and then have access to the other modules which include coaching, mentoring, 360-degree feedback and team-building.

The leadership programme is a significant investment by the constabulary and represents a long-term intention to change its culture away from the traditional reactive ‘command and control’ style, to one centred on influencing and coaching. The constabulary needs to do more to ensure that knowledge of the programme is more thorough in its junior ranks, but we found generally good knowledge of the programme among its workforce.

The constabulary has had a strategy incorporating talent management since 2013, which it has updated recently. However, when HMIC spoke to supervisors at all ranks and most staff grades, we found no central point of reference or programme in operation for people the constabulary had identified as talented.

As good quality leadership is an important factor of policing performance, HMIC examined how leaders are improving the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of forces through clear, reasoned and swift actions. This is the first time HMIC has graded forces on their legitimacy, so no year-on-year comparison is possible for this pillar.

Leadership in Hampshire Constabulary has resulted in a stronger focus on improving the legitimacy of the constabulary, in the way it keeps people safe and reduces crime. It has taken steps to develop and maintain an ethical culture, and has created an ethics committee as a forum to regularly challenge and set requirements for an ethical culture at all levels of the organisation.

The constabulary further develops its ethical culture by listening to police staff and officers and acting on their concerns.

Leadership has also contributed to the effectiveness and efficiency of the constabulary. Leaders demonstrate an innovative approach to reshaping services, and using new technology. The collaboration with Portsmouth University is highly effective in quickly gathering evidence from electronic devices, and officers use body-worn video equipment to gather high-quality evidence. The recent reorganisation places neighbourhood policing and protecting vulnerable people at the centre of the policing model, and the constabulary leadership has moved quickly to review how it deals with some vulnerable people over the telephone following concerns expressed by HMIC in previous inspections.

The constabulary is achieving change on an ambitious scale, altering the style of leadership and the organisational structures in which leaders at all levels operate. Its senior leaders have shown themselves to be flexible and responsive, making changes to the new structure and putting in place a system to monitor the impact of the new operating model.