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Police Research Series Paper 17
Central Specialist Squads: A Framework for Monitoring and Evaluation
James Morgan Lucy McCulloch John Burrows
Editor: Gloria Laycock Home Office Police Research Group 50 Queen Anne’s Gate London SW1H 9AT
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© Crown Copyright 1996 © First Published 1996
Police Research Group: Police Research Series The Home Office Police Research Group (PRG) was formed in 1992 to carry out and manage research in the social and management sciences relevant to the work of the police service. The terms of reference for the Group include the requirement to identify and disseminate good policing practice. The aim of the Police Research Series is to present results of externally funded studies, and those carried out by the Police Research Group, in a way that will inform policy and practice throughout the police service. A parallel series of papers on crime prevention is also published by PRG, as is a periodical on policing research called ‘Focus’.
ISBN 1-85893-594-6
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Foreword This report into Central specialist Squads is another from the first phase of PRG’s Police Operations Against Crime Programme. It describes the tasks and resources allocated to central squads and an outline methodology to provide them with management information and performance data. The research found that many squads failed to collect information they could analyse to monitor and evaluate their performance. Most squads, for example, account for their operational costs in terms of ‘extras’ such as overtime and mileage, rather than total costs, including staffing time. The researchers developed a methodology to provide essential management data to monitor the activities of squads. Reflecting the fact that the work of most squads is directed at specific cases or operations, the approach links the activities of the squad for each operation with the resources used, their cost and the outcome of the operation. The methodology was tested in two forces. Typical management reports from those trials are included in the report, as well as management lessons learned from setting up the system. The methodology proved to be time-consuming to establish, and apparently costly to operate. Forces will need to exercise judgement over the use of the methodology. It is likely to be more valuable in larger forces or where the combined strength of specialist squads is over 100. It is capable of being adapted to suit circumstances. I am glad that this report is able to bring it to the attention of forces, for their consideration.
S W BOYS SMITH Deputy Under Secretary of State Home Office Police Department December 1995
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Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the central squads in the five forces who took part in this project – the Metropolitan Police Service; Northamptonshire Police; Thames Valley Police; West Mercia Constabulary and West Yorkshire Police – and in particular their representatives on the project Steering Committee: David Don (MPS), Bob Thorogood and Frank Spokes (NP), John Stowe and Peter Sykes (TVP), John McCammont (WMC) and Trevor Wilkinson (WYP). We are indebted to Jane Hirst and Jonathan Nicolls of the Police Research Group for their direction and advice throughout the course of our work, and the assistance of their colleagues Angela Rweyemamu and Amanda Walker in the conduct of the fieldwork. We would also like to express our thanks to Kate Flannery of the Audit Commission and to Ingrid Posen of the Home Office for their helpful comments.
James Morgan Lucy McCulloch John Burrown
The Authors The authors are the team from management consultants, Morgan Harris Burrows (MHB) who undertook the study which resulted in this report. James Morgan, a partner in MHB, led the project team. He was earlier the chairman of a working group which produced the report ‘Safer Communities’. Lucy McCulloch worked for MHB as Research Consultant on this project, and conducted much of the fieldwork on which the report is based. John Burrows is also a partner in MHB and served as Adviser to this project. PRG would like to thank Mike Maguire for acting as independent assessor for this report.
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Executive summary This study was initiated in 1993 as part of the Police Research Group’s ‘Police Operations against Crime’ programme. Its aim was to develop approaches for forces to weigh up the case for setting up, maintaining or disbanding specialist investigative squads, with force-wide responsibilities.
Approach The research fell into two phases: Phase I, involved broad examination of central squads in five forces: the tasks and resources assigned to them; why they were set up; and their operational ‘parameters’ - from the selection of squad members and their training to reporting routines and performance monitoring. Five forces took part in this ‘mapping’: the Metropolitan Police Service; Northamptonshire Police; Thames Valley Police; West Mercia Constabulary and West Yorkshire Police. Phase II, in which an outline methodology (ARCA) was developed and implemented (in Thames Valley and West Yorkshire) to provide squads members, their line managers and senior command with essential management information and performance data on the Activities performed by squads, the Resources and Costs involved in each operation and the resultant Achievement. Accompanying this report is a practical guide for forces on implementing ARCA. This contains a ‘Decision Tree’ which can be used to assist them in: • deciding whether to set up a squad (Making the right decision); • determining how to resource a squad (Making the decision right); and • monitoring the activities of squads (Keeping the decision right). Copies can be obtained from the Police Research Group on request.
Findings I. Central squads: their use and operations • All the forces surveyed had some centrally commanded specialist units. In particular each had a drugs squad, fraud squad, child protection and force intelligence units. Three of the five also operated dedicated surveillance team(s) and stolen vehicle units. • Squads deal with some of the most serious crimes: but they are only a small part of forces’ overall investigative effort (4 - 8% of total operational strength).
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• Most specialist squads are permanent. Forces rarely give substantial consideration to the need to continue, or disband them. Specialist squads are established when there is a need for: – particular expertise in a defined area; – a unified, force-wide, approach to a problem; – a limited need for particular (and often expensive) facilities; – development of a common ‘best’ practice across the force; and/or – one clear point of reference within the force for external agencies. • Forces comply with central guidelines in selecting and appointing squad members. But they have difficulty meeting the training needs of squad members, especially when booking scarce places on nationally-run courses. Specific training courses would be appropriate for the task of managing a specialist squad. • Forces have difficulty in complying with central guidelines on tenure. The national guidelines are not totally consistent and it is difficult for forces to gain the maximum benefit from specially-trained officers in different disciplines whilst also limiting tenure to a force-wide norm. • Most squads have objectives which are a component part of annual force objectives. But, in practice, these objectives are rarely translated into measurable operational standards, and there is little use of performance indicators to monitor the work of squads. Heads of squads collect only limited management information. Even this is seldom scrutinised by ACPO-rank line management. Most squad members, including their heads, feel they get little feedback on their work. • Most forces account for squad operating costs only in terms of ‘extras’, such as overtime or mileage. Total costs are seldom calculated, or accounted for in force planning. • Day-to-day operations of central squads are conducted independently from BCUs, and little information is available about how the work specialist squads do is generated. • ‘Service-level agreements’ between squads and BCUs were only observed for surveillance units, where BCUs bid for this scarce central service.
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II. Monitoring the work of squads The lack of information about what squads do, the absence of performance indicators related to their work, and the need for senior management to fulfil their responsibilities to review the work of squads, make a strong case for ARCA. Most of the work officers in specialist squads do is directed at specific cases or operations: so it is not onerous to ask them to account for the time spent on each case or operation, (as do other ‘service providers’ in the public and private sector). ARCA uses this information to provide management reports. This report contains examples of such management reports for forces participating in the study. • In the limited trials of ARCA, benefits were more obvious in monitoring the work of squads which carry out many separate operations and which operate in teams (such as surveillance units or drugs squads). For monitoring progress on-longerterm activities, like fraud investigations, ARCA needs to be used over a longer period to provide reliable data on how resources are committed to each case. • Squad members accepted the concept of gathering information about their activities. But obtaining timely and correct returns of timesheets and sorting out queries required considerable chasing effort. Management systems and the responsibilities of managers within squads need to be clearly defined to achieve satisfactory timesheet disciplines. Where possible, data collection and time recording should be integrated with other management records required by a force - such as ‘duty records’. • The ARCA approach proved most successful when the data collection and time recording were kept simple. More detailed data on sub-activities should only be collected through special exercises when it is needed.
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Contents Page Foreword
(iii)
Acknowledgements
(iv)
Executive summary
(v)
List of Tables and Figures
(ix)
1.
Introduction
1
2.
Squads and their operations
3
3.
ARCA: a methodology for setting up and reviewing the operations of specialist squads
7
4.
Management reports from ARCA
12
5.
ARCA in context: implications for the future
21
6.
Recommendations
29
Appendices (bound separately) A.
Squads in the five host forces
B.
The ARCA Template
C.
Typical Timesheets
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List of Tables Table No. Caption
Page
1.
Primary characteristics of the work of key squads
10
2.
Time taken to input and analyse ARCA reports
11
3.
Activities for surveillance unit
13
4.
Activities of fraud squad
14
5.
Time spent on investigatived activities by division and cost (Fraud Squad)
15
List of figures Figure No. Caption
Page
1.
Activities of surveillance units
12
2.
Fraud squad time worked
16
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INTRODUCTION
1. In t r oduction Specialist squads are a long-standing and familiar feature of the police service. But recently the service has sought to develop its responsiveness and accountability to local communities by delegating responsibility for a much wider range of operational matters to Basic Command Units (BCUs) or Operational Command Units (OCUs) with direct control of the resources necessary to meet local needs. Such arrangements - strongly commended by the Audit Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) - prompt the question of how far tasks assigned to central squads could be devolved to these local policing units. Morgan Harris Burrows (MHB) was commissioned by the Police Research Group (PRG) in the autumn of 1993 to undertake research into this issue: “.... examine the necessity for central squad-based investigative units and their cost effectiveness compared to devolution of their functions to basic command units.” Within this broad objective a range of subsidiary issues were considered including: • the provision of squad services to local units: how - if squads do operate - do BCUs obtain assistance in dealing with problems ‘on their own turf’; • the achievement of ‘critical mass’: how do forces achieve the right concentration of effort on the difficult or sensitive matters normally dealt with by squads; • experience and learning curves: how the performance and effectiveness of officers develop as they learn the background and skills of working in a specialist function; • career and manpower planning: whether there is a conflict between the need to exploit squad officers’ special skills and the need to ensure staff turnover in such squads; • life cycles: whether squads monitor how far they meet their initial objectives, and whether proper consideration is given to the need to close down squads. The research was carried out between October 1993 and December 1994. Throughout, the focus was on central squads - headquarters units which provided a service to all territorial operations - and not divisional or local units. The first stage of the research was primarily concerned with ‘mapping’ how forces currently use specialist squads, and how the squads operate. The objectives of the first stage were to: 1. identify the tasks, and resources, assigned to central squads; 2. establish their characteristics, the tasks they are given and factors that affect their efficiency and effectiveness; 3. identify the key issues considered by forces in their decisions to form, maintain or disband central squads, and any review procedures; 1
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4. investigate the use of performance indicators and to propose a methodology by which forces could balance the case for setting up, maintaining or disbanding a central squad. These issues were examined in five police force areas, selected for study to provide a spread of forces geographically and across the HMIC family of forces: the Metropolitan Police Service; Northamptonshire Police, Thames Valley Police, West Mercia Constabulary and West Yorkshire Police. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is much larger than any other metropolitan force. At the time of this research, MPS was controlled through eight geographical policing areas. Each had specialist drug squads, child protection units, surveillance and intelligence units to provide support for the divisions within it. Following discussion, it was decided to concentrate the research on Seven Area (which included the North Western London Boroughs of Camden, Brent, Harrow and Barnet; and Hertsmere District) and on the investigative squads within Scotland Yard’s centrally controlled “Specialist Operations” (SO) department. In each force, MHB carried out a series of interviews with BCU and CID commanders, and current officers of all central investigative squads, as well as ex-squad members now serving in BCUs. At the end of our fieldwork in each force MHB provided force co-ordinators with a summary report of its main findings. HMIC, the Police Staff College at Bramshill, the Audit Commission and the Police Foundation were also consulted, as were police officers not directly involved in the research. The second stage was ‘Action Research’ in the Thames Valley and West Yorkshire forces. It consisted of: developing the outline methodology proposed at the close of the first stage; monitoring the activities of squads; implementing these methods; analysing the results and investigating their use and future development with the forces concerned; and preparing a check-list of issues to be dealt with on setting up any squad. The work carried out in Stage 1 of the research is outlined in Section 2. The appendices to this report are available as a supplementary paper available from the Police Research Group. Appendix A supplements Section 2. It contains additional detailed descriptions of the principal characteristics of the specialist squads in the five police forces. One methodology for monitoring the work of squads is set out in Section 3. Section 3 also reports on the experience of developing and implementing the methodology. Section 4 describes the management reports produced from this process. Section 5 focuses on the implications of this work for the service and comments on similar approaches adopted elsewhere in the police service, and outside it. The recommendations arising from the study are set out in Section 6. 2
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SPECIALIST SQUADS AND THEIR OPERATIONS
2. Specialist squads and their operations Police forces have long protected their autonomy in operational matters, and the decision to operate a specialist squad remains theirs alone. On the other hand forces are strongly influenced on such issues by the guidance from central authorities, including HMIC, the Home Office and the Audit Commission. The “Force Guide” which is complementary to this report contains a summary of this direction and advice. Our observations of the work of specialist squads examined how far current practices meet the guidelines. All of the five forces which hosted our research were aware of the central guidance on specialist squads, and were putting a lot of effort into operating within the letter and spirit of them. Each of the forces had recently considered its approach to crime management, or was currently doing so at the time of the research. These reviews have concentrated on changing terms of reference or staffing arrangements (although the total numbers of staff have not changed greatly as a result). But, other than in the Metropolitan Police, substantial consideration of the factors which might lead to setting up, continuing or disbanding the central specialised units has not been apparent. In practice, compliance with administrative aspects of the guidelines - such as staff selection, providing job descriptions and training and promotion procedures - was much easier than following the core message of the guidelines: that the work performed by squads should be routinely measured against agreed operational objectives, and that the case for operating each squad should be regularly reviewed. In particular, the host forces fell short of meeting central guidelines in that: • Most viewed their specialist units as permanent: they did not consider at regular intervals the arguments for setting up, continuing or disbanding them. Other options - such as providing a central source of expertise and guidance which could be accessed by investigating officers from BCUs, had received little or no consideration. • All squads had objectives which formed part of the structure of annual objectives for the force. In practice, however, the objectives did not provide measurable operational standards. Most squads had broad terms of reference, which did not give much guidance on day-to-day management - or in deciding what work to take on, and what to leave to BCUs. Thus, ‘service level agreements’ were not much in evidence, and were considered by many CID officers to be inappropriate. • There was little evidence of the use of performance indicators in connection with the work of specialist units, or of any disciplined management review related to the setting and monitoring of progress. Nor was there evidence of the interrogative use of management information by ACPO rank officers; or of attempts to assess the total cost of operating specialist units. The notion that central investigative squads all operate along similar lines, and that differences arising from their different foci are relatively minor, proved to have little 3
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substance - either across the five forces surveyed or indeed within any one force. The research found significant differences between specialist squads of different types, and that the nature of the work undertaken by the different squads is a far stronger influence on their operating practices than their common designation as ‘squads’. A recurrent theme in our discussions within forces was tension between “headquarters’ needs” and those of the BCU. BCU commanders often have local perspectives on crime - concerned primarily with reducing the quantity of local offenders. Whereas force strategies need to be critically concerned with the seriousness of crimes committed and how to target dangerous offenders, in line with the Audit Commission’s advice to target “the criminal, not the crime”. Why squads are set up In the target forces, central specialist units had been formed when there was need for: • particular expertise or training (for example, in surveillance); • a unified force-wide approach (for example, in intelligence gathering); • particular, and expensive, facilities (for example, with surveillance facilities); • development of good practice with the force (for example, in family protection issues); • external agencies to have a clear point of reference within the force (as, for example, when dealing with fraud). Central specialist squads differ substantially from special squads which are frequently formed within BCUs to provide a concentration of effort to deal with particular identified and high priority problems: usually on a short term basis. In all the forces the critical appraisal of the case for a squad and of the alternatives appear to be either one of setting up a squad or of leaving a responsibility with BCU commanders. There appeared to have been little or no consideration of other options such as providing a central source of expertise and guidance which could be accessed by investigating officers from BCUs. Types of squads Each of the five forces surveyed had: • drugs squads • fraud squads
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• child protection units, and • force intelligence units/bureaux. Appendix A (bound in a separate supplement) describes for each of the five participating forces, the functions and responsibilities of their squads, their operational practices, staffing practices including those on tenure of post and training, and a brief discussion on individual performance management practices within the squads. Assessment of squad performance Although nearly all squads collected data on aspects of their performance - and often invested considerable effort to do so - there was little sign that the data were actively used to monitor progress or influence management decisions. In all cases specialist squads had hierarchical responsibilities which could be traced easily from the squads to officers of Superintendent and Chief Superintendent rank, and with a clear line of accountability to one ACPO rank officer. But, except in the case of the MPS fraud squad, led by a Commander, there was little evidence of direct involvement or the interrogative use of management information by ACPO rank officers with responsibilities for squads. Rather, squad members and line managers felt that they were operating in isolation and received little feedback from senior management about their performance or that of their unit. In most of the forces the performance of central specialist units was assessed only through internal exercises by the head of the unit. Although units were subject to occasional management reviews they were usually undertaken as a major project by a senior officer and concentrated on questions of organisational structure and form rather than style of operation and methods of functioning. Officers within the squads perceived they were getting little feedback from their head of squads, and the squad managers that they received comparatively little feedback on the quality of their work from ACPO level. Within specialist units, decisions about taking on a case, or the manner of proceeding, are often influenced by contributions arising at different rank levels. They are critically dependent on personal relationships as well as on experience or particular relevant knowledge. In some cases squad commanders work very independently with little contact with senior officers. Three of the forces surveyed - Thames Valley, West Mercia and the MPS - were developing ‘service level agreements’ to govern the work of squads and their interaction with the remainder of the force. Nonetheless ‘service level agreements’ were not much in evidence during the research, except in the case of surveillance units. And even these, many CID officers argued were inappropriate because they 5
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believed that specialist squads (including surveillance units) needed to generate at least some of their own workload; it is difficult to understand, however, how this would prevent the use of service-level agreements for outside-generated work. There was little evidence of the use of performance indicators for the work of specialist units; or of any concentrated routines of management review related to the setting and monitoring of progress against achievable objectives (both qualitative and quantifiable). This appears to be an area of substantial difficulty, and the question of “what would be the effect of halving or doubling the resources devoted to this activity” is never put. The difficulty is particularly acute for units providing a service to other parts of the force, such as surveillance or intelligence. One force assesses the performance of its intelligence function, both in BCUs and in the Force Intelligence Unit, by the numbers of good quality intelligence logs entered into the force computer system. Another is attempting to assess specialist squads in terms of the satisfaction of end users. The latter approach, which could be used more widely, is consistent with similar approaches adopted elsewhere in ‘Total Quality Management’ and other agencies such as the NHS or Local Authority Social Services. In most of the forces visited the cost of specialist units was controlled through ‘established strength’ and budgets for out of pocket costs such as overtime and mileage. There was no attempt to assess, or control, the cost of specialist units on a total cost basis: including salary and related costs; space; equipment or other overhead costs associated directly with the deployment of the unit. Assembling such information on a basis which is consistent across forces is unlikely to be simple. But the recent changes in police accountability and budgets will make it important to recognise the ‘total cost’ of specialist units and their share of the overall police budget. The following section sets out a methodology for setting up and reviewing the operations of specialist squads that takes into account a full costing for each specialist unit.
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ARCA: SETTING UP AND REVIEWING SPECIALIST SQUADS
3. ARCA: A methodology for setting up and reviewing the operations of specialist squads The management task of reviewing the operations and performance of squads, and in the light of this whether to continue or modify their role, should properly be concerned with what: • the squad has achieved within a given time frame; • resources the squad has used and the cost-benefit against achievements; • the squad is planning to achieve in the future and what resources will be required. The same questions must be asked when considering how the core activities of specialist squads could be undertaken in BCUs or through any other organisational arrangement. Although there are exceptions (for example the case management approach being developed in the Metropolitan Police), the research revealed few instances of relevant information being provided either within routine management processes, or during the course of strategy reviews. This section of the report therefore sets out a methodology for monitoring and reviewing the operations of specialist squads. The methodology was labelled ‘ARCA’, because it seeks to show how essential management data can be provided on the Activities performed by squads, the Resources and Costs involved in each operation and the resultant Achievement. Types of activities undertaken by squads Each of the main types of specialist squads (drugs, fraud, child protection, stolen vehicles and major crime) are substantially project based. For most of their time officers in these squads are investigating cases or undertaking operations. Typically, the squad members will be dealing with only a limited number of cases or operations at one time. Recognising this style of work, the proposed methodology aims to obtain data about the work of specialist squads built around the time spent on each project or case undertaken. This approach is similar to that used in many other types of business, in the public as well as the private sector, for managing staff whose activities are primarily project-based. The requirement is for information on progress about projects, accompanied by detailed information about the amount of time and other resources used to conduct them. ARCA: Monitoring the Activities, Resource use and Cost, and Achievements of squads By accounting separately for all cases or operations carried out by squads, the methodology generates the basic ‘building blocks’ of a broader assessment package for each squad as a whole. The main elements of the approach were: 7
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• A brief, clear statement of the objective of each case/operation. This should include details of the case itself, such as the number of victims and nature of their injuries/losses, or the value of property at risk, lost or damaged. To meet the requirements of the established guidance on specialist squads, this information should include the sources of operations/cases (e.g., the BCU or other ‘customers’). • Developing a simple procedure to record the amount of time spent by each squad officer on each case. This would distinguish the several identifiable stages through which operations/cases typically progress. For example: – initial appraisal and planning – approval of the operation, or allocation of the case, to one or more officers with an initial budget of time and costs (e.g. “undertake 200 hours of work and report back”) – arrest (including charges/no charges) – papers to CPS – court proceedings – post trial activities. In devising their own categories, forces will wish to pay regard to the Home Office/HMIC manual of guidance on activity sampling. • Determining the cost of each case or project, using ‘ready reckoner’ staff costs to give a reliable full costing of resources. • On completion, the provision of information on the outcome of the project: in terms of achievement against the objectives and other indications specific to the work of the squad. Such indicators might include any arrests, charges or drugs seized or intelligence acquired. But note that many charges preferred as a result of squads’ work apply only to a sample of offences, concentrating on the strongest evidence. • Recording abstractions. Officers spend some of their time in non-investigation, nonoperational activities. Accordingly, the staffing resources actually available to be deployed will, at any one time, fall short of the resources apparently allocated to an activity. These ‘abstractions’ from functional availability should be recorded, and taken into consideration when calculating operational costings. The data on cases and operations and weekly timesheets completed by squad officers could be built into a databank of information capable of representing the work of each specialist squad - in monthly (and thereafter quarterly, etc.) summaries. The ARCA ‘template’ is set out in more detail in Appendix B.
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Implementing ARCA The ARCA approach was piloted in two forces, Thames Valley and West Yorkshire. In total, fourteen squads operated in these two forces and the ARCA approach was trialled in all of them. The following paragraphs contain a brief description and assessment of these experiments. Stage One: consultation and preparation of data collection instruments The researchers consulted with officers involved in the specialist squads, their managers and ACPO ranks to determine the individual force information requirements from the ARCA methodology. Most had no pre-conceived requirements. But when advised of the possibilities, each requested slightly different information. Some were content with the information requirements inherent in ARCA: some wanted additional details on members’ activities for certain squads, some detailed information on the time spent on core activities and on clerical duties, and some a comprehensive activity analysis for the job of their squad. The ARCA approach was flexible enough to cope with this range of requirements, though not without some problems needing solutions. Data collection forms were designed to allocate all the time and resources spent by squad officers - including overtime, subsistence and mileage - to individual cases and activities. For squads which did not use operation names or case reference numbers it was necessary to ‘invent’ reference numbers when new work began. Officers recorded on a separate form the case background, customer, achievement, type of crime, scale of crime (if appropriate), victims, and details of other ‘inputs’ such as work by agencies, BCU officers, or surveillance teams. Examples of the timesheets maintained by officers are shown in Appendix C. A guiding principle was to keep the forms simple to use. However some squads themselves opted to use more comprehensive activity lists. One force, for example required detailed activity codes for its fraud squad. Stage Two - ‘selling’ ARCA and briefing squads ARCA was introduced informally. Generally the head of the squad agreed to introduce the data collection forms to the squad members. In this way the completion of ‘time management’ forms, as one squad member described them, was given a force impetus. Squad members accept the ARCA process more if it is introduced, and strongly supported, by the head of squad. The more active the involvement of managers, especially middle managers, the more reliable the data.
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Piloting the scheme, where this was possible, was beneficial for both the squad members and the analyst. Squad members were able to get to know the forms and the analyst was able to overcome problems prior to launching the system. The one major problem that arose during the data collection phase was in collecting relevant information on the work of force intelligence officers in one of the two forces. In that force, different officers were permanently assigned to specialist intelligence tasks: for example, force antiques officer, observation van officer, prison liaison officer. For such officers little value could be obtained by recording their activities in detail under ‘project headings’. The time and activity record forms were redesigned to be relevant to the force and ‘marketed’ comprehensively to regain the confidence of the officers involved. The suitability of ARCA for different types of squad During the implementation of ARCA it was apparent that some squads - particularly those operating most frequently on a ‘team’ basis, and geared to handling quite distinct assignments - found this type of data collection particularly easy. Thus if a squad such as a surveillance team worked as one team on one project at a time, ARCA information could be gained with relatively little effort. In contrast the activities of a squad such as force intelligence, where individuals worked on numerous tasks, which were generally not ‘project-orientated’, were not so easily recorded: furthermore, in this situation, squad members were very slow and erratic in providing ARCA information. Table 1 indicates, for typical squads, the proportion of project based work and of time spent working as one team. Table 1: Primary characteristics of the work of key squads Squad
Project-based work
Surveillance
High
Frequent
Force Intelligence
Low
Rare
Fraud
High
Rare
Drugs
Medium
Medium
Child Protection
High
Rare
Stolen Vehicles
Low
Rare
Crime
High
Medium
10
One team
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Resource requirements for data collection and analysis The ARCA data was analysed using a proprietary time sheet recording and analysis package, Time$heet Professional. This package is commonly used by professional firms such as architects, project managers, and accountants to process staff time and task records on a project basis both for project management and accounting. A variety of similar packages is available. The collation and analysis of data from the fourteen squads was time-consuming, a consideration that needs to be taken into account by any force before implementing ARCA or a similar programme of activity analysis. Table 2 gives an estimate of the manpower implications for one force with six squads. Table 2: Time taken to input and analyse ARCA reports Squad
No. of officers
Time to input one week’s data (days)
Time to produce report (days)
Fraud
25
1
2
Drugs
15
0.5
2
Surveillance
26
0.5
2
Child Protection
20
0.75
2
Force Intelligence
25
1
2
Any Other
16
1
2
TOTAL
127
4.75
12
This calculation is based on a crude estimate that each timesheet submitted by a squad officer takes 10-15 minutes to validate and input, and some additional time to complete data analysis and the preparation of reports. The time estimates to input data and produce reports are approximate. They may well be longer depending on the complexity of the data collection forms. And, of course, the quality of inputs (and hence reports) will depend on the time taken in marketing the process. Based on these estimates, the implementation of ARCA in a typical force with six squads would probably require a full-time analyst, as well as a part-time clerk to help input data, besides an appropriate software package and computer facilities to process and analyse the data. Yet this resource requirement for data analysis must be met if the ARCA methodology is to provide reliable and timely feedback of reports to squads and their managers.
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4. Management reports from ARCA ARCA offers a mechanism for collecting relevant information about the individual operations conducted by different squads. An example of the way in which ARCA data was presented from the ‘operations perspective’ is shown in Table 3. This management report on the two surveillance units in Force B shows: – how many man days the two units used on each of the nine operations they undertook during the four week reporting period; – the associated cost including overtime, travelling and other out of pocket expenses; – the degree of success achieved in each operation; – and the overall resource use and cost of £39,739 (totalling 339 man-days) In this example, four of the nine operations undertaken achieved their objective. Two were partially successful and one operation was continued into a subsequent period. Sixty-five per cent of the available time of the squad’s staff was used in operational activity. Graphical presentation helps squad managers and senior management to comprehend the detail provided in the management reports. Figure 1 provides an example of a simple breakdown of the ARCA data: showing how much of the time of squad officers and associated costs was taken up in operational activity, and how much of this was successful. Figure 1: Activities of Surveillance Units Force B Resources Used in Operations Man-Days
Abstractions
Achieved Objectives
Aborted- No Criminal Activity Continuing To Another Period
12
Partially Achieved Objectives
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Table 3: Activities of surveillance units (Force B) Management report for Intellegence Support Teams Period 5:
20 June to 17 July 1994
During the four week duration of Period 5 the Intelligence Suport Team (ISTs) worked on nine operations. IST I performed surveillance on five operations and IST II on four. One of IST I’s operations, Olive 2, developed from operation Olive. In total four of the operations were successful, two partially successful, one operation was continued to the next period, and two operations were unsuccessful.
IST I’s achievements Operations which achieved their objectives: Olive Olive 2
Total Man Days
Total Cost (£s)
Source of Operation
52 10
5,5906 763
BCU 1 BCU 1
55
5,565
BCU 1
28 9
2,689 610
BCU 3 BCU 4
Total Man Days
Total Cost (£s)
Source of Operation
121 17
12,053 1,449
BCU 5 BCU 6
43 4
4,864 398
BCU 6 BCU 7
339
34,301
Two
Operations partially achieving their objectives: Nil Operations continuing to another period: Bowling
One
Operations aborted - no criminal activity: Kinetic Lilac
Two
Operations not achieving their objectives due to incorrect intelligence or the surveillance being compromised:
Nil
IST II’s achievements Operations which achieved their objectives: Platinum Lacrosse
Two
Operations partially achieving their objectives: Two Cormorant Barnes Operations contiuing to another period:
Nil
Operations aborted - no criminal activity:
Nil
Operations not achieving their objectives due to incorrect intelligence or the surveillance being compromised:
Nil
GRAND TOTAL
Results: The operations which achieved their objectives had some good results: Platinum: Eleven persons arrested, £95,000 of stolen computers recovered. Olive: Five persons arrested and four charged with burglary of dwellings. One person arrested and charged with handling offences. £4,000 stolen property recovered including one stolen vehicle. Olive 2: Two arrested for burglary. Lacrosse: Person arrested subsequently on the intelligence gained from surveillance. Further information on all the operations is attached. Operations figures Normal time hours performed mobile surveillance on operations Normal time hours abstracted Total normal time worked (abstractions and mobile surveillance) Normal time hours available
2,980 hours 1,608 hours 4,588 hours 4,624 hours
Percentage of time devoted to operations
65%
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More detailed analysis categories were used when managers wanted to know the time taken by the different activities of squad members. Table 4 shows the results for a fraud squad. Over the three month period of the ARCA trial, seventy eight per cent of the total available time of officers in this squad was spent on activities related to investigation. Within this heading the largest part (61% of investigation) was directly involved in the “main investigation”. Other activities under the overall investigation heading included file preparation (11%) and preliminary enquiries (8%). Table 4: Activities of fraud squad (Force A) Time spent on activities Periods 1-3 [Hours per 28 day period] ACTIVITY
Period 1 Period 2 Period 3
Total to % Main % Overall Date Activity Total
1. Investigation Related Main Investigation File Preparation Preliminary Enquiries Case Management Court Conferences Data analysis Assist Divisions Finalisation Disclosure Liaison with Agency Financial Inst. Liaison Liaison Assistance Past Div. Work Research Property Disposal
3,724 2,1401 480 300 202 223 89 38 43 43 60 2 37 9 34 25 1 9
2,844 1,752 117 265 165 138 67 82 68 65 49 31 19 16 1
10,265 6,297 1,103 867 528 391 239 151 145 120 111 100 82 43 35 30 17 9
100.00% 61.34% 10.75% 8.44% 5.14% 3.81% 2.33% 1.47% 1.41% 1.16% 1.08% 0.97% 0.79% 0.42% 0.34% 0.29% 0.17% 0.09%
77.90%
2. Administration Supervision/Admin. Welfare & Counselling Case Management System Working Party
417 391 26 47 9
332 247 29 27
1,047 876 89
7.95%
9
100.00% 83.65% 8.50% 7.04% 0.81%
3. Training Secondment Training CID Course
238 109 57 73
145 145
218 145 73
601 399 129 73
100.00% 66.40% 21.52% 12.07%
4.56%
4. Leave
176
480
416
1,072
100.00%
8.14%
176
192
5. Sick OVERALL TOTAL
5 16
16 4,570
3,698 2,406 507 302 161 30 83 31 34 12 3 67 25 19
4,807 14
299 238 34 74
13,177
1.46% 100.00%
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It is up to force management to choose the breakdown in activities that they wish to monitor. This example did not specifically identify travelling time, which can be a concern in geographically large or congested forces. A third use for ARCA is to monitor how the work of the squads originates, the costs of operations and outcome. Table 5 shows in which BCU area, or from what other source, the work of the fraud squad had originated, the amount of police time directed towards each operation, and the cost. This data is presented graphically in Figure 2. Table 5: Time spent on investigative activities by division of origin and cost (West Yorkshire fraud squad) Customer
Bradford Central, GA Calder Valley, FD Chapeltown, Ac Dewsbury, EC Eccleshill, HA Halifax, FA
Normal Hours
Periods 1- 3 Overtime Total Cost Total Hours Rest Day (£) (Period 3) To Date Hours
Total Cost to date (£)
397
8,481
1,098
23,130
1
29
25
501
4,456
487
10,279
200
14
326
200
10
9 5
91
7
146
36
801
147
3,196
Holbeck, CA
110
5
2,564
238
5,310
Huddersfield, EA
413
19
9,084
1,264
26,655
Keighley, HD
123
6
2,584
424
8,558
Kilingbeck, BB
576
78
12,988
1,464
28,769
Millgarth, BA6
689
31
15,069
2,314
48,226
Odsal, GC Pontefract, DC Pudsey, CD
20
398
122
2,431
122
2,564
396
8,211
88
2
1,932
118
2,547
Toller Lane, HB
125
29
3,089
336
7,547
Total – Divisions
3,223
183
71,167
9,325
194,124
16
0
327
95
1,992
692
1
15,651
2,051
45,517
260
7,249
0
433
53
726
11
16,410
2,459
56,035
3,949
193
87,578
11,784
250,160
Other Squads Fraud Squad-Direct Headquarters Other Forces & Agencies Total – Other TOTAL
19
15
1,278
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Figure 2: Fraud squad time worked Fraud Squad Time Worked Analysed by Customer Divisions
Millgarth, BA
Total - Other
Kilingbeck, BB Total Other Divisions
Huddersfield, EA Chapeltown, AC Wakefield, DA
Bradford Central, GA
Assessing costs During the pilot, management used information generated by ARCA to scrutinise whether projects were successful, in terms of what was achieved and at what cost. Cost comparisons were made between projects with the staff component based on daily cost rates for each of the police ranks, drawn from the ‘ready reckoners’ available in the forces. A set of standardised rates for each rank was used to simplify the exercise. If the assessment is wider, for example, a comparison between different squads or BCU teams, the hourly rates used should reflect the relevant costs of the staff concerned. Some elements of the cost may differ substantially between squads. For example, staff in surveillance units undertake substantial and expensive surveillance training before they are effective, and they need a considerable amount of specialised equipment. More accurate costing of the activities of squads should take these supplementary costs into account in calculating appropriate daily rates for different ranks. Measuring performance Management information about the activities of specialist squads, and the way resources are deployed needs to include regular reports of the achievements of the squad. Each of the main types of squad would merit the development of specific 16
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measures of performance. If measures of performance are reported regularly they should affect the activities undertaken by the squad: indeed, it may be argued that this is the point of having them. Care must therefore be taken in designing and operating performance measures so that inappropriate strategies are not adopted: for example concentrating on easy targets and avoiding difficult operations to pursue serious and dangerous criminals. Although some forces had established performance measures which were reported regularly (particularly in relation to numbers of cases investigated and numbers of arrests), it was not possible within the scope of the research to develop and test specific performance measures for each type of squad. Nevertheless, some of the considerations in assessing the performance of different types of specialist squad are discussed in the following paragraphs. The main targets of drugs squads are active ‘professional’ dealers, whose apprehension represents a ‘quality’ arrest: in many cases leading to the disruption of a whole distribution network. It would therefore appear reasonable to seek a measure of performance for drugs squads which would reflect the volume (or perhaps street value?) of drug trading frustrated as a result of apprehending the drugs squad’s targets and disabling their network. Evaluating the volume of the drug trade blocked or disrupted by each arrest must almost inevitably be based on the judgement of squad officers themselves or others ‘intimate’ with their work: but the evaluations should be capable of being defended against rigorous challenge from senior management. It may be noted that this approach is followed by HM Customs and Excise (HMC&E)in reporting on the performance of its investigation divisions. A fuller discussion of performance indicators for drugs is contained in Chatterton et al, 1995. Similarly, the targets of stolen vehicle squads are often active criminals involved in vehicle theft as a full time occupation. In these cases too, the total volume or value of crime frustrated could provide a useful measure of performance. By contrast, in most cases fraud squads deal with cases where the offenders are not previously known to the police as regular criminals. (Although Levi (1988) describes typical ‘long firm’ frauds and how they are committed by established criminals.) The measure used by the Metropolitan and City of London Fraud Squads in reporting on their activities has, in the past, been the “amount of money at risk in cases under investigation”. But, as Levi and others have pointed out, this is a measure of the work in hand, not the work actually being progressed and completed. Perhaps in the case of fraud, a better indicator would be the estimated value of fraud dealt with in cases completed by the fraud squad during a period. Drugs, stolen vehicles, fraud and family protection squads exist, broadly, to take on cases of a kind which are not dealt with by BCUs. Surveillance units, by contrast, 17
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exist to provide a service both to BCUs and other ‘customers’. The appropriate measure for these units is whether or not the operations achieve the objectives defined by customers. It is up to them to weigh up whether the benefits achieved through the operations are commensurate with the costs, which ARCA can spell out clearly for them. The ‘four by four’ system of grading intelligence items (used by all forces) already incorporates measures of the quality of intelligence. One appropriate measure of the activities of intelligence units might be the numbers of items and quality of intelligence generated in a period. But this would reflect only ‘inputs’ to the intelligence systems. It would also be appropriate to investigate later ‘outputs’, such as the number of enquiries to intelligence systems and the number and quality of intelligence items accessed. Assessments could be made of the number of operations launched as a result of intelligence appraisals, and of those which proved successful. While there were initial doubts about the need for the activities of the child protection units (including family protection and domestic violence) units to be included in the coverage of ARCA, the exercise proved that these squads too, can benefit from identifying the extent of the inputs involved in operations and cases. But these squads do not deal, on the whole, with criminals who offend as a livelihood and the outputs achieved by these squads cannot be easily measured against financial parameters. Rather, they need to be considered in relation to the numbers of cases, or of victims, dealt with. Continual monitoring or ‘dip samples’? Activity sampling within police forces has been around for some time. It was developed as part of a series of measures to improve the ability to analyse the use made of police resources. An activity sampling package, based on a core list of incident and activity types, was launched jointly by the Home Office and HMIC in April 1992 to provide a clearer picture of what police officers do during the course of their duties, when they do it and how they are deployed. By contrast ARCA is aimed at providing data on the resources and costs involved in each operation and the result of the operation. It is also different in that it should not be regarded as a technique which could be used over a limited period of time to “dip sample” the activities of specialist squads. Rather, it should be regarded as a way of monitoring activity on a continuous basis, which can be useful both to the head of squad and to more senior management to enable them to keep in touch with the nature of the work being undertaken by the squad, the achievements and use of resources. It will therefore usually be appropriate to report on the results for a particular period in relation to the results for the year to date, and the targets and objectives set out in business plans and force planning more generally.
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Even the limited experience of ARCA showed that the reports of activity for any one month can be atypical and that some variations in month to month activity should be expected. The use made of ARCA data ARCA provides not only data about how much time squad members spent on different activities, but also more management-oriented information on the time and cost associated with individual operations. The management reports shown in Tables 4.1 and 4.3. indicate how much of the squad’s work was on undertaking operations originating from each BCU or other source, and the success achieved. As well as providing this basic breakdown, the report sequence - over a number of periods enabled Force B to see that operations originating from particular BCUs were more likely to lead to successful outcomes which were completed at a lower cost. This management information corresponded with senior management’s views that these sources were providing better packages to the surveillance unit. The ARCA management information indicated to BCU commanders both the cost of the surveillance packages they were putting forward and how better quality packages were more cost effective. The ARCA pilot was undertaken in a context where only a limited amount of information had previously been available, and where the requirements of all management levels were quite ill-defined. Given this background, it was not surprising that initial reactions to ARCA management reports were sometimes either muted, or only mildly positive: “Very interesting but don’t know what to do with it.” “The system just checks that officers are working all the time they are supposed to.” “The only information I did not know was the cost of operations. But it’s interesting to see the annual leave hours and to keep annual leave monitored. Could see when the influxes were.” “Seeing how much time is spent on all the activities was interesting and helpful.” “Costing of operations was not very helpful as decision-making is not cost orientated. Though the hours spent on activities could help the force to see how much time officers work.” Experience, however, showed that once initial reports had been provided to heads of squads, ‘tuning’ of the timesheet recording and of the reports was often requested; and, once an initial picture had been obtained, heads of squads not infrequently
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wanted more detailed analysis and to be able to examine particular issues. At this stage the comments of users tended to be much more positive, and also geared towards more constructive applications of the data: “Very useful exercise in time management. Showed healthy trends and enabled department to go to force with real information. Hope to be able to deal with one activity better.” “Missed out on finding what divisions are visited the most. Would have been helpful to know so that satellite offices could have been found.” “We are doing too much administration and I am now dealing with that.” In other words, the heads of squads first needed to have the experience of using and evaluating the information in order to start to work out how they could obtain the most value from it, and to tune what was provided to their particular requirements. What was gained from the reports depended on how personally interested the manager was in management information. Management teams drew different conclusions which depended on their force’s philosophy on the activities of the squads. But the ARCA process proved to be sufficiently flexible to the different management demands. Developing the potential of ARCA is, thus, an incremental process. It is unlikely that it will be right first time. It needs to be continuously developed to keep up with the changing needs of managers. In the short time available to run field trials of ARCA, no attempt was made to look beyond meeting the basic requirements of the officers in squads and their various tiers of management. But the information accrued within the system could, with relative ease, be used to set ‘norms’ to assist squads in maintaining some consistency in their approaches. For example, if - on the basis of past experience - a fraud involving a certain amount of money at risk has attracted a given amount of operational activity by the fraud squad, this information could provide the basis for triggering ‘alerts’ if expenditure on any case was running outside ‘normal’ parameters.
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5. ARCA in context: Implications for the future Financial management information in public services For some time HMIC has required forces to provide a wide range of statistics to describe the context and activities of the force. The resulting ‘matrix of indicators’ has been used to guide HMIC’s work of inspection. More recently the Home Office, HMIC, ACPO and the Audit Commission have co-operated in implementing a more manageable and robust suite of performance measures. In addition, the Home Secretary now sets key objectives for the police service which represent the main priorities that the service should be tackling nationwide. Police authorities and chief constables must have regard to these key objectives in discharging their functions. The key objectives are supported by performance indicators so that achievements against the objectives can be assessed. This is in the context of much greater emphasis in all public sector activities on defining performance indicators, setting targets for achievement and relating achievements and outputs to the use of resources: in short, the requirement to account quite specifically for the value provided for the money spent. Within the private sector the culture of ‘performance management’ has been developed widely in the approach to managing both large and small scale activities. A similar emphasis can now be seen throughout central and local government, including the fields of defence, health, social services and the environment, as well as activities with closer links with the commercial world, such as trade and industry. The government’s green paper on drug misuse paid particular attention to the definition of targets and the development of appropriate measures of performance, although the subsequent White Paper took a less prescriptive approach on performance indicators. A relevant example is also provided by the work of HMC&E. At an overall level the Management Plan and business plans for HMC&E are set out in a published document which itemises the ‘key results’ which HMC&E aims to achieve over each of the next three years and the relevant performance measures. At the divisional level, the Investigation Division has a management plan, with associated performance measures: the main measure being an assessment of the value of drugs prevented from entering the UK. This measure is based on assessment by management of the results achieved and is validated, as far as possible, through a rigorous process of review by more senior management. Cresswell et al (1993) in reporting the results of a study of burdens on the police service of post arrest paperwork defined ‘Performance Management’ as: “the restructuring of all operations to relate specifically to accountability for agreed and measured objectives”. These agreed and measured objectives do not exist across the wider criminal justice system, which was the subject of their research. Cresswell and his colleagues therefore stressed the difficulty, in the absence of a framework of performance management, of achieving significant improvement in the use of police resources. 21
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The Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act 1994 provides a framework for managing and improving police performance. Each police authority must now publish an annual policing plan incorporating the Home Secretary’s key objectives, the local policing objectives and any performance targets set. The plan must also give details of the financial resources expected to be available and their proposed allocation. The chief officer must have regard to the plan in discharging his functions. The annual policing plan will need to be supported by departmental/BCU level plans and should form part of a longer term plan for the force. At the end of the year, the police authority must publish a report on the extent to which the plan has been met. Together with the wider Audit Commission/ACPO/HMIC suite of performance indicators covering a range of activities, this provides a framework within which each chief officer manages the performance of his force. For most forces, performance management is provided in the context of improved management accounting. In the majority this is at an early stage, and accounting structures deal with quite broad headings. Nevertheless some forces are coming to cost major activities through the use of daily cost rates for different ranks and grades of both police and civilian staff. But, more typically, forces consider the costs of operations by specialist squads only in terms of the overtime and travelling costs. In at least one force each operation by certain specialist squads is now given a unique financial coding and cost data, especially of travelling and overtime costs, are accumulated and reported for each operation, thus developing the basic ingredients of the ARCA methodology within an existing data gathering structure. It is not a long step also to include standard costs for time spent on the operation during the normal working day. To illustrate the arguments for a broader approach, contrast an operation during which no overtime or travelling costs were incurred, but which took up many mandays of police time, with another operation which took few man-days, but involving overtime and travelling costs. The time of police officers is not unlimited and it is illogical to suggest that the first operation was undertaken at no cost or that the second had a significantly greater cost. Forces considering the need for management information about the activities of their squads would be well advised to investigate first whether this can be achieved through developing existing mechanisms, or even by ‘piggy backing’ ARCA onto other administrative requirements. By the same token, the information gathered within the ARCA methodology could also provide a basis for payment of overtime and subsistence claims, monitoring time off, annual leave and rest days.
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The case for management information Until recently, the motivation accurately to monitor and evaluate the work of specialist squads has been weak. The evidence from the five host forces suggest that the data currently collected by squads are essentially concerned with what might be labelled ‘crime control outcomes’ - such as the number of operations carried out, the arrests achieved, property recovered or other valued by-products (such as intelligence reports). Gauging these outcomes is necessary, but monitoring the cost of achieving them - a key feature of the ARCA approach - is also critical if the service is to meet increased expectations of financial accountability. In the past, the police service lacked a culture of financial accountability and so failed to collect information about costs. On the other hand, the service has long been used to another form of accountability: maintaining records of officers’ activities, particularly in the pursuit of crime enquiries. A culture of record-keeping is, therefore, entrenched in the service. This has been a distinct advantage in promoting activity surveys and the record-keeping disciplines required for tighter financial scrutiny. From 1 April 1995, the central government police grant has been cash-limited. Funds are distributed between forces on the basis of relative need. Within the fixed sum available, forces now have freedom to decide how best to spend the money to obtain the best mix and balance of resources. The Home Office Code of Practice on Financial Management encourages police authorities and chief officers to delegate financial management so as to align financial, managerial and operational responsibility at all levels. This places additional pressure on Chief Constables to ‘manage the money’, and to account for the way in which the cake is divided between different activities. The new arrangements will not require Chief Constables to account separately for the cost of different police activities, such as central squads. Indeed in an operational sense, they offer senior commanders more flexibility in operating such squads. But the new arrangements, and the relationship between the new police authorities and the forces they exist to supervise, will demand that different police activities are more accurately accounted for in relation to the overall police budget. An analogy with the private sector is appropriate. Businesses are required to produce annual accounts, but there is no corresponding compulsion to produce monthly management accounts. Nevertheless, the day-to-day operations of virtually all significant businesses are monitored by monthly accounts, which separate out the cost and income associated with their different operations, and they would find it well nigh impossible to manage the business effectively without this information.
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ARCA: what it can achieve and what it will cost The ARCA pilot showed how management information could be used to: • provide day-to-day monitoring of squad activity; • assist in managing the resources allocated to cases; • ensure that squads are working within force-wide strategic aims. • cost the activities of squads; • identify inefficiencies (such as high levels of abstractions); • provide comparative data which can be used to identify ‘best practice’ - or even poor practice: for example, in showing different times taken to complete comparable cases - say in different divisions; • prompt other management queries (on, for example, the size of squads). Implementing ARCA, as in collecting any sort of management information, has its costs: • it imposes significant set up costs. The work involved in marketing ARCA is substantial. This is true at three different levels: ACPO ranks; heads of squads; and for individual squad members. In addition to ‘marketing’ the principles, there are the costs associated with purchasing software and setting up systems, both to process the data and to use it in managing the work of squads. • running costs are significant. Implementing ARCA fully would probably require the equivalent of one full time civilian post for every 100 officers covered by the scheme in any force. Accordingly, ARCA, especially in the elaborate form in which it was implemented for this study, will only be an appropriate methodology to apply for a very few forces. And before implementing it, a force must judge whether the improved use of resources expected to follow from the use of ARCA would yield an (at least one per cent) increase in performance sufficient to defray the cost of the system. The case for squads This investigation commenced with the implicit understanding that conducting investigations, or particular policing functions, through a specialist squad was one option available to the police service: the alternative being that this work could be devolved to BCUs. The research found that most squads had been in existence for some considerable time, and were considered to be more or less permanent, and also that many senior
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officers regarded the BCU option as unviable for most of the work undertaken by squads. They argued that national agreements or the requirement for the force to provide one point of contact, were in themselves effectively ‘directives’ to deal with these matters through specialist squads. For these officers, ARCA provided information that could be used to tune and re-direct squad activities, rather than to address the need to set up or continue such units. The research also found that different squads are set up for entirely different reasons. The debate should therefore be centred not on whether squads per se are necessary but the validity of the reasons for each type of squad. For example, arguments for the most commonly deployed squads are: Drugs squads are necessary to implement ACPO drugs policy. Without suitable numbers of specially trained officers on drugs issues, able to operate under-cover and to draw on targeted intelligence, policing of drugs would concentrate on street dealers and users and fail to tackle the source of drugs. Fraud squads are the only realistic organisational structures targeting financial irregularities and for making the often protracted enquiries required. Fraud squads are also needed to provide a local point of contact for SFO to pursue such enquiries nationally and internationally. Issues relating to the protection of children require the deployment of trained officers with a disposition to carry out this work. Only through a central squad, however, can the police play their part in the nationally agreed inter-agency framework for handling such issues. Surveillance activity requires sophisticated equipment that is often too costly to be available widely, the deployment of officers well trained in the use of this equipment and fully aware of the practical and quite complex legal constraints of such activity. The argument and the counter arguments need to be weighed for each type of squad in each force. This process could, in some instances, indicate some form of middle ground: such as one where an individual or smaller specialist team operate centrally and provide the necessary professional support for mainstream investigations to be carried out within BCUs. Either way, management information about the ‘classic’ alternatives - squad or BCU - should be invaluable in reaching a sound judgement. ARCA management information on the activities of specialist squads, is not in itself sufficient to decide how to organise specialist policing work. The ‘squad’ management information must be compared with corresponding data on the activities, and outcomes, of similar work conducted within BCUs. The interpretation
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of what constitutes ‘similar work’ is likely to be contentious. Individual forces could perhaps resolve these dilemmas by running trials with the squad and BCU, but senior officers would need to interpret the results of any such exercise carefully, and be cautious in extending their use to other contexts. Squads: service providers for BCUs? One view of squads is that they should exist entirely to meet the needs of their ‘customers’, the BCUs. The strongest proponents of this come from those forces that have most enthusiastically devolved management and local accountability to BCUs. While all of the five forces surveyed in this enquiry could be ranked as ‘early converts’ to that philosophy, it is still one that constitutes a quite radical break with the previous, centralised, management traditions of the police service and it will inevitably take time for its wholesale adoption. Service level agreements provide a structure for defining the services which squads will provide for BCUs or other external ‘clients’: but at the time of the research service-level agreements were implemented effectively in the host forces only for surveillance units and, to a lesser extent, intelligence units. This is not to infer that all other forms of squad activities do not ‘serve’ the BCUs. Forces clearly experienced difficulties in operationalising agreements for many activities. Carrying out surveillance or providing intelligence to local areas are services which the local area can identify and request, but investigating the activities of drug dealers who have only come to notice through prior work of a drugs squad, may still constitute a service for a BCU, even if it has not actually been requested. Much of the work of squads is ‘self-generated’. This practice marked divided thinking amongst the forces in this study. Some were quite ready to accept as self-evident and quite unproblematic that squads generated their own work; others argued the relevant BCU would have to be advised of the reasons and give their support to such self-generated operations or enquiries within local areas. ‘Quality’ outcomes versus ‘Quantity’ Another important strand in the debate about different management philosophies centres on the fairly widespread belief amongst CID officers that any arrangement which will render squads purely as BCU ‘service providers’ will result in too great a focus on tangible measures that can be achieved with the minimum outlay. The archetypal argument is that BCUs required to meet local demands to control drug taking will inevitably focus all their efforts on ‘street’ users - the easy prey - and give little or no attention to targeting the supply line, on the basis that arrests of dealers are more difficult (and ‘costly’) to achieve. To many in the CID this ‘quality versus quantity’ controversy is heightened by their belief that national agencies - like the 26
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Regional Crime Squads (RCS) or NCIS - have restricted their focus on an increasingly narrow band of very serious offenders operating at national or regional levels, leaving a wider rump of offenders for force squads to handle. This controversy was not a major issue during the ARCA trial, because evaluation of the data was restricted to officers who were knowledgeable about the specific cases and also the wider strategic direction of each squad. It would, however, be more evident if similar information were used to make comparisons between squads, or by those not knowledgeable about particular cases, (e.g. BCU commanders or Police Authority members). While this issue is unlikely to be one that is easily resolved to the satisfaction of all parties, the ARCA pilot gave some pointers to good practice. It proved to be important to include in management reports, descriptions of the objective of each operation - incorporating an indication of the seriousness of each case (such as the amount of loss incurred or at risk; the number of people harmed and their vulnerability; or the likelihood that the offence will be repeated), based on objectives defined by external customers. Squads could impose some common classification standards, and in turn develop ‘seriousness’ ratings. One welcome comment by an officer involved in the ARCA trials was the observation that furnishing details of the costs of each operation curtailed the inclination of squads to devote “just a little more effort” to long-running cases, in the hope of securing additional evidence. Such discipline will certainly need to become more common when resources are scarce, complementing rather than replacing professional judgement. Management systems like ARCA can assist such thinking by drawing on the ‘knowledge base’ of previous cases, to establish typical parameters such as the resources and cost normally deployed on operations for cases of a given seriousness. This information should be used to help management achieve a better spread of resources between competing demands, while retaining sufficient flexibility to take into consideration the unique features of each operation. Principal lessons This action research showed that the appropriate data could be collected without placing too great a burden on squads themselves, and that the management reports produced as a result were valued. The five key lessons for other forces thinking of using a methodology such as ARCA are that: • implementation has to be driven from the top. Any reporting requirements impose both on the time and autonomy of staff. The collection of data requires force commanders to demand such information, and line managers, particularly in the early stages, to enforce the discipline of record keeping.
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ARCA IN CONTEXT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE
• data collection should be kept simple. The ARCA pilot adopted this principle by focusing primarily on the cases or operations carried out by squads, and on accounting only for reasonably broad categorisations of activity. In addition, management reports were directed at operation costs and outcomes, not at the work of individual squad members. More complex data is harder to collect, and more prone to error. It also leads to difficulty in understanding the resulting reports. • data collection should - where possible - be integrated with other reporting requirements. This warrants careful consideration in all forces. It may be, for example, that existing sources already hold data on the resources deployed to different operations, and that separate data collection on the activities performed in an operation would be unnecessary. • the data requirements of each squad will vary. ARCA offers a common structure that can be tailored to meet the varied nature of the work performed by different squads. • data requirements will grow. Even in the limited timespan of this trial, the information demanded by managers of squads (and indeed their members) rapidly grew in sophistication. The implication - that ‘information fuels the need for more information’ - is one well known in the systems world. If this point is recognised from the outset, it reinforces the case for starting from small beginnings, and for incremental development thereafter.
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RECOMMENDATIONS
6. Recommendations The research has shown that the activities performed by squads are seldom routinely monitored against agreed operational objectives, and that of the case for a squad is seldom reviewed. Little evidence was found of the use of performance indicators for specialist units, or of any concentrated routines of management review for setting goals and monitoring progress. The data which was collected was used by heads of squads for their own purposes: there was little (or no) evidence of direct involvement or the interrogative use of management information by ACPO rank officers. There were no attempts to assess, or control, the cost of specialist units on a total cost basis. And where reviews of the work of squads were carried out, these were chiefly one-off reviews, focused on terms of reference and organisational forms. (“This is what we want the squad to do: and they can do it with these resources.”). These weaknesses could be offset by alternative mechanisms, such as business plans and service level agreements, which provide a basis for squad managers to determine priorities in the work undertaken by squads, given the terms of reference defined by senior management. Despite this, service level agreements were not much used except in the case of surveillance units, and many CID officers thought them inappropriate. Present arrangements do not, therefore, provide forces with effective arrangements for monitoring the overall activities of specialist squads on a continuous basis. But financial management will become more important with the arrangements for accountability which forces will experience when the new police authorities begin to meet their responsibilities. The main recommendations of this research therefore, are based not only on existing weaknesses but the new environment in which forces now operate. They are that: • forces should develop arrangements for financial management accounting which will demonstrate the relationship between the activities, outcomes, and the use of resources. Arrangements should include procedures for the development of business plans and service level agreements: and routine reports of progress in relation to objectives and plans. • managers of specialist squads should themselves make use of, and provide to their own senior and ACPO level management, information about the activities of their squad. This should include information on achievements, as well as the time and costs related to operations and cases; and of non-operational activities such as training. • training should be provided for managers of specialist squads, related to the specific problems of managing such squads: including the use of business plans and service level agreements and how to use financial management information.
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This should be an essential precondition to increased devolution of financial management to squad managers. • policies on the management of squads, such as tenure, can seldom follow uniform lines: they should be locally determined, having regard to the nature of particular squads. • reviews of the activities of specialist squads are necessary, and should be focused on the range of issues affecting each particular type of squad: they should not set out to reach general conclusions about all specialist squads. The Force Guide, published as an accompanying document, contains a decision tree to guide reviews of specialist squads together with guidance on business planning, service level agreements and the use of management information.
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REFERENCES
References ACPO Crime Committee Report of a Sub-Group considering the use of Specialist Squads ACPO Crime Committee (1986) Final Report of Working Party on Drugs-Related Crime (‘Broome Report’) Audit Commission (1990) Effective Policing - Performance Review in Police Forces. Number 8. December 1990 London : Audit Commission Audit Commission (1993) Helping with Enquiries : Tackling Crime Effectively. London HMSO Brown J and Campbell E (1991) “Less than Equal” Policing Vol. 7 No 4 Brown, D (1991) Investigating Burglary : The Effects of PACE - Home Office Research Study No 123. Burrows J and Tarling R (1986) Investigating Burglary : The Measurement of Police Performance Home Office Research Study No 85. Burrows J and Tarling R (1987) ‘The Investigations of Crime in England and Wales’ British Journal of Criminology Vol. 27 no 3. Chatterton Metal (1995) “Performance Indicators for Local Anti-Drugs Strategies - a Preliminary Analysis” Cresswell, P etc. “Opportunities for Reducing the Administrative Burdens on the Police” (Police Research Series: Paper No. 3, Home Office, 1993) Her Majesty’s Government (1994) Tackling Drugs Together HMSO 1994 Hobbs, R and Maguire M (1989) ‘Detective Work : A Review of the Literature’ in Report of the Priority Project on the Investigation of Crime. London : Metropolitan Police. Home Office (1986) Review of the Regional Crime Squads : Report of the Tripartite Steering Group Home Office (1988) Tackling Drug Misuse: A Summary of the Government’s Strategy London : Home Office Home Office (1989) Police Manpower : Home Office/Treasury Police Manpower Study Circular No 81/1989 Home Office (1992) Progress Report (v) of the “Detection of Crime” Working Group. Home Office (1992) Specialist Crime Investigative Squads and Detection Policies Letter from Sir John Woodcock (HMCIC) to Chief Officers
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REFERENCES
Home Office (1993) Performance Indicators for the Police Circular 17/1993 Kaye T “Unsafe and Unsatisfactory?” The Report of the Independent Enquiry into the Working Practices of the West Midlands Police Serious Crime Squad Levi, M (1987) Regulating Fraud, Tavistock Publications, 1987 MacRae R (1991) Surveillance and the Principles of a Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) Gloucestershire Constabulary. Maguire M and Norris C (1992) The Conduct and Supervision of Criminal Investigations The Royal Commission in Criminal Justice Mitchell R (1988) “Are specialist squads, including CID, necessary?” West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police Advanced CID Course No 76 Peters Tom (1988) In Search of Excellence Phillips J D, Hill H J and Meynell D N (1968) “The need or otherwise for specialisation into investigative squads on the CID” Police College Special Course VI. Price Waterhouse (1992) Manual of Guidance on Conducting Activity Sampling Exercises within Police Forces. Home Office 1992. The Right Honourable The Lord Roskill, P.C., Chairman, Fraud Trials Committee Report Wright A, Wayman A and Gregory P (1993) Drugs squads : Law Enforcement Strategies and Intelligence in England and Wales Police Federation
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