Clear policing targets still needed
Vague targets are making progress in policing harder to measure but more clarity is expected from next year.
The Northern Ireland Audit Office has again called on the Policing Board to introduce clearer targets for the PSNI. The problem was first highlighted last September when the Comptroller and Auditor General, Kieran Donnelly, gave a qualified opinion on the 2012-2013 Policing Plan.
Many of the measures were vague and were over a long timeframe, meaning that immediate and tangible progress was not demanded. It was therefore unclear whether the PSNI’s performance was improving or not.
Donnelly has again qualified his opinion on the 2013-2014 Policing Plan as “only limited progress” has been made since last autumn. However, the board and the PSNI have assured him that “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based targets” will be included in the 2014-2015 plan.
The PSNI has consistently said that it will aim for the highest possible reduction or increase in each target area. The Auditor General therefore wants to see targets based on numbers and benchmarks with other UK police services.
The 2013-2014 plan does expect the police to reduce overall crime by 2 per cent but this does not include targets for reducing specific types of crime e.g. burglaries.
Another target promises to increase “the overall rate of crime outcomes achieved by use of a variety of appropriate disposal methods” by three percentage points. The meaning of this wording is not obvious and the Audit Office wants it to be made clear; it refers to the number of crimes cleared up by detectives.
Some standards measure activity rather than the outcomes of those activities. The PSNI would improve its “quality of engagement” with vulnerable people but the plan does not outline the practical changes that these people and their families can expect.
The proportion of police officers “deployed on frontline operational duty” would be increased but the plan does not say what proportion of officers are already on frontline duty. Progress on reducing alcohol-related crime is expected but no deadline is set.
The board has set up a ‘continuous improvement strategic working group’ which needs to meet more regularly. It did not meet at all in 2012-2013 and its first subsequent meeting took place in January 2014.
This group is seen as having “significant potential” in making sure that improvement takes place as it includes all the key agencies which demand and deliver improvement i.e. the Policing Board, the Audit Office, the Department of Justice, Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, and the PSNI.
Many of the Audit Office’s recommendations concur with an independent assessment of the Policing Board published in 2011. The board, it found, needed to focus on outputs and outcomes and become less process-driven.
