ebook img

Exploring the impact of the current West Midlands Police change programme PDF

75 Pages·2015·1.51 MB·English
by  
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Exploring the impact of the current West Midlands Police change programme

Exploring the impact that management scrutiny of quality of service has on organisational culture and performance. Submitted for: MA in Managing and Leading People M45HRM Coventry University Faculty of Business, Environment and Society Coventry Business School June 2015 Tutor: Mike Winfield Student ID: 2966089 Statement of Authorship I certify that this dissertation is my own work and contains no material, which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any institute, college or university. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text of the dissertation. I also understand that under no circumstances should any part of this dissertation be published, including on the Internet, or publicly displayed without receiving written permission from the school. . 1 Abstract: A study was conducted into the impact that locally based quality of service dip samples, had on performance and culture within a policing environment. The research aimed to examine the perceptions of those completing the dip samples against those subjected to them and the impact that this has had. To provide context the study was focussed on front line staff delivering locally based service. Using a mixed methods research methodology, consisting of a web-based survey which was sent to 4,728 staff, analysis of quantitative performance data and information from locally based organisational service development teams, the study identified how quality management practices influence performance and the organisational sub-culture within the organisation. It was evident from the research that whilst the majority of employees saw benefit in quality of service checks the rationale behind them had not been sufficiently explained and perceptions of disparity between organisational values and management scrutiny coupled with a lack of; corporacy, bilateral communication, feedback and development have all contributed to a divide between those conducting quality of service checks and those subjected to them. The study provides recommendations based of the findings of the research to the senior leadership of West Midlands Police 2 Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisor, Mike Winfield, for the guidance, encouragement and advice he has provided throughout my time as his student. I have been extremely lucky to have a supervisor who cared so much about my work, and who responded to my questions and queries so promptly. I would also like to thank all the members of staff at Coventry University who have helped me throughout the duration of this course. I would like to thank West Midlands Police for providing the opportunity to undertake this study. Without their catalyst this study and my academic development simply would not have happened. I would also like to thank Kevin Davenport for his continued support through, not only this dissertation, but throughout my entire studies. He has been a constant point of inspiration in providing a private sector context to my public sector perspectives and being a fantastic proof reader. Lastly I would like to thank those people, who have provided a much needed form of escape from my studies; this enabled me to keep things in perspective – you know who you are! 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS: LIST OF TABLES: ................................................................................................................. 6 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS ......................................................................................... 7 1.1 Research Background and Relevance ........................................................................ 7 1.2 Research Context ....................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research Objectives .................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................. 10 2.1 Conclusions for Literature Research: ......................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 19 3.1 Introduction and rationale for proposed methodology; ............................................... 19 3.2 Review of research paradigms: ................................................................................. 21 3.3 Methods .................................................................................................................... 23 3.4 Measures ................................................................................................................... 26 3.5 Combining the measures ........................................................................................... 26 3.6 Population ................................................................................................................. 26 3.7 Sample ...................................................................................................................... 27 3.8 Reliability and Validation ............................................................................................ 27 3.9 Research Limitations and Constraints ....................................................................... 28 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ................................................................ 29 4.1 Classification questions from web-based survey ........................................................ 29 4.2 Attitudinal questions from web-based survey ............................................................. 32 4.3 Behavioural questions from web-based survey .......................................................... 39 4.4 Signals from Noise data ............................................................................................. 45 4.5 Compliance data ........................................................................................................ 48 4 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 50 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................. 56 6.1 Introductions .............................................................................................................. 56 6.2 Findings from the study ............................................................................................. 57 6.3 Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 60 6.4 Recommendations for Future Research .................................................................... 62 REFERENCES: .................................................................................................................. 64 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................... 74 5 LIST OF TABLES: Table 1: Neiderhoffers model of Police Cynicism (1967) ..................................................................... 13. Table 2: West Midlands Police establishment breakdown .................. 24Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 3: Respondents role breakdown ................................................................................................ 28. Table 4: Respondents rank breakdown ............................................................................................... 30. Table 5: Respondents rank return rate ................................................................................................ 30. Table 6: Respondents location breakdown .......................................................................................... 31. Table 7: Respondents length of service .................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 8: Respondents thoughts of quality of service (QoS) dip samples ............................................ 33. Table 9: Respondents thoughts on whether QoS checks impact on satisfaction ................................ 34. Table 10: Respondents thoughts on caller/victim perceptions of QoS checks ..35Error! Bookmark not defined. Table 11: Respondents main priority in role ........................................................................................ 36. Table 12: What is most important to respondents whilst at work......................................................... 37. Table 13: What is respondents thoughts on organisational pursuit of satisfaction .............................. 38. Table 14: Do respondents deal with crime differently to anti-social behaviour (ASB) ......................... 39. Table 15: Do respondents deal with people differently owing to QoS checks ..................................... 40. Table 16: Do QoS checks make respondents more likely to adhere to policy .................................... 40. Table 17: How do QoS checks make respondents feel ....................................................................... 41. Table 18: Respondents biggest barrier to delivering exellent service ................................................. 42. Table 19: Respondent breakdown of who has received feedback ...................................................... 43. Table 20: Impact of feedback on respondents ..................................................................................... 44. Table 21: Signals from Noise explaination ........................................................................................... 45. Table 22: Customer satisfaction with service – Crime. Feeling the Difference data ........................... 46. Table 23: Customer satisfaction with service – ASB. Feeling the Difference data ............................. 46. Table 24: Customer satisfaction with service – Crime. Birmingham North .......................................... 47. Table 25: Customer satisfaction with service – ASB. Birmingham North ............................................ 48. Table 26; QoS Comliance rates of Birmingham north supervisors/managers ..................................... 49. Table 27: Forcewide customer satisfaction with service - Crime ......................................................... 52. Table 28: Forcewide customer satisfaction with service - ASB ........................................................... 52. 6 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS 1.1 Research Background and Relevance "We all need people who will give us feedback. That's how we improve", (Gates, 2013) West Midlands Police is a public sector organisation whose mission statement is: ‘Serving our communities, protecting them from harm’ and the Chief Constable advocates organisational values which revolve around the public, working together and delivering a service to be proud of. West Midlands Police is structured around several centralised departments which are governed from headquarters. These centralised departments fulfil an organisational wide function. A widespread change programme in 2010 realigned organisational boundaries to make them geo-coterminous with local authority constituency’s boundaries which resulted in ten local Policing units (LPUs). There have been increases in organisational efficiency and significant financial reductions and this has all been against a backdrop of crime reduction and increases in customer satisfaction. Change has been a constant throughout the organisation since 2010 but Rosen et al (2009) warn that sustained periods of change may increase the possibility of misunderstanding and dissent between front line staff and management. This document seeks to explore the perceptions of locally based quality of service checks, and any impact that their introduction has had, on performance and the organisational subculture. Researchers have long discussed how relationships occur in business between quality management practices and performance and culture, and there is a plethora of literature on the private sector but little on the public sector or specifically the Police. Although organisational subcultures are almost intangible one of the goals of this research is to extend current knowledge within a policing context, Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2000) suggests that the realisation of employee’s expectations is important in achieving performance objectives. As a public sector organisation, there are high expectations of the Police to provide a quality of service and therefore this study has relevance (Soeparman et al 2012) 7 1.2 Research Context In recent years the performance landscape of the Police has changed from liner quantitative reductions of key performance indicators, set by government, to qualitative increases in confidence and satisfaction. As such, the pursuit of confidence and satisfaction has become the forefront of an organisational drive to change the performance culture. Whilst performance against linear reduction targets was easy to quantify, the more subjective and qualitative nature of confidence and satisfaction has proved more challenging. West Midlands Police has, for some time, utilised independent companies to conduct external surveys to gain an understanding of trust and confidence in the Police and to identify ways to improve satisfaction and service delivery. This survey quantified confidence and satisfaction into percentages allowing it to be measured and adopted as a performance indicator. ‘Feeling the Difference’, which was started in April 2005, is West Midlands Police's public perception survey. The survey is conducted in two waves per year, encompassing 16,800 interviewees broken down to local constituency areas. Despite obvious weaknesses in the subjectivity of satisfaction for non service users, the data quickly became a measure of performance within the organisation. 'Contact Counts', which was introduced in 2007, is an internally conducted customer satisfaction telephone survey program. The survey program comprises two elements; a random sample of people who have reported a crime to West Midlands Police in the last six to eight weeks, and a random sample of people who have reported an anti-social behaviour (ASB) incident to West Midlands Police in the same period. The telephone interviews, with victims of crime and reporters of ASB, have historically been conducted internally by the Quality of Service Bureau, a centralised department at headquarters. In December 2012 the Quality of Service Bureau devolved responsibility to the local constituency areas. The concept was that the local constituency areas would be responsible for scrutiny of its own service delivery. 8 In the Birmingham North local policing unit it was decided that the scrutiny would be in the form of quality of service checks or dip samples. They are allocated by the local Organisational Service Development team and each supervisor and manager within the constituency are given Crime report and an ASB log to dip sample each, every month. This effectively means that every rank from acting Sergeant right up to Chief Superintendant contacts two service users per month and goes through a series of pre set questions to establish, levels of satisfaction with service. There has been numerous studies into the impacts that quality management practices (QMPs) have on organisational performance in the private sector but there is little on their affect in the public sector. There is also little in the way of how QMPs impact on organisational culture. This study has focused on locally based staff on LPUs to identify specific cultural issues between those conducting QMP dip samples and those subjected to them and the impact that they have on performance. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that QMPs have changed the perceptions and culture of some employees, this research will use qualitative web-based survey results and organisational data sets to provide empirical evidence. 1.3 Research Objectives There are three main outcomes for this research; 1) Examine quantitative data to establish if management scrutiny is having a positive or negative impact on organisational performance. 2) Explore whether management scrutiny has influenced organisational sub culture or positively or negatively impacted on service delivery. This will be done via an online survey for all ranks; it will explore changes in behaviour based on the scrutiny and the value that management place on the process. 3) Use the findings of this research to make recommendations to the senior leadership of West Midlands Police regarding future quality of service scrutiny by management and the likely impact upon culture and service delivery. 9

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.