Police reform in Scotland: What can we learn from the experiences of front-line officers?

Abstract

Little is known about how front-line police officers navigate major structural reforms within their organization. The findings presented in this paper were collected as part of the first ever empirical study of the newly created Police Service of Scotland between October 2013 and June 2014. The findings discussed here are pertinent to the wider academic literature in that they fill the current gap in knowledge on how front-line police officers experience major structural reforms at a police operational level; by exploring the ways, if any, reform impacted on the routine delivery of local policing. This paper focuses on three main themes which emerged from the analysis of 68 interviews conducted with a stratified sample of serving police officers; front-line police officers, their supervisors and managers across two geographically distinct case study areas in Scotland. The paper highlights police officers’ concerns around a lack of front-line involvement in either the planning or implementation of reform, the pace at which the changes associated with reform were rolled out and the internal communication processes adopted throughout the reform journey, all of which they claim impacted negatively on their daily routines. This unique data was collected using a variety of qualitative and ethnographic research approaches including non-participant observations, walking interviews, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews at the precise time major structural reform was being implemented across Scotland.

Keywords

Police reform front-line experiences organizational change pace of reform communication processes

Introduction

For the most part, organizations change and adapt on a continual and incremental basis in order to survive the ever-changing political, social, economic and business environments in which they exist. For the police to remain effective in their roles across communities they have reformed policy and evolved practice to suit the external changes that occur within each society, which has resulted in a variety of policing organizations that look to both mirror and support the specific society in which they are situated. Change within a police organization is therefore not a new concept, with many authors claiming that change is the one constant in any policing organization (Bevir, 2010; Hail, 2016; Hart, 1996; Skogan, 2008).

In 2013, however, Scotland experienced the largest, single piece of police reform in decades with the introduction of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. The Act paved the way for the amalgamation of the existing eight regional police forces into a single national police service for Scotland. The level and scope of this reform was unprecedented in contemporary policing, with little known in either academic or policing circles about any potential impacts or implications of such a large-scale amalgamation on operational policing. The outline business case for police reform published by the Scottish Government in 2011 claimed that in the main, reform of policing in Scotland was based on the projected financial savings that could be made by introducing a single police service and reported that restructuring the police organization towards one, single national police service for Scotland would offer a way to protect local services in the financial climate of the time and also offered ‘…the highest potential for long-term financial sustainability’ (Scottish Government Outline Business Case for Police Reform Programme, 2011:23) for policing in Scotland.

Despite there being a large number of existing studies labelled as police reform, when we examine them in detail, there is a distinct lack of research exploring structural or macro-levels of reform, such as that experienced in Scotland, particularly from a front-line perspective. With the exception of recent work published by Fyfe and Henry (2012), Terpstra and Fyfe (2015), Moggré et al. (2018) and Terpstra and Fyfe (2014), the majority of current police reform literature has tended to examine the more operational or micro-level changes related to police practice, such as the work of Skogan (2006) who examined the impact of community policing initiatives.

The lack of empirical research on front-line police officers experiences of structural reforms has been discussed by various authors including Bevir (2010), Brunetto and Farr-Wharton (2003), Savage (2007) and Sklansky and Marks (2008), with Brunetto and Farr-Wharton suggesting that within current policing research, the experiences of individual ‘…police officers in particular has been a secondary focus’ (p. 44) of scholars and has resulted in the experiences of front-line officers being ignored. Bevir (2010) develops this argument and claims that existing police reform policy and research has focused on examining what he refers to as the ‘…elite forms of expertise that inspire reform’ (p. 227) with rank and file officers consulted in the most ‘cursorily’ manner. By marginalizing the input and voice of front-line officers in relation to police reforms, or by ignoring what Bevir (2010) refers to as the ‘local cultures of rank and file’ there is currently a gap in existing academic knowledge that can be filled only by incorporating the perceptions and experiences of the front line. It was therefore decided that by focusing on front-line officers experiences of reform, the overall findings of the project would produce new knowledge in relation to police reforms.

The data presented here is the first of its kind and will expand current police reform literature to provide a more robust view of structural reform in a police organization by including the perceptions and experiences of local police personnel presented through their very specific cultural rank and file lens (Bevir, 2010). Importantly, the findings will also highlight to policy-makers the impact of rapid change at the operational level of the organization at a time when many international police organizations have also begun to either discuss or implement their own police reform and amalgamation of existing services. The insights presented here therefore not only fill the existing gap in current academic knowledge, but also provide empirical evidence to assist police organizations in the planning and delivery of future structural police reforms from a front-line policing perspective.

The focus of this paper is to discuss the experiences of police using the three main themes raised by police officers of front-line marginalization, the pace of reform and the internal communication processes during reform, before concluding that there are important lesson to be learned from the Scottish experience which can be translated internationally and used to develop a framework for future structural police reforms.

Methods

Existing research examining police change has, in the main, focused on micro-level changes, such as Skogan (2006) and his longitudinal study examining the impact of community policing initiatives, and Bradford et al. (2014) who examined police practice during the implementation of new police policies such as community policing (CP). It was therefore decided that given the prominence of the scope and level of police reform and the unique timing of the data collection (which ran in parallel to the implementation of reforms), a qualitative research strategy would provide valuable in-depth data, based on an authentic insight into each participant’s lived experiences of reform to the wider academic and policy communities.

To enhance the robustness of the findings, the project¹ employed multiple qualitative approaches to data collection including an ethnographic approach with non-participant observations, walking interviews and semi-structured in-depth interviews. A qualitative research strategy was deemed the most appropriate in order to be able to provide robust empirical evidence collected in a real-world context to extrapolate each participant’s own lived experience of ‘policing as they experience it’ (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). This standpoint is supported by Silverman (2001) who suggests that the principle underpinning qualitative research is to ‘…enable respondents to have their voices heard’ (p. 124).

The existing police organizational change literature, which had been utilized to provide a theoretical framework although not completely suited to the study of macro-level reform in a police organization, did offer a method of situating the current findings in a wider theoretical foundation. To provide the most robust theoretical framework possible, it was decided to engage with the broader public sector organizational change literature (Kezar, 2001; Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes, 2003; Todnem, 2005). The addition of the work of Bevir (2010) and his discussions on police reform and front-line culture was also added to support the theoretical framing of the findings.

Because of the geographical scale of Scotland as a whole, it was decided to employ a case study design for the purposes of data collection. A case study is the most suitable design to study social phenomena from within a real life framework ‘…location…community or organization’ or within a ‘…bounded system’ (Creswell, 2007). Employing a collective case study design in the data collection therefore offered the researcher ‘…the opportunity to use many different sources of evidence’ (Yin, 1994: 91), including non-participant observations of community council, community safety and police scrutiny meetings.

Data was collected between October 2013 and June 2014 across two distinct geographical police divisions in Scotland. During the consultation process there was a high level of media coverage from what was the Grampian Police area including local Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), members of the Grampian Joint Police Board and the Grampian Chief Constable, highlighting what they believed to be specific issues with regards to the differing methods of local policing carried out in some of the more northern and rural areas of Scotland (BBC, 2011). It was therefore decided to include a field work area in the predominantly urban central belt of Scotland (Easton) and one almost 100 miles north in the more rural Highlands of Scotland (Longphort). Easton is defined as a traditional working class urban community, with an estimated population of 22,000 plus, which has undergone major redevelopment in recent years in terms of both commercial activities and residential properties, with an increase in more professional people moving to the area resulting in a very mixed community. By contrast, the population of Longphort is estimated at 13,140 and in contrast to Easton, this population is dispersed across a large rural space and broken down into villages, small hamlets and market towns, and is made up of a unique mix of great affluence and even greater deprivation which changes on a street by street scale.

The data was collected from a stratified sample of police personnel from across various ranks, roles and responsibilities and comprised: police constables (PCs), front line supervisors (FS), including sergeants and inspectors; senior managers (SM) including chief inspectors, superintendents, chief superintendents and assistant chief constables. In total, 68 interviews were conducted for the project – 39 in the first study 1 and 23 in the second. Full ethical approval was granted by the University of Dundee to conduct the research.

Findings from the front line: what did we learn?

The following section provides an outline of the main themes highlighted by police officers as having the most impact on front-line officers engagement with the reform process, operational policing and staff morale during the implementation stage of reform.

A perception that there had been no opportunity for front-line police personnel to offer input or feedback during the reform process

The rapid pace and implementation of reform

The quantity and quality of communications officers received throughout the reform process.

As discussed above, change or reform within a policing context is nothing new with various changes occurring across and within police organizations for generations. Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes (2003) refer to the ‘…scope of change…’, whereby the changes ongoing within an organization can be identified and classified by the scale of change taking place to the structures and operations of each organization. Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes argue that the scope of organizational change taking place can be defined as either transformational or incremental change. Todnem (2005), argues that in the main transformational change occurs as a result of ‘…an organisational crisis…’ which can be unpredictable. In contrast incremental change or what Kezar (2001) refers to as ‘first order change…is characterised by evolutionary change, a linear process…’ and is implemented in ‘incremental approaches’. This notion of incremental change in policing was also discussed by participants in Scotland, with front-line officers across ranks and areas concurring that change, although not of the same level or scope, has always been an ongoing concept for the police organization.

However, what did emerge from the data analysis was a consensus from front-line officers and their supervisors that on this occasion they had been marginalized from the reform process in particularly in terms of their lack of opportunity to contribute to either the planning or implementation of reform.

…when the discussion came about whether it was a good idea to have a single police force they didn’t actually ask anybody who worked in it…. (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)²

Many front-line officers appeared to be shocked, although not surprised that although there had been a public consultation process prior to reform, which not all police organizations or local authorities replied to, there had been no official platform available for them to take part in the consultation process. As the above comment, just one of many similar in tone and content, indicates front-line officers believed they were in a much better position to report on how the changes would/did impact on the delivery of day to day policing.

More recently, work conducted by Moggré et al. (2018) examining police leadership in times of police transitions across Scotland and the Netherlands reported similar findings from Police Scotland senior police managers. Their data showed that although Police Scotland managers were understanding of the need for police reform, they too felt marginalized from the process in relation to their suggestion put forwards in the early stages of planning reform that ‘…a limited programme of mergers’ (Moggré et al., 2018) which would have seen the creation of three or four regional police services in Scotland.

A lack of police involvement

As discussed above, the general lack of consultation with rank and file officers throughout any reform process has been acknowledged previously by multiple commentators, with Bayley (2008) claiming that in the main front-line officers are ‘…very rarely consulted about the kind of changes needed’ (p. 13) during the planning of reform and are ‘…regarded by senior officers as the source of unhelpful complaints rather than useful insights’ (p. 14), and Brunetto and Farr-Wharton (2003) claiming that within current policing research, the experiences of individual ‘…police officers in particular has been a secondary focus’ (p. 44) of scholars. To add address this lack of knowledge, front-line officers and supervisors were asked how they perceived their role in the reform journey and in what ways, if any, were they and their colleagues able to contribute to reform.

In the main, responses were negative, with front-line officers commenting that they believed that they had no input to either the planning or implementation stages of reform.

…we haven’t had any input into this process…look at the shift changes they are talking about; there has been no consultation with us officers or line managers. (PC 01 Easton; M 5)

…when the discussion came about whether it was a good idea to have a single police force they didn’t actually ask anybody who worked in it…. (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)

…has anybody ever asked me about police Scotland? No. (Sgt 02 Longphort; M 24)

Initially, police responses from the project indicated that change, although not of this level or scope, was not a new experience for the policing organization and that generally police personnel were adaptable and pragmatic in their approach to change with officers commenting that:

…the police is always changing, this is what happens…this is not the first time things have changed…it’s just the transition period people don’t like, it will change again in five years and people will be like ‘we liked it the way it was…’. (Sgt 03 Easton; F 10)

When discussing the macro-level reforms and perceptions of how the reform was being experienced at the grass roots level participants highlighted the role of traditional ‘street cop culture’ as discussed by Bevir (2010) and how, in general, they believed that members of the policing organization were not finding the concept of change in itself difficult because of their pragmatic approach to change.

Police officers are good team players it’s a good organization to be in and because we are all in the same boat we help and support each other, we are all in it together and nobody is enjoying it…. (PC12 Easton; F 4)

Many front-line officers appeared to be shocked, although not surprised that although there had been a public consultation process prior to reform, which incidentally not all police organizations or local authorities replied to (see Hail, 2016), there had been no official platform available for them to take part in a consultation process. From the perspective of front-line officers, they were in the best position to report on exactly how the proposed changes would/did impact on the delivery of day-to-day policing and yet they had been marginalized from the process. The language and tone of the examples cited above illustrate the officers’ frustrations and a lack of ownership or control of the reform process and suggest that rates of resistance to reform have the potential to be high within the organization going forward.

For many of the officers, their inability to offer feedback on or engage with the reform process meant that they were unable to highlight to senior managers the potential impacts of many of the operationally focused reform changes to their existing local practice. In terms of local policing and engagement with their local community members, officers from Easton who were interviewed in October 2013, just 6 months after the introduction of Police Scotland, were already beginning to experience the negative consequences of one of the first major changes to local policing, the realignment of response and community teams, which management claimed would

…bring them much closer together so there isn’t so much of a void between response and community…really we are all officers serving our community to a certain extent…. (Sgt 03 Easton; F 10)

In relation to police reform, Bevir (2010) highlights the lack of front-line officer involvement in reforms and discusses the concept of police reform being a top down approach to change that very rarely takes account of the real-life experience of the front line and claims that for front-line officers ‘the question is rarely whether or not to embrace change, it is how to make proposed change work given the nature of their duties and job environment’ (Bevir, 2010: 240). This concept was of particular relevance for officers in Easton who were already reporting that the compulsory movement of response officers who had been transferred to the community policing team (CPT) without their agreement was having a negative impact on the team.

…a lot of them who are here now didn’t want to be there in the first place, they don’t want to be community officers but…it’s like who do you want to punt to the CPT team? They are not going to punt their best thief catcher they are going to punt who they want to get rid of so you have pressed men and women up there who don’t want to be there…. (PC walking interview 02 Easton; M 12)

Reform had also introduced a new shift pattern for CPT members which was described by police management as a way to increase the number of officers on the streets, as Police Scotland say ‘having the right people, in the right place at the right time’. Again, from a front-line point of view, officers questioned the methods employed in working out who were the right people, where was the right place and what was the correct time, highlighting a lack of consultation from those on the front line in the decision-making process:

I think we are the folk that should be asked about the right folk and the right place and the right time you know we are here and it’s like yes well is that really the right place to put them you know? (Sgt 01 Longphort; M 15)

So did this lack of officer involvement in the reform process impact on the practice and delivery of local policing across Scotland? In the main, there was a general divide between local officers across the case study areas into two specific groups, those who refused to engage with change and those who did.

The policing mentality is you are a cop, get on with it…I come in and do my job and go home. (PC 03 Longphort; M 7)

Police officers from across both case study areas claimed that many of the changes brought by reform such as changes to traditional shift-working patterns, the amalgamation of response and community personnel, and the removal of designated local beat areas, which they had no opportunity to comment on, had altered their routine practice until it was unrecognizable to what went before.

…the community engagement, the local policing the working with the community, where is it all going? It’s gone…On paper it’s supposedly the same, we are supposed to be linked in with our communities, we are supposed to be liaising with them properly, taking on what they say…From experience though that is not the case…I feel very frustrated, almost gutted because I think a lot of the good work we had been doing has been undone. Not through any deliberate act to undo it, but just through the way the change has come in…. (Manager 02 Longphort; M 20)

As a consequences of the changes, officers discussed how they now had less time for local engagement, which had resulted in the breakdown of some long-standing local relationships and importantly, a loss of local community knowledge.

…we just don’t get the time…yesterday for the first time since the change, I went into the Gudwara [Sikh temple]…normally I would have weekly contact with them just dropping in to one of the committee members houses for a cup of coffee…the first thing the president said to me was ‘where have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages, we thought you had disappeared…’. (PC 10 Easton; M 8)

A local focus is a core element for the delivery of local policing, which is based on a policing style that situates a designated officer in a geographically bounded area where they become a familiar face to the local population, acquiring in-depth local knowledge of the area and its inhabitants. Front-line officers from both case study areas discussed the negative impact there had been on community engagement since the post-reform removal of their individual beat areas while explaining that they were now expected to serve a much larger area

…you felt that that was your own wee empire if you like and that was yours to look after and you would take it personally to a degree if there were issues in your area it was left to you to solve it. It was always my aim, it didn’t always work out but most of the time it did…. (PC 13 Easton; M 6)

With another PC from Easton explaining that in his opinion the lack of an allocated beat area for officers to focus on had resulted in a lack of ownership of local issues for many officer’s post reform.

…we don’t have a beat anymore, there is no more beats…that is the worst thing that they could have done. People now sit in the office with no ownership of things that happen in their area…. (PC 04 Easton; M 6)

The findings as set out above also relate to the work of Bevir (2010) who discusses politicians and policy-makers, and the primacy they give to the role of specialist expertise in the development of reforms, ignoring the lived experience of rank and file officers and their specific culture in terms of how they interpret and then attempt to apply reform policy in a variety of local contexts. For Bevir (2010), police reform implemented with only the most cursory input or acknowledgement from the front line is why contemporary policing appears to be in the midst of long-term and ongoing reforms that never quite succeed in achieving their stated outcomes or aims.

Based on the findings set out above, this paper recommends that policing organizations who are planning future structural reforms include in their processes formal and meaningful consultation with serving rank and file police officers early in the initial planning stages to provide a bottom-up or what Bevir (2010) refers to as a ‘…participatory approach to police reform’ (p. 227). Including front-line officers in the early stages of planning police reform will provide those officers with the opportunity to contribute to and be part of any change process.

Front-line involvement throughout the implementation phase of reform will also deliver a robust on-the-spot evaluation of the stated aims of reform. Being able to assess how change is being operationalized and experienced at street level on an ongoing basis will enable the development of a robust evaluation of change and provide an opportunity to reply to Bevir’s (2010) statement above on the causes of ongoing, long-term change in the police organization. From an operational policing context, providing front-line officers with the means to deliver immediate feedback will allow rapid remedial processes to be put in place together with identifying best practice which can then be shared throughout the organization.

The rapid pace of change

The speed at which the changes occurred in Scotland was identified by participants, both front-line staff and their supervisors across case study areas, as causing particular difficulties for operational policing. However, this is a concept that appears to be ignored in the wider change literature with no empirical work found to support or refute the claims made by police officers in Scotland regarding the fast pace of reforms and the impact this had on operational policing.

From the perspective of front-line officers and their supervisors the speed at which the changes were implemented caused the most anxiety.

…it’s all been so rapid and constant…it’s too quick and too much change…too much change too soon and it’s not over. (PC 12 Easton; F 4)

With a front-line supervisor also adding that

I am struggling to keep up the change of pace…if you asked me am I on top of what is happening with Police Scotland I would have to say no, because there is so much change…. (Sgt 01 Longphort; M 15)

When the above comments are viewed alongside the comments from front-line officers who claimed they had no time to read all of the email communications sent regarding new processes and learning packages, it becomes apparent that the pace of the implementation stage of reforms exacerbated the reform experiences of those on the front line particularly.

As discussed above, police participants were shown to be generally adaptive to changes within the organization and viewed it as part of modern-day policing. However, the comments from front-line officers and their supervisors highlighted how many were struggling to keep up-to-date with the pace of organizational reforms. Front-line officers in particular reported that a consequence of the rapid and daily changes,

I struggle now to do what we did prior to reform because there is less time on your beat to engage with the public. I struggle to get time to go to meetings and things…. (PC 03 Easton; M 17)

Overall, there was a general sense of frustration and resignation from across case study areas regarding how quickly the changes were being introduced, with a consensus between front-line officers and supervisors adding weight to the claims made regarding the impact on operational policing.

…it’s all been so rapid and constant…it’s too quick and too much change…too much change too soon and it’s not over. (PC 12 Easton; F 4)

…maybe things need to change but not all at once…. (PC 05 Longphort; F 17)

With front-line supervisors also adding that;

…it’s the sheer volume of change and how quickly it’s been done…it can seem at times that everyday its change, like yesterday we had these three priorities and today we now need to get this done as well. (Sgt 03 Easton; Female 10)

The comments above illustrate how front-line officers and their supervisors were struggling to keep up-to-date with the pace of organizational reforms, resulting in their paying less attention at this particular time to the specifics of operational changes to local policing. As stated above, it became apparent that there has been little attention paid to effects of the pace of organizational change on employees. Kotter and Schlesinger (2008), however, do discuss the ‘optimal speed of change’ and define two separate categories to assist organizations in deciding how quickly or slowly change should be implemented. In the first instance, they suggest that the organization should implement rapid change only when ‘…the organisation risks plummeting performance or death if the present situation isn’t changed’ (Kotter and Schlesinger, 2008: 1) and that they should proceed incrementally if they perceive resistance to be intense and extensive. Incremental change or what Kezar (2001) refers to as ‘first order change…is characterized by evolutionary change, a linear process…and incremental approaches’ (p. 16). Incremental change is also described in the literature as change that is planned, where the changes implemented sit alongside, support and develop pre-existing organizational structures (Kezar, 2001; Newman, 1998; Todnem, 2005).

The nature and pace of the change experienced by front-line officers left many individuals unsure as to their future within the organization, which ultimately affected morale and motivation. Conversely, police managers did not discuss the pace of reform or its impact on staff morale or operational policing matters, indicating that the majority of changes being made on a daily basis were more operational in focus and therefore had more of an effect on front-line officers who then had no way of feeding back their concerns. It is therefore recommended that future public sector reforms should be carefully planned with the input of front-line officers and implemented at a slower pace, with change managers acknowledging that not all divisions work to full capacity at all times, which has a direct impact on how they ultimately experience the changes being implemented.

In their paper published in 2018, Moggré et al. suggest that it was the overly political influence on police reform in Scotland that controlled and steered the pace of change and quote the then-cabinet secretary for justice as saying ‘You can take a long time and stage it over two or three years, or you can go the other way: change it and fix all the concerns’ (Moggré et al., 2018: 394) indicating the government’s intention to manage the change rapidly in a top down and centralized fashion.

The quantity and quality of communications

The delivery of effective communication strategies at times of organizational change is cited by multiple authors as being a fundamental principle of achieving successful change (Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes, 2003; Osborne and Brown, 2005; Tops and Spelier, 2012). The overall consensus is that organizations should provide suitable communication strategies that will support and guide their workforce through the planning and implementation of organizational change With Elving (2005) claiming that

If organisational change is about how to change the individual tasks of employees, communication about the change, and information to these employees is vital…communication with the employees should be an important and integrative part of the change efforts and strategies. (p. 130)

Internal strategies of communication where therefore included in the examination of police reform in Scotland to explore what systems of communication had been employed and how effective they were. When front-line officers in Scotland were asked how they were kept up-to-date with the changes that were being operationalized across the service during the reform journey they stated that in the main information was relayed using the internal police intranet. In terms of the platform chosen there were no concerns,

…as for how we communicate I don’t think that has changed, as for how much we communicate yes that has changed. (Sgt 03 Easton; Female)

This reply was mirrored across the case study areas with no issues raised regarding the use of the internal intranet. However, what officers from across case study areas and ranks did highlight as a concern was the quantity and the regularity of the emails they received.

…we get bombarded with information…. (PC 01 Easton; Female)

…you were bombarded daily with emails…. (PC 03 Longphort; Male 7)

…I do think you get bombarded with emails…. (PC 04 Easton; Male 6)

Middle and senior police managers were also asked to relate their experiences of internal communications through the reform process. The addition of this data relates to the work of Bevir (2010) and Reuss-Ianni and Ianni (2010) who defined two separate and distinct cultures within the policing organization. By exploring the perceptions and experiences of varying ranks of officers and placing them side by side, the overall findings can then be described as being more comprehensive in their range while also offering the potential to extrapolate and explore any differences in perceptions that were based on the ranks of participants.

However, in terms of the communications strategy employed throughout Police Scotland, no difference was found in the perceptions of front-line supervisors and management, with police managers also claiming they were being inundated with emails and operational packs which were arriving on a daily basis

…its email overkill…. (Middle manager 01 Longphort; M 2)

…I could spend all day and I still wouldn’t get through what was on the briefing sites…. (Middle manager 02 Easton; M 20)

This bombardment of emails received on a daily basis had particularly negative consequences for officers when they were on days off or on court duty which saw them return to work to a backlog of emails.

…you can regularly come in after your days off to maybe 30 or 40 emails…. (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)

When probed further on how they were able to find the time to read through their emails and ensure they were up-to-date on new processes and learning packages, many officers claimed they waited until they were working a night shift when it was quieter.

Night shift, 3 am when you are not really awake [laughing] you have just got to find the time, if we are super busy then you just can’t…there is always time if you make time…. (PC 04 Longphort; F 2)

However, worryingly, some officers admitted that in general they were skim reading operational documents in the hope of gaining an overview of the contents.

…I tend to have a quick scan and get the idea of it if I can get the specifics then good, I don’t have the time I have too much else to do…I am a supervisor and a community officer we don’t want to be in the station reading we want to be out…. (Sgt 03 Easton; F 10)

Other officers claimed that they were depending on others in their team having read the documents and sharing that knowledge on an ad hoc basis as it was required, and others claiming that there was no possible way of them working through such a backlog during their shift and keeping abreast of changes.

…you are expected to look at your emails, look at what has been happening, check the intelligence database, check the daily infos, check the briefing and that is before anything…oh the public damn we forgot them (sarcasm). (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)

In addition to the quantity and regularity of email communication received, officers also highlighted their frustrations with the content and relevance of the information being passed to them, claiming that they sometimes received multiple emails, some of over 50 pages, that had no direct correlation with either their role or their rank status.

I will be honest I do not read a lot of the emails we get…because it doesn’t mean a lot to me…I just delete it. (PC 03 Easton; M 8)

…there is not enough about what is really important and there is a total overload about what is just crap…. (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)

Similar themes regarding the communication processes employed throughout the reform journey were discussed within ranks and across the case study areas, with an overall consensus that police personnel were feeling overwhelmed and were receiving an overabundance of emails with no time to read them and that many of the emails had no bearing on their rank or role. The method of working by front-line officers although adopted through necessity, potentially raises questions regarding how up-to-date officers were with operational policy amendments and changes brought forth by Police Scotland, a further negative impact on local policing originating in the reform process. The similarity of experience and consistency of themes indicated from the varied geographical locations, sex and years of service adds emphasis to the comments and, it might be suggested, could be used as an indication of how communications were received across the organization as a whole.

The findings reported above show that the experiences of police officers in Scotland during reform are in contrast to the wider literature on organizational change, which states that successful change in any organization is dependent on effective and robust communication strategies aimed at preparing, coaching and supporting the workforce through the planning and implementation of organizational change (Bevir, 2010; Elving, 2005; Pardo del Val and Martínez Fuentes, 2003; Osborne and Brown, 2005). It is through effective and open communication lines that change managers are able to first gain employees support for upcoming change, monitor employee concerns surrounding the change feeding back into the change evaluation process and be able to measure and evaluate outputs against how effective the change is (Elving, 2005).

Similar findings to those reported above regarding internal communications, were also reported in the first ever Police Scotland staff survey which was published in 2015. The findings stated that information and communication were issues faced by police staff and that since the introduction of Police Scotland there had been ‘…a heavy reliance on non-verbal communication (particularly email and intranet)…’ (Axiom, 2015: 38). In a similar vein to the discussion above, respondents to the staff survey also commented on the relevance of much of the communication posted, claiming that it was not always relevant to them or their role.

Police officers concerns regarding the quantity and content of emails during reform were further corroborated by evaluation reports published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland (HMICS) and the year one and two evaluations of police reform conducted jointly by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR), What Works Scotland and ScotCen (Scottish Government, 2016, 2017). These reports claimed that the lack of a robust internal communication system had overwhelmed officers with information irrelevant to their rank and/or role, marginalized them from the process of reform and combined had negatively impacted upon staff morale during the implementation of reform.

Based on the findings as set out above, further recommendations for future reform would be to ensure that policing organizations considering structural reforms put in place effective, targeted and reliable two-way communication procedures between management and staff during all stages of the change process. In addition, it is recommended that taking a streamline approach to future internal communications will help reduce front-line officers feeling they are being overwhelmed with (mis)information that is not relevant to them, encourage them to engage with the relevant operational packs and briefings, while also reducing the time spent backtracking through mail after days off or training.

The content of internal communications between management and the front line during organizational change should also be of importance for future change managers. A more directed communication strategy should be put in place to ensure that all members of the policing organization are provided with information relevant to them and their role and as way to prevent overloading front-line staff with information. The information passed to front-line officers should be concise and include the need for change together with providing a transparent vision and rationale for change to help staff understand how change will be operationalized and to maintain positive working relationships between the front line and their managers as cited by Terpstra et al. (2019).

Conclusion

Change within police organizations occurs on a regular basis, whether that be change in operational direction, focus, leadership, or change to local working patterns. However, the recent experience of police reform in Scotland has brought both a new scope and level to police reform nationally and internationally, notwithstanding the pace at which this particular reform took place. In the experience of front-line officers, the changes brought about by reform, specifically perceptions that they were marginalized from the reform process, the rapid pace of reform and the internal communication process adopted throughout the process, produced unintended and negative consequences for the delivery of local policing in Scotland. The findings presented here provide a unique opportunity to examine, for the first time, how front-line serving officers negotiated their way through change and the implications this had for the delivery of local policing.

Participants from both Easton and Longphort reported that although change was not a new concept within the police organization, and was something with which they were more than familiar, they could identify specific problems with regards to the recent reform as set out above. From a conceptual point of view, the findings reported above add to the knowledge base of public sector reform more generally and police reform specifically in terms of the effective implementation of future police reform. From an empirical point of view, the findings also offer police organizations a unique insight into how reform is experienced at the front line, highlighting the complex nature of policing through change with the intention that the findings will support the implementation of future reforms.

A key motivation for conducting applied research is that the findings are able to provide empirical evidence to support and promote changes to both policy and practice, it is therefore anticipated that these lessons learned from the single, largest piece of police reform in generations will be used to develop a framework that will support future police reforms from both policy and operational standpoints by highlighting the impact of non-intended consequences on front-line staff and therefore operational policing.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Yvonne Hail

Notes

References

Axiom (2015) Report for SPA/Police Scotland Opinion Survey. https://www.scotland.police.uk/assets/pdf/138327/307421/spa-police-scotland-opinion-survey-2015?view=Standard

Bayley

(2008) Police reform: who done it? Policing & Society 18(1): 7–17.

BBC (2011) Grampian Police Chief Constable’s Single Force Concerns. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-14733641

Bevir

(2010) Democratic Governance. Woodstock, UK: Princeton University Press.

Bradford

Jackson

Hough

(2014) Police futures and legitimacy: redefining good policing. In: Brown

(ed) The Future of Policing. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 79–100. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49036/

Brunetto

Farr-Wharton

(2003) The commitment and satisfaction of lower-ranked police officers: lessons for management. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 26(1): 43–63.

Creswell

(2007) Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.

Elving

(2005) The role of communication in organisational change. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 10(2): 129–138.

Fyfe

Henry

(2012) Negotiating divergent tides of police reform within the United Kingdom. Journal of Police Studies 25: 171–190.

10.

Hail

(2016) Local policing in transition. Examining the impacts and implications of police reform in Scotland. PhD Thesis, University of Dundee, UK.

11.

Hart

(1996) The management of change in police organisations. In: Policing in Central and Eastern Europe: Comparing First-hand Knowledge with Experience from the West. Ljubljana, Slovenia: College of Police and Security Studies. https://www.ncjrs.gov/policing/man199.htm

12.

Kezar

(2001) Understanding and Facilitating Organizational Change in the 21st Century. Recent Research and Conceptualization. Washington, DC: ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports.

13.

Kotter

Schlesinger

(2008) How to Deal with Resistance to Change in Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review 57(2). https://hbr.org/2008/07/choosing-strategies-for-change?cm_sp=Article-_-Links-_-Comment

14.

Moggré

den Boer

Fyfe

(2018) Police leadership in times of transition. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 12(4): 388–397.

15.

Newman

(1998) Radical Versus Incremental Change: the Role of Capabilities, Competition and Leaders. Working Paper Number 200. The William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan Business School.

16.

Osborne

Brown

(2005) Managing Change and Innovation in Public Service Organizations. London: Routledge

17.

Pardo del Val

Martínez Fuentes

(2003) Resistance to change: a literature review and empirical study. Management Decision 41(2): 148–155.

18.

Reuss-Ianni

Ianni

(2010) Street cops and management cops: the two cultures of policing. In: Newburn

(ed) Policing: Key Readings. Cullompton, UK: Willan; 297–314.

19.

Savage

(2007) Neighbourhood policing and the reinvention of the constable. Policing 1(2): 203–213.

20.

Scottish Government Outline Business Case for Police Reform Programme (2011) https://www2.gov.scot/Publications/2011/09/15112608/0

21.

Scottish Government (2016) Evaluation of Police and Fire Reform: Year 1 Summary Report. https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-police-fire-reform-year-1-summary-report/

22.

Scottish Government (2017) Evaluation of Police and Fire Reform: Year 2 Summary Report. https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-police-fire-reform-year-2-report/

23.

Silverman

(2001) Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analyzing Talk, Text and Interaction, 3rd ed.

24.

Sklansky

Marks

(2008) The role of the rank and file in police reform. Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy 18(1): 1–6.

25.

Skogan

(2006) Police and Community in Chicago: A Tale of Three Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

26.

Skogan

(2008) Why reforms fail. Policing and Society 18(1): 23–34.

27.

Sunshine

Tyler

(2003) The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Support for Policing. Law & Society Review 37(3): 513–548.

28.

Terpstra

Fyfe

(2014) Policy processes and police reform. Examining similarities and differences between Scotland and the Netherlands. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 42(2): 366–383.

29.

Terpstra

Fyfe

(2015) Mind the implementation gap? Police reform and local policing in the Netherlands and Scotland. Criminology and Criminal Justice 15(5): 527–544.

30.

Terpstra

Fyfe

Salet

(2019) The abstract police: a conceptual exploration of unintended changes of police organizations. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 92(4): 339–359.

31.

Todnem

(2005) Organisational change management: a critical review. Journal of Change Management 5(4): 369–380.

32.

Tops

Spelier

(2013) The police as a front line organization: conditions for successful police reform. In: Fyfe

Terpstra

Tops

(eds) Centralizing Forces? Comparative Perspectives on Contemporary Police Reform in Northern and Western Europe. The Hague: Eleven.

33.

Yin

(1994) Case Study Research Design and Methods: Applied Social Research and Methods Series, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.