Hertfordshire Police Authority has built up performance improvements over a number of years to become one of the top performing police authorities in the country. Employee engagement is a cornerstone the authority's approach to improving operation performance.
The authority's performance improvements include:
- reduction in crime figures of 21.5 per cent
- increase in arrests of 6 per cent
- increase in sanction detections from 21.3 per cent to 32.9 per cent
- increase in answering of emergency calls from 81.9 per cent to 91.7 per cent
- increase in answering of non emergency calls from 74.25 per cent to 86.5 per cent
- increase in overall quality of service from 84.6 per cent to 88.6 per cent
- reduction of perception of anti-social behaviour from 18.2 per cent to 13.8 per cent
- increase in public confidence in local policing from 52.8 per cent to 60.5 per cent
In order to support improved performance the Chief Constable and his Chief Officer team are accessible and visible to officers and staff. They have led the way in developing the police force's approach to employee engagement. They ensure that representatives from staff associations and groups are involved in senior level meetings and are consulted as part of all policy development and major projects.
The force makes strong use of the Performance Development Review (PDR) process and has introduced an Improving Personal Performance (IPP) process. Officers have development objectives which feed into judgements in their PDRs. Objectives can include:
- quality of service to the public
- quality of work
- incidents attended or dispatched
- arrests leading to a positive outcome
The authority actively engages with its officers and staff through surveys and leadership seminars. These seminars have sought to involve all supervisory level members of the police force in the delivery and focus of policing services. It has used numerous media outputs to engage with members of the Constabulary, including the intranet and internal publications such as 'Hertsbeat'. Road shows and Authority's website are used to update progress on the change management program and provide an opportunity for staff to ask questions.