The Chinese have an expression ‘may you live in interesting times’. Well, it certainly is interesting times in policing right now.

The battleground has been well and truly staked staked out and the combatants are moving around and posturing ahead of the inevitable battle. Skirmishes are taking place (via various media outlets) and the loyal and opinionated supporters are detailing the obvious and certain merits of their particular perspective.

It all brings to mind attacking forces circling and harassing the redoubtable ‘square’ of infantry. Much sound and movement, but with little progress. Meanwhile the citizenry continues to plough the fields and go about their daily lives, hoping that the noise will soon go away and calm, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

So, if the noise can be ignored for just a moment and the wider context brought into view, it’s probably a good time to consider what is going to drive policing over the next couple of years.

What are the choices? Well, as always, that really depends on where you’re standing, but it’s clear that political beliefs may drive a structural and accountability agenda, whilst the economy is driving a clear focus on cost. The danger in these agendas is that value gets squeezed from the equation and the subconscious focus is on the ‘Government as customer’ and not the service user as the customer.

The government has articulated three key areas of policing that they are currently focused on: replacing police authorities with directly elected individuals ( Police Minister Nick Herbert, in a written commons reply last week, talked about moving from bureaucratic accountability to democratic accountability – picking up a David Cameron phrase from 2007), ensuring that officers regularly attend community beat meetings and increasing the effectiveness of local crime mapping (presumably meaning crime and incident mapping?).

But what of the mood music coming from under the bonnet ? The signs and portents seem to be indicating a clear focus on reducing bureaucracy, but what that actually means in practice is anyone’s guess.

If it’s merely a focus on reducing internal form filling and the mundanity of compliance (somehow masquerading as the solution to effective frontline empowerment) it will be a huge opportunity wasted. If however it means a focused, service wide review of the bureaucracy inherent in the way that UK Policing plc transacts its business, yea and yea again.

To quote the father of modern economics Adam Smith (from a Vince Cable speech last week) “the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer”, yet way too many of our customer service transactions are overly bureaucratic. An 18th century model carefully, lovingly and slavishly applied to the 21st (does anyone still use a fax machine?).

Cost and customer demand WILL eventually drive the service to adopt new systems and practices. Web driven customer self service channels for both internal and external customers will become a reality, but it would get there much faster if there was a stated Government cross service drive to reduce the bureaucracy of service accessibility and delivery, not just the internal administrative burden.

Related posts:

1. Jan Berry – Reducing Bureaucracy
2. Reducing Bureaucracy
3. Citizen Focus, citizen focus. Wherefore art thou citizen focus?
4. Focusing the (CJS) business
5. Managing the money, the business and the resources.