Embedding a new way of working:
Evidence base decision making and
change in the MPS
Corporate Development
Metropolitan Police Service
EBP Seminar, Cambridge 2013
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Introduction: Betsy Stanko
• Social science presence for over a decade inside one of the
largest police services in the world;
• Started by mapping onto the improvement in analytic
services, in particular strategic products such as the London
landscapes (crime, citizen, Met people and so forth),
performance indicator development, performance analysis,
bespoke research and evaluation
• A vortex within that has gathered momentum and expertise –
not only in methodology, but in the logic of how to map this onto
strategy and operations
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The context
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What we will do in this session…
• Take people through the significant uplift in activity to respond
to the challenges of becoming a more professional police
service;
• Embedded strategic approaches using an evidence based
approach in OneMet Strategy, Performance meetings
(corporate and business group), Crime Fighting Strategy, Met
Tasking and Crime
• Embedded within our leadership principles an expectation
that senior leaders will know about and use evidence based
work in their decision making
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Liam
Public Confidence in the MPS:
an evidence-based approach
Liam Fenn
Research Analyst
Metropolitan Police Service
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Public Confidence: why it (still) matters
1) In a democratic society, people expect, and have a right to expect, that the
police will be trustworthy, competent and ethical, focused on the needs of local
people;
2) Evidence shows that people who have confidence in the police and regard them
as legitimate, are more likely to be satisfied with individual encounters, defer to
police authority and assist police investigations (Stanko and Bradford 2009)
Question marks over NSY…
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Where we are … and where we are trying to go…
The Mayor has set us an ambitious target to improve confidence by 20%:
September 2012
62% of Londoners think the
police do a good job in the local
area (CSEW)
MPS to achieve 75% by
2016
But our starting point isn't all bleak:
Out of every ten people:
6 think we do a good or excellent job
3 think we do a fair job
only 1 thinks we do a poor job
MPS PAS
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Our evidence base: how do we achieve the 20% improvement?
Public Attitude Survey
The MPS Confidence Model – 'beyond measuring'
•Face to face interviews
•12, 800 Londoners per year
allowing representative analysis at
a borough level
Some challenges…
•Only 56% think we do well at
providing a visible presence
•Just 45% of Londoners feel
informed
• Those who have contact are less
confident
•Fair treatment – 7% decline
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'Natural Experiments': Testing the effect of major events on public opinion
Student Demonstrations 2010
August Riots 2011
•Demonstrations created a 'natural
experiment' allowing analysis of
public perceptions before and after
the event
• 75% of respondents reported no
change in opinion. Of 25% that did,
half more positive, half more
negative.
•Post-event interviewing associated
with sig. higher scores on all key
drivers of confidence
• Of interest, preceding the
disorder, confidence substantially
lower in boroughs hit hardest by the
disorder.
•Lack of moral alignment? Antipolice riots, disorder and looting are
extreme forms of lack of willingness
to cooperate and readiness to
break the law
Olympics London 2012
• Post-event interviewing
associated with sig. higher
confidence
•Suggests collective spirit, shared
values and good spirited policing
had a positive impact on public
attitudes.
• How do we turn such findings into
actionable activities?
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'Other experiments': are police newsletters effective?
Overview
Key Findings
•Experiment to test the impact of
newsletters on public perceptions of
the police
•Statistically sig. improvements in a number of key areas in
test wards, not seen in control wards:
•Newsletters design based on bestpractice
Levels of feeling informed
Perceptions of the police
Perceptions of local crime and disorder
Confidence in police effectiveness
•Disseminated to every household in
three test wards (total of 17,117
newsletters).
The challenge
•Impact measured using SN Survey
(7 wards), allowing comparison
between control and test wards
before and after distribution
•If done well, evidence suggests #newsletterswork; over half of
Londoners don’t feel informed and tell us they want to receive
newsletters/leaflets from us
•So how do we convince local policing teams to trust this?
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Are we capitalising on our engagement opportunities?
• Developing the evidence base – 51% of victims of shootings unwilling to engage with officers
• What can we do better?
"the police told her they would
protect her and she fell for it.
Word got out and the community
knew that she went to the police –
she could have got killed"
Youth Worker
"You [the police] spend the first
hour with a witness apologising
for every police encounter they
have ever had"
MPS Trident Officer
Furthering understanding of 'what works'
- Preventative education scheme RCT – current
delivery uncoordinated and not evidence based.
- RCT testing officer attitudes toward stop and search,
Behavioural Detection Training
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Concluding remarks
• MPS – must be more proactive in its service delivery, rather than focusing efforts on the
performance measure. Confidence is influenced by 'what the police do'.
• Peels principles hold true –the need for the officers to act impartially, with courtesy and
the spirit of self-sacrifice must be embedded within our training.
•London one of the most diverse cities in the world – but regardless of age, ethnicity,
class, Londoners want a service that represents them and shares their values - police are
the public and the public are the police.
•Londoners infer the strength of formal social controls from the strength of informal social
controls (Jackson and Bradford 2009).
•Where this alignment does not exist, legitimacy is undermined (as demonstrated by riot
analysis).
•The real challenge starts now…
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ebp@met.police.uk
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