I was concerned by the impression given by the article ‘Front-line policing hampered by National Policing Improvement Agency’ (NPIA) (Personnel Today, 25 March) – that we were failing to give police the right service.
When we started out a year ago, the most important task we had was to bring the police service’s operational services together and run them better. Our first-year review by the Office of Government Commerce commended us on our success in this area – including more than 175 million transactions on the police national computer relating to arrests, detections and better officer safety (up 16%) more than 75,000 detections from DNA and fingerprints in the most serious cases and the 24-hour management of the UK-wide police radio system.
And we have delivered, and in some cases exceeded, a stretching first-year business plan, which included a new leadership strategy, the first national people strategy for policing, and joining up IT between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts.
At the time of the staff survey, the NPIA had been in existence for just five months. It shows some negative results, but it also showed some positive views on line management and customer service. Post-TUPE, 90% of our staff have moved onto NPIA terms and conditions – a significant measure of their confidence in the organisation.
And over the past year, the NPIA has set up from scratch a new grading structure, a new appraisal scheme, and a new reward system, run 356 training courses, evaluated almost 300 posts, restructured and filled more than 700 posts, recognised unions and set up a staff council, and gained IIP status.
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We have a significant agenda for improvement and are making real progress, thanks to the hard work of our dedicated NPIA staff.
Peter Neyroud, chief executive, NPIA
