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Pay for your day the Crimestoppers way

Want to increase your detections without all that time consuming investigative work? Then, if the American experience is anything to go by, perhaps now is a good time to look at reinvigorating your PR and advertising approach to Crimestoppers.

‘Ring, ring = Ca Ching’ seems to be doing it in Florida and other parts of America where economic times are hard.  

Apparently calls to the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers hot line in the first quarter of this year were up 30 percent over last year. San Antonio had a 44 percent increase and cities and towns from Detroit to Omaha to Beaufort County, North Carolina, all report increases of 25 percent or more in the first quarter, with tipsters telling operators they need the money for rent, light bills or baby food.

Sgt. Lawrence Beller, who answers Crime Stoppers calls at the Sussex County, N.J., sheriff’s office said “For this year, everyone that’s called has pretty much been just looking for money. That’s as opposed to the last couple of years, where some people were just sick of the crime and wanting to do something about it.”

Not only have the number of tips increased, several program coordinators said, but people are also more diligent about calling back to find out if and when they can collect.

Jim Cogan, director of the Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers program in California, said most of the rewards offered by his program used to go unclaimed. But with large numbers of foreclosures and heavy job losses, Mr. Cogan said, “now we’re seeing rewards get picked up right away and our tipsters being frustrated when tips aren’t available as quickly as they need the money.”

Of course, not everyone is after money, but the National Crime Stoppers organisation acknowledges that the faltering economy was a significant factor  in the increased calls. As the mobile advertising boards cruising Jacksonville, Florida say “Crime doesn’t pay but we do”

So. What can we learn from the American experience ?

Have you taken a look at your Crimestoppers activity and results recently ? Is there an active (and effective!) PR programme in place? Is it targeted to the areas of your patch where you think that you are going to get results? Have you done any ACORN or Mosaic profiling of your key offenders? Is that matched to your Crimestoppers PR programme?

Might just be time to dust it all off and make the ‘ring, ring = Ca Ching’ connection.

(Full story in the New York Times. Here)

Citizen Focus Command: a strange mix of Star Trek and NYPD Blue

Many thanks to GMP's Gareth Hughes for sending me the 'heads up' on this story from the Plain English Campaign which he found in the Manchester Evening News.

Apparently the PEC are upset at what they are terming 'ploddledygook'. Try saying that when you're a little 'over refreshed'.

 Claiming that they have noticed an increase in the number of complaints they receive about police communication, particularly slogans. They are calling on the country’s police forces to return to basics – starting with the language used to communicate with the public.

Their favourite examples include:

* A message on Northumbria Police's website saying: "Northumbria Police is committed to tackling crime in your area."

"I suspect most people in Northumbria assumed that," said the PEC spokeswoman, Marie Clair "It would be worrying if a police force wasn't committed to tackling crime."

* A Lincolnshire Police message which said: "The ambition of Lincolnshire Police is to: focus on the citizen, achieve the highest standards of professionalism, deliver excellent performance and so inspire confidence amongst the people we serve."

"Could they have an ambition to do the opposite of those things?" said the PEC spokeswoman. "Interesting that they don't appear to aspire to catch criminals."

* Northamptonshire Police's "Mission Statement" - "Policing in partnership to: reduce and prevent crime, reduce and prevent anti-social behaviour and disorder, reduce fear of crime and disorder, increase public confidence, improve public safety, help communities to work together, bring offenders to justice."

"What else could their mission be?" said the spokeswoman. "Doesn't need saying."

* The titles Suffolk Police gave to some senior officers and staff, including: "Head of Protective Services", "Head of Citizen Focus", "Director of Criminal Justice Change" and "Director of Knowledge Architecture".

"Who could guess that these were police officers?" said the PEC spokeswoman. "What are these jobs?"

* Norfolk Police's description of its control room as "Citizen Focus Command".

"We are particularly taken by this," said the spokeswoman. "It appears to be a strange mix of Star Trek and NYPD Blue."

* A Norfolk Police press release which announced a "new look" from April 1, and said the force was replacing existing policing areas with a "County Delivery Unit", which would try to find "local solutions to local problems", had a new "strapline" saying "Our Priority is You", talked of the force's "end game", and said officers would start wearing a "wicking" shirt and a "blouson".

"Our Priority is You?" said the PEC spokeswoman. "Am I a bigger priority than catching Norfolk's top villain? And 'County Delivery Unit' sounds like a milk round. And we like the fashion tips. Blouson!? I don't know what it is, but I don't think Dixon of Dock Green wore one."

* A statement on Essex Police's website quoting a police authority chairman saying: "We believe that we have a unique style of policing in Essex, where we strive to always put the customer first."

"Unique? Do they police in a completely different way to every other force?" said the spokeswoman. "Customers? Do the police really have customers?"

* An Essex Police press release headed: "Putting you First" and saying: "There are 47 police stations in Essex: 12 of which are open around the clock."

"The opposite of what most people would conclude," said the spokeswoman. "Isn't it saying, sorry, nearly 75% of police stations are not open after 5pm?"

* A West Midlands Police press release which said: "The concept of neighbourhood policing was introduced in 2006... West Midlands Police was one of the first forces in the country to introduce neighbourhood policing."

"An example of saying what's always been happening but presenting it as new," said the spokeswoman. "Neighbourhood policing started two years ago? Surely Robert Peel introduced neighbourhood policing nearly 180 years ago."

* A Humberside Police press release saying burglaries were caused by "insecurities".

"Are we witnessing a disturbing new situation in society? Poor criminals are considering breaking into houses because they feel insecure?" said the PEC spokeswoman. "The costs of counselling could be huge."

* Hertfordshire Police's "prime example of the stating the blindingly obvious" - a poster saying "Don't Commit Crime".

"Do the public really understand terms such as 'County Delivery Unit? asks Ms Clair, "It sounds more like a milk round than policing. It seems that administrative confusion is hitting our streets when we really need to spend the resources on policing. Maybe this Ploddledygook is the latest weapon against the criminals - it certainly had me floored." 

So, what's your curent favourite example of 'ploddledygook'? Do share. No names published or attributed !

Blues & News, the media and Neighbourhood Policing

My aim in writing this blog has always been to make the widest possible range of thoughts and contributions available to you. A significant number of people now subscribe to the site and bring with them the widest possible range of experiences and views.

I have long been keen to capture some of that knowledge, experience and expertise, and so I have decided to run a series of 'guest' articles and contributions. I will start with a contribution on Neigbourhood Policing and the Media from Brendan O'Brien, a Neighbourhood Inspector in GMP. Brendan has a particular expertise and viewpoint on engaging with, and getting the best out of, the local media, and his contribution can be found here.

In the near future I will be featuring contributions from Ch Supt Diane Lowe, Head of National Senior Police Leadership Training at Bramshill (Diane writes on diversity, leadership, mentoring and related issues) and from Lynne Walker who has a particular interest in multi agency team development in the public sector.

My hope is that you will feel that you too have something to share with colleagues. If you do, if you have, just let me know.   

Opportunity knocks....locally

Opportunity. Sometimes it’s hard to recognise it. Sometimes it comes gift wrapped.

The local elections take place on 1st May and even the most cursory examination of party rhetoric and publicity will show you that Neighbourhood Policing is a central issue for all the key parties.

It is front and centre on all three key party websites. Gordon Brown even has a YouTube video on the subject.

Interesting to note that the Lib Dems wecancutcrime.com site still features Ming Campbell.

So...what’s your marketing and PR strategy for the month of April ? All the local politicians want to know about, speak warmly about and generally love up, neighbourhood policing and all its wonders. So let them, but let them do it using the facts.

These are the people (some of them anyway) who are going to be shaping your local political world for the foreseeable future. How are you planning to engage with them over the next four weeks ? Do you have briefings planned ? Info packs on NHP and policing in your area ? Is your website up to date ? How are you planning to build relationships and share key knowledge?

Opportunity knocks...

HR, PR and Performance

Articles in recent months in Harvard Business Review have highlighted the changing role and expectations of HR Departments. HR thought leader Dave Ulrich for instance, argues that ‘HR should be seen not for the things that it does, but rather what it delivers for the organisation’.

Ask HR people what the role of HR is and quite often they talk in terms of the human dimension of their role, assisting, developing, hiring and managing people, posts  and positions. However, an emerging view is that HR needs to be clearer about the role that it plays in an organisation, with its departmental goals and focus more clearly reflecting the broader organisational goals. Therefore, if the organisational goal is, for example, ‘to increase profits by 10%’, then that should be the goal of the HR Department. Their role in delivering that outcome is to ensure that they have the right people, with the right skills, delivering the right services in order to achieve that.

Why am I thinking about HR ? Well, because I think that the same thought process can and should be applied to Force Press and PR Departments.

HMIC will soon be carrying out their thematic inspection of Citizen Focused Policing. The inspections will look at the delivery of Neighbourhood Policing and at the plans that forces have in place for the wider Citizen Focus delivery agenda.

HMICs Specific Grading Criteria (SGC) for the two inspection elements are:

Citizen Focus

To secure and maintain high levels of satisfaction and confidence through the consistent delivery of a first class policing service that meets the needs of individuals and of communities

Neighbourhood Policing

The aim of neighbourhood policing is to increase satisfaction and confidence, reduce the fear of crime, and resolve local problems of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Confidence is therefore a  crucial element of both SCGs. It is also a prominent issue in the wider performance agenda, appearing prominently in the APACS Promoting Safety domain, in the new PSA 23 and in the community ‘place’ surveys carried out by DCLG.

The ‘Performance Management: Lessons learned in 2007’ document recently published by HMIC says that ‘At the time of the inspection, the majority of forces were found to be monitoring the performance of their neighbourhood teams in resolving local problems of crime and antisocial behaviour. Neighbourhood teams were routinely set targets for obtaining detections, for reductions in some crime types, and for tackling anti-social behaviour – achievement was monitored regularly through reviews of the numbers of reported incidents in targeted areas’.

Which prompts the thought, that if confidence and satisfaction are such crucial performance delivery issues, and if the aim of Neighbourhood Policing and Neighbourhood Policing Teams is to increase satisfaction and confidence and reduce the fear of crime (amongst other things),  what role are force media and communications departments playing in building and sustaining that confidence ?

Are they held to account for their crucial role in building confidence? Are they, as Dave Ulrich suggests about HR, ‘being seen not for the things that they do (their processes and outputs), but rather what performance outcomes they deliver for the organisation?’. Do they share those hard organisational outcome targets that so clearly drive performance at a BCU level? And if not…why not?

  

    

Moving to user defined service provision. The first steps...

An interesting publication came out from DCLG yesterday. The guidance to Local Authorities on the development of local charters was published (available here or in the downloads section of this site).

The development of local service charters, or ‘Community Contracts’ as Hazel Blears is calling them, underlines a number of this government's key reform strands and beliefs. The importance of localism, the pre-eminent role of the local authority in the co-ordination of local service delivery, the re-emergence of the importance of the role of councilor (‘Local councillors are democratic champions for their communities’) and the need for services to be agile and adaptive in order to meet increasingly segmented (fragmented?) community needs.

At present confined to a number of trial areas around the country, charters will be developed by the local authority in partnership with other service providers and the community, usually through a community level organisation such as a parish council, residents’ association, or other neighbourhood group.

The guidance is clear that ‘Strong local leadership from the council and the Local Strategic Partnership is essential to encourage agencies to engage directly with residents at the local level’.

The charters are seen as a key mechanism for local councilors to use the service commitments and priorities named in them, to hold services to account. This monitoring role can tie into existing scrutiny structures, local scrutiny or a Councillors’ Call for Action (see the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 for details of the Councillors' Call for Action).

The charters also signal another interesting development: Neighbourhood Area Agreements (NAA's). Apparently Birmingham’s Strategic Partnership has devolved elements of its Local Area Agreement to smaller areas. Community groups in three areas of the city have developed neighbourhood area agreements, taking responsibility for the delivery of activities which meet LAA targets and outcomes in their area.

These lead community groups will decide how services are commissioned locally. In some cases they will provide services themselves and in others they will negotiate with service providers locally and monitor their delivery. This approach is intended to ensure that solutions are tailored to the local area.

Actually, when you think about it, NAA’s makes sense and fit well into the context of Local Area Agreements and Multi Area Agreements. The scrutiny of that service provision also sits well within the developing performance framework (however uncomfortable that proves to be for existing organisational cultures). NAA's do provide an obvious anchor for local scrutiny and local delivery, they may well also prove to be the mechanism that finally also delivers the inescapable roots of the two tier policing service that is clearly emerging. 

The question is though, are BCU’s up to it? Are they currently sufficiently adaptable and flexible in the way that their services are designed and delivered to meet such a specific, multi segmented service at Neighbourhood level. Sure they have Neighbourhood Policing Teams and they will play a key role in the delivery of NAA's, but are the internal systems, organisational practices, marketing techniques and management mind set where they need to be in order to recognise and deliver such a bespoke, customer driven and user defined service? Do they have the techniques and processes that will allow them to identify those multi faceted calls on service and do they have the skill and expertise (particularly marketing expertise) to manage those community expectations. Time will tell.

It will certainly be interesting to see the results from the pilot areas and the learning that comes from them. My feeling though is that NAA’s, and everything that links into them, are a done deal and are going to be around for a long time to come.

It ain't done till it's communicated

It's that time of year again. The time when the Audit Commission look at some of the lessons learnt from the comprehensive performance assessment and inspection of councils. In this case, from the 2006/07 inspections.

Published last week the ‘Focusing on citizens, users and diverse communities’ document makes for interesting reading, particularly as we move more and more deeply into the emergence of perceptions as a performance measure.

Overall the report finds that there is good evidence that improvements in user focus in councils are widespread. However it is clear that some councils need to make more progress in ensuring that these improvements are consistently and systematically used to inform decision making.

On the diversity front it finds that there is little evidence that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities are adequately engaged with councils and approaches to equalities and diversity do not encompass a broader definition of diverse communities.

Engagement with older people and children and young people tends to be well developed, but does not necessarily take full account of diversity within these groups, for example children and young people with learning disabilities. Engagement with minority communities should be further improved in many councils.

Result: This can result in local priorities and services that may not meet the needs of all communities.

The bad news for councils: overall user satisfaction with local authorities has continued to decline, although the pace of decline has slowed significantly.

There are also staggering variations in the averages for satisfaction with local services. In some cases there can be up to a 75 per cent difference between the best and worst performing areas.

As the agenda around localism and the control of local policing services continues to gather pace ( see the comments by Sir Simon Milton, Chair, Local Government Association on 12 December ‘I am today calling for every local service to be directly accountable to local people through their councils….. I want to make the local police chief and the NHS Trust director accountable to the elected representatives of the community… Neighbourhood policing should be accountable first to local people through their council’), it is interesting to note that the level of crime in 2006/07 was by far the most important issue that makes somewhere a good place to live, identified by an average of 62 per cent of residents. No wonder then that the LGA want to exercise some control over that.

An area of particular challenge going forward will be that of effective communication and looking at the results in this report, you may not want to place too much faith in the effectiveness of current council communications. (Click on the graphs to get a bigger image)

Priority action three in the new PSA 23 (coming to a place near you from April) prioritises ‘Tackling the crime, disorder and antisocial behaviour issues of greatest importance in each locality, increasing public confidence in the local agencies involved in dealing with these issues’. Thereby linking confidence in local agencies delivery with ASB. The recently published new Place Survey asks local residents a number of questions concerning their perceptions of crime, drugs, ASB etc and the Promoting Safety domain of APACS contains several perception measures.

Unfortunately the Audit Commission document shows that only just over a third (36 per cent) of people feel that they know how well the council is performing. Even worse, only 23% have any idea what the council is doing in respect of ASB. Some way to go in improving their communications then.

I keep on saying it, but the service really is going to have to get way, way smarter about the management and influence of perception. This means a distinct move away from a concentration on traditional means of communication through the press and a move to a smart marketing based approach which not only recognises the existence of other platforms, such as social media, but actively embraces and utilises them.

Cop shop hits the internet

I was in Exeter yesterday doing an input to a course for Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. During the course of the morning we had a discussion about income generation and brand management. How spooky then that this morning my attention was drawn to the launch of an online 'shop' by Kent Police (thanks to Trevor Service from PSNI for the heads up). The shop sells a range of t-shirts, baby clothing, toys and gifts - all with a police theme. Check it out here. The launch was reported by the BBC.

Finger on the trigger

There is an interesting and thought provoking article on environmental triggers over at Fast Company by the brothers Dan and Chip Heath (the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die) which has got me thinking about Citizen Focus and the ways that triggers could be used to help stimulate colleagues actions.

Here is an edited (by me) version of the article….

‘What’s an environmental trigger? Well, when you're afraid of forgetting a folder that you need for work the next day, you may leave it right by the front door. You've created an environmental trigger.

This idea of using triggers extends far beyond your front door--into many aspects of our society, including business triggers for personal productivity such as ‘To Do’ lists. Basically, if you have something you don't want to forget, don't scrunch up your brain and try really hard to retain it; just install an environmental trigger to do the remembering for you.

What if people planned their ideas, from the start, to take advantage of triggers in the environment? Two professors, Jonah A. Berger and Grainne Fitzsimons, announce in a forthcoming paper that they've used triggers to do the impossible: get college students to eat more veggies.

In their study, students were paid $20 to report their daily eating habits. Then they were offered a seemingly unrelated opportunity to give feedback on a public-health slogan. One group of students saw the slogan "Live the healthy way, eat five fruits and veggies a day." Another group saw "Each and every dining-hall tray needs five fruits and veggies a day." In both cases, the idea is the same--eat more fruits and veggies--but the slogan with the tray hooks into a specific cue in the environment.

The students didn't much like the tray slogan. They found it corny and rated it half as attractive as the more generic slogan. Meanwhile, the professors were keeping an eye on what the students ate. Those who got the generic "Live healthy" slogan, without the trigger, didn’t eat any more fruits and vegetables. The same goes for those who got the tray slogan but ate in cafeterias without trays. But students who ate in cafeterias with trays ate 25% more fruits and veggies over the course of the next week. The trigger worked.

Marketers spend most of their time scheming how to drive messages into the heads of consumers, and yet rarely do they use triggers. A slogan by itself is a funny kind of trigger, because the only time it appears is when you're exposed to the advertisements it's featured in.

Think about the ideas that are important to you: Could you hook them to something in the environment? An anti-nuclear-testing group, for instance, quietly placed signs around the walk buttons at urban crosswalks, and as a pedestrian's finger moved toward the button, he'd notice that the sign read the world could end this easily. Suddenly, people would flinch, and think about nuclear weapons when crossing the street.

Whether you're running a multinational or just reminding yourself to pick up milk, try planting some idea triggers in your environment’.

One of the problems of Citizen Focus is that it's a concept and like most concepts it needs to be kept at the forefront of people’s minds. So, if management exhortation by email and poster aren’t doing it for you, what Citizen Focus environmental triggers could you devise and use where you are….? Do let me know.

5 ways to help the customer 'buy' your service

I have been reading the new(ish) book on 'Marketing in the Public Sector: a roadmap for improved performance' by Kottler and Lee (a good read and well worth considering for the bookshelf, although a lot of American examples are used).

In the book, amongst many other things, they examine the stages of activity that mark out a decision to 'buy' something, and this has led me to start thinking about the ways in which customers and colleagues 'buy' our divisional, departmental or unit product or service offering.

K&L talk about the 'buyer decision process' as a linear process that encompasses clear and separate stages of needs recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behaviour.

In citizen focus terms it seems to me that there is considerable mileage in looking at your dept, unit etc through the eyes of the customer and considering (needs recognition) :

1.  How can I help my target audience (internal or external) understand or recognise the need to use (or buy) my product or service (needs recognition) and what range of information products or presentational styles could I use (information presentation and relevance) to assist them in reaching that understanding?

2. How can I make it easy for the customer to find the information that they want about my product or service (information search)?

3. How can I present my information, across a range of channels, in a manner that allows them to make an informed choice about my product or service (evaluation of alternatives)?

4. How can I make my product or service accessible to them and assist them to access it, in a way that suits them, when they are ready to 'buy' (purchase decision)? 

5. What mechanisms or processes can I build into my service offering in order to stay in touch with my customer, to evaluate their satisfaction, to build permission to engage with them again in order to offer new services and to work towards them becoming advocates for my product and ambassadors for my brand (post purchase behaviour).