Blueprints: Designing local policing models for the 21st century

Blueprints: Designing local policing models for the 21st century

Project
Related Themes: Neighbourhood policing, Police effectiveness, Police resources
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Blueprints: Designing local policing models for the 21st century
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Background

The Police Foundation’s Blueprints project explores the design choices made by English and Welsh police forces in the delivery of local policing – specifically in relation to the operating models they adopt to provide incident response, neighbourhood policing, local investigation and public protection. It takes as its starting point the considerable diversification and frequent change in local policing models that has occurred within and between police forces over the last one to two decades.

Project aims

  • Describe and (as far as possible) codify, the variety of local police operating models being practised across England and Wales, explain why they have developed and explore the rationales behind them.
  • Investigate what (if anything) can be concluded about the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, based on quantitative performance analysis (where possible) and local experiences and learning.
  • Look, in-depth, at the way policing models enable and constrain police practitioners working in four functional areas: incident response, neighbourhood policing, local investigation and public protection.
  • Explore what can be learned from the way local policing is organised in other countries.
  • Assess the suitability of different design options against future policing challenges, drawing on the analysis presented in the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, and focusing on strategic enablers such as preventative partnership and public cooperation.

We will do this through a combination of interviews, discussions and focus groups with senior system-leaders, police force strategists and police practitioners; workforce data analysis, outcome data analysis and comparative research.

Read more

Read the launch paper and blog for this project

Download the supplementary slide pack, providing workforce data analysis for every police force.

Get in touch

We would like to hear from police forces about the operating models they are using, and have used, the reasons behind their choices, what has been learned and what is coming next. Contact us via

Project Authors

Andy Higgins

Andy joined the Police Foundation in July 2013 having spent nine years in analytical roles with the Metropolitan Police Service. During his time with the MPS Andy worked as a crime and intelligence analyst before moving to a central Corporate Development team where he carried out strategic research, corporate performance analysis and co-authored a large-scale evaluation of an Integrated Offender Management initiative. He has also worked in commercial qualitative and quantitative market research and has an MA in Criminology and Social Policy.