Change in the UK police service: The costs and dilemmas of restructured managerial roles and identities

Abstract

This paper examines the restructuring of the UK police service and the implications for the roles and identities of middle and senior managers. It draws on extensive empirical research which has given ‘voice’ to key individuals in this change process. Over the past 20 years, public sector restructuring has become a significant topic of organisational change. Public services have been subjected to two very different sets of pressures for change which have demanded new structures, attitudes and behaviours. The first and, according to many, the most significant pressure, has been the need to reduce costs and to create value-for-money services. A second pressure has been linked to the importance of service quality and the need for public services to be responsive to community and user concerns. Both sets of pressures have had significant implications for managerial and professional roles within public services. The findings presented here show how these reconstructed managerial roles in the police service have produced ‘dysfunctional’ outcomes, resulting in a number of costs and dilemmas for individual managers. It is concluded that many of these problems have arisen because of the incompatible and conflictual nature of the pressures and demands being placed on public sector organisations and their senior managers.