Influencing the Police: Local Autonomy in Policy and Practice in England and Wales

Abstract

This article assesses the influence of the Home Office; Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary; the Association of Chief Police Officers; the Audit Commission; the Local Police Authority and the Chief Constable, on policy makers and implementers of policy from various levels of a police organization. It is based on three policy areas: the Citizens' Charter; Annual Policing (now Performance) Plans; and Domestic Violence Policy in England and Wales. Both policy makers and policy implementers believed that, with the exception of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and the Local Police Authority, there was a strong influence from all these groups in all the policy areas examined. However for police officers directly involved in the implementation process, the Citizens' Charter and Annual Policing (now Performance) Plans had made little difference to the way they carried out their day-to-day work. In these more generic policy areas they saw less influence from these groups, with greater influence coming from consumers, public opinion, colleagues and immediate supervisors. But in the tighter policy area of domestic violence, where there is greater top-down control, the influence of these groups was the strongest, with local autonomy, both in policy and practice, hard to find.