Management Capacity-Building in the South African Police Service at Station Level

Abstract

This article focuses on the management capacity of the officers at station level within the South African Police Service (SAPS). Primarily management development is investigated in relation to the effect on service delivery at station level in the SAPS. Station managers in the SAPS are expected simultaneously to drive complex transformation processes as well as competently manage their stations in order to address crime properly in the jurisdictional area of each station. To build the management capacity of the station managers in order to drive the transformation process, a management capacity-building programme was designed by a partnership of six universities in South Africa to assist in the management of crime at local level. This programme became known as the Police Station Management Programme (PSMP). The PSMP was specifically designed to build capacity in terms of the management dimensions of the job profile of station managers in the SAPS. The research problem addressed in this article broadly focuses on the perceived variation in the levels of managerial capacity of a group of current station managers in the SAPS and on how, if at all, these perceptions changed as result of a management development intervention.