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Many public sector organizations worldwide
have undergone structural reforms in an
attempt to increase efficiency, efficacy, and
the quality of service. The new public
management (NPM) agenda was the starting
point (Hood, 1995; Lapsley, 1999, 2008),
introducing a new culture of service delivery
and performance evaluation, based on
performance measurement. Performance
indicators (PIs) were designed to help
managers achieve efficiency and effectiveness
and promote better decisions towards
continuous improvement (Rautiainen et al.,
2011).
Law enforcement is one public service
area that has adopted this new performance
culture (Carmona and Grönlund, 2003;
Collier, 2006; Manning, 2008; Rautiainen et
al., 2011). Several countries, such as Australia,
Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK
and the USA, have implemented
performance measurement in law
enforcement (Loveday, 1995; Collier, 2001a,
2001b, 2004; Carmona and Grönlund, 2003;
Hoque et al., 2004; Hoogenboezem and
Hoogenboezem, 2005; Gomes et al., 2008;
Rautiainen et al., 2011). The use of the
balanced scorecard (BSC) in the Swedish
(Carmona and Grönlund, 2003) and Scottish
(Wisniewski and Dickson, 2001) police
systems are also important examples of
innovative practices in police performance
assessment.
Law enforcement in many countries is
facing reductions in government funding
together with increases in community
demands for services. This had led to a move
towards ‘managing for outcomes’ (Rautiainen
et al., 2011). In this sense, police services
have gradually come to incorporate
performance measurement and management
in their management models (Loveday, 1995;
Rogerson, 1995; Collier, 2001b, 2004;
Carmona and Grönlund, 2003; Hoque et al.,
2004; Lambropoulou, 2004; Rautiainen et
al., 2011). The aim is to measure outcomes of
police work and their relationship with
output measures, based on the capacity to
carry out their operational activities with
available resources and on the capacity to
increase the level of public safety.
This is difficult to do in policing because
of the ambiguity in the conceptualization of
performance and because disclosure of
information is often guarded (Carter et al.,
1993; Carmona and Grönlund, 2003). In
addition, different stakeholders have
different views about what constitutes good
performance (Carmona and Grönlund,
2003). Police activities are essentially
intangible and not easily quantified: for
example providing the public with a feeling
of safety, building relationships with
communities, and multi-agency policing.
Therefore, caution needs to be exercised
when developing a performance
measurement system if the objective is to
capture the quality and effectiveness of police
work.
Patrícia Gomes is a
professor at the
Polytechnic Institute
of Cávado and Ave,
Portugal.
Silvia M. Mendes is
a professor at the
University of Minho,
Portugal.
Performance measurement and
management in Portuguese law
enforcement
Patrícia Gomes and Silvia M. Mendes
Performance measurement of police services is complicated by ambiguous and
complex goal- and objectives-setting, and by the difficulties of measuring outputs.
This article looks at the organizational and management changes being made in
Portuguese police forces. The authors fill a gap in the literature on performance
measurement in Portugal by taking a national approach to the study of how law
enforcement agencies are introducing new management accounting changes. The
article therefore widens the debate on performance measurement and performance
improvements in law enforcement.
Keywords: Law enforcement; performance measurement; PIs; police, Portugal, PSP.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2013.744892
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Performance measurement in law
enforcement
Police activities are largely determined by
external, or environmental, factors which
are hard to control—socio-economic and
demographic variables (Collier, 1998, 2001b;
Drake and Simper, 2005). Moreover, a
quantitative approach can be problematic
because it ‘cannot capture the dynamics of
police/public interactions at the micro level,
and fails to produce organizational or
individual learning of any future worth’
(Shilston, 2008, p. 359). In this sense, Carter
et al. (1993, p. 7) assert that performance
measures of police activities are, in fact,
performance measures of the community as
a whole. In order to adopt multidimensional
performance measurement systems, law
enforcement agencies need to define
qualitative and quantitative performance
measures (Jackson, 1993; Guthrie and
English, 1997; Kloot and Martin, 2000) that
relate results and operating activities.
Police forces carry out diverse functions,
ranging from crime prevention, community
policing, law enforcement and the
maintenance of public order, prevention of
drug use and trafficking, and promoting
road safety and feelings of security.
Consequently, there is a risk of ambiguity in
goal-setting and in the measurability of
outputs and outcomes. To deal with these
complexities, performance measurement
must have a clear definition of goals and
responsibilities, as well as a clear picture of
core activities (Rogerson, 1995; Verbeeten,
2008).
Policing has been changing from a focus
on the reduction of crime to more of an
emphasis on community policing—where
citizens play an important role in raising the
quality of urban life (Carmona and Grönlund,
2003, p. 1481). Crime rate is not sufficient to
evaluate police performance; more
qualitative and quantitative information on
outputs and outcomes need to be included.
Therefore, a multidimensional approach is
needed to attempt to draw a clear picture of
police performance (Carmona and Salvador,
2003; Rautiainen et al., 2011).
The UK was a pioneer in adopting PIs in
law enforcement in the 1980s. Performance
measurement of public service delivery has
come a long way since then, particularly in
financial management (Rogerson, 1995). In
the UK in the mid 1990s, greater freedoms
were given to chief constables to manage
their resources and be held more accountable
and police forces were required to use
‘performance targets that would prioritize
activity of the following year’ (Collier, 2001b,
p. 473). The linkage between funding and
performance and the promotion of the
strategic planning were the most important
aspects of these reforms (Rogerson, 1995).
This reform agenda led to the Police Reform
Act 2002 which considers how police forces
can show value for money based on
government strategic policy targets.
More recently in the UK, in the mid
2000s, a major new initiative was adopted to
foster community policing—the
neighbourhood policing programme
(Neyroud, 2008). This programme aims to
reduce the gap between police performance
and public confidence, drawing on evidence
from the UK, the USA, and Australia. Unlike
earlier models, the focus is on signalling
‘crimes that have a disproportionate impact
on local public perceptions of policing and
on measures of trust and confidence that
local communities have in the police’ (Innes,
2004, cited by Neyroud, 2008, p. 343).
Other countries have followed the British
example. Portugal is one such case. The
Portuguese changes include the introduction
of a new paradigm based on community
policing and the measurement of
performance (Gomes et al., 2008). In
Portugal, there are two national police forces
responsible for the prevention and detection
of crime and the maintenance of law and
order:
•The Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR),
which polices smaller rural population
centres and rural areas.
•The Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP),
which polices urban centres (Barros, 2006).
Both report to the Ministry of Internal
Administration, and have very limited
administrative and financial autonomy.
There is a national structure and a rigid
management and accountability structure.
In addition, Portugal has two other police
forces:
•Polícia Judiciária (PJ): responsible for
criminal investigation and accountable to
the Ministry of Justice.
•The Polícia Municipal (PM), which oversees
specific urban civil activities and is
accountable both to the Ministry of the
Territorial Planning and the Ministry of
Internal Administration.
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The Portuguese government is reforming
the police system to create a unitary model,
like the one in Spain. This will encompass
the GNR, the PSP, and the PJ. However,
Portugal is a relative late comer to NPM
(Carvalho et al., 2006) and so financial and
management initiatives are not as advanced
as in the UK (Araújo, 2001; Carvalho et al.,
2006). However, reforms have been
introduced in at least one of the four national
Portuguese police forces—the PSP. This
article focuses on those changes.
Performance measurement and
management in the PSP
The PSP’s mission is to assure legal
democracy, internal safety, and human
rights. Five strategic goals have been defined
for the PSP (PSP Report, 2008): increase
citizen safety; reduce criminality and
insecurity; promote road safety; improve
quality of service; increase skills in human
resources.
The PSP has a hierarchical structure led
by a national director appointed by the
Ministry of Internal Administration and is
organized into two regional constabularies,
two metropolitan constabularies, and 16
district constabularies. The total budget of
the PSP was about 612 million euro in 2008,
the majority of which (about 93%) was
allocated to staffing. The PSP had over 20,000
staff in 2007 and 2008 (see table 1). This
number decreased from 2007 to 2008,
following government pressure to reduce
the number of civil servants. Police officers
constitute about 80% of total staff, so the
ratio of police officers per 1000 inhabitants
is about 1.6 police officers (Portugal’s
population is almost 11 million).
However, the results of a nationwide
survey that we conducted in 2006, showed
that PSP police officers spend only 40% of
their time on community policing. The rest
of their time is spent on administrative and
secondary functions. This is a problem in
terms of effective performance measurement
because people tend to evaluate police
services in terms of the number of police
officers they see patrolling the streets (Collier,
2001b).
In recent years, the PSP has been under
pressure to introduce a management model
that is more pro-active and more citizen-
oriented. As in other parts of the Portuguese
public sector, the police have introduced
management by objectives (Gomes et al.,
2008). Our 2006 survey applied to all PSP
agency heads and focused on the
development of performance measurement
systems.* Respondents thought that the most
useful performance measures were around
citizen satisfaction, employees’ performance
and operational efficiency. Police chiefs paid
little attention to financial measures. This
focus on citizens, employees, and quality is
in line with the PSP’s mission.
About 75% of respondents said that PSP’s
mission and associated goals were defined
clearly. In addition, around 66% considered
that measurable targets were accurately
defined and that results/achievements were
being measured. These results indicate that
performance measurement systems are being
considered or are already in use in PSP
agencies.
Regarding the main constraints in the
implementation of performance
measurement systems, respondents
highlighted the short-term approach taken
by public policy-makers (the lack of a strategic
and pro-active management model), the lack
of financial autonomy, the disconnection
between the performance measurement
system and the reward system, and resistance
to change.
More recently, there have been two major
organizational changes to the PSP
management model:
•The introduction of an integrated program
of community policing (PIPP) which aims
to articulate crime prevention and
proximity policing with public order,
criminal investigation, and police
information.
•New legislation introducing changes in the
performance measurement and
assessment of public services aimed at
promoting accountability and improving
decision-making.
*A nationwide postal survey was sent in early 2006
to all Portuguese police chiefs except in the GNR. A
total of 243 questionnaires was returned (response
rate = 48%). The questionnaire explored the extent
of BSC application and management’s willingness
to apply the BSC. The questionnaire was informed
by face-to-face interviews conducted with police
chiefs. The questionnaire had four sections:
descriptions of the responding officers and agencies;
the perceived importance of specific NPM issues
and on the level of effective autonomy; the use and
importance of performance measures; and level of
knowledge of and predisposition toward the BSC.
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PIPP
PIPP is a government programme which
uses strategic initiatives and operational
objectives to reform police services with
improved co-ordination, evaluation, and
training. The goal is to articulate core police
activities (crime prevention, community
policing, public order, and crime
investigation) in order to increase efficiency
in resource allocation and improve the quality
of service delivery. PIPP’s goals are similar
to those in the UK’s neighbourhood policing
programme. PIPP was initially implemented
as a pilot project in 26 subunits of the PSP in
the year 2006 and by the end of 2008, its
coverage expanded to 112 subunits.
Two specialized teams were introduced
in each subunit: a ‘proximity and victim
support team’ (responsible for security and
policing in each area of responsibility) and a
‘safe school programme team’ (responsible
for security and surveillance in schools). The
officers in these teams work closely with
residents, and particularly with vulnerable
people (for example young children,
teenagers, elderly, residents of problem
neighbourhoods). Another innovative
procedure under the PIPP is the evaluation
of police performance (financed by the
Programa Operacional da Administração
Pública—POPA). Police performance is
assessed both from the perspective of the
population (perceptions of police work
carried out, feelings of security or insecurity,
and PIPP’s impact on society); and from the
perspective of the police officers (how they
think they relate to the population and the
structure in which they operate).
PIPP was first evaluated in October 2006
and then again in December 2007. The results
of these evaluations showed that people
perceived an increase in the number of police
officers on the streets between 2006 and
2007 (PSP Report, 2008). Although the
population saw this change as positive, no
structural changes were detected. Police
officers also valued proximity to, and good
relationships with, the general population,
as well as with other police forces and
organizations and other community services.
Despite generally positive results, police
officers said that police work was still focused
on the patrol car and continued to be very
much a reactive police force (PSP Report,
2008, pp. 207–211).
A new performance measurement and
assessment system in the PSP
Other changes also occurred in the
performance assessment of police work in
Portugal. For example an integrated system
for management and performance
assessment of public administration
(SIADAP) was introduced in 2007. This is a
management by objectives model which aims
to strengthen a culture of assessment and
accountability in the public sector and to
monitor whether the service is complying
with its organizational mission. Thus, this is
a new model of management and
performance assessment that focuses on the
alignment between service performance and
the performance of those working in it—
both management (top and middle) and
employees. ‘The success of SIADAP and
management by objectives shall be largely
based on the existence of quality management
information systems that supply timely,
relevant, and accurate data on the evolution
of results’ (Ministry of Finance, 2007, p. 19).
In addition to the SIADAP, a new
performance management tool was also
introduced to help the process of
performance assessment of each service—
the framework of assessment and
accountability (QUAR).
SIADAP and QUAR have been
compulsory for law enforcement since 2007
and PSP performance based on these new
requirements was first assessed in 2008.
According these requirements, the first
QUAR of the PSP was elaborated for the year
2008 and included multi-annual strategic
objectives (goals), annual objectives
Table 1. PSP staffing.
Staff 2007 2008 Variation
Senior officials 662 811 149
Chiefs and deputy chiefs 2648 2530 -118
Police officers 18,973 17,976 -997
Employees (non-police functions) 1016 826 -190
Total 23,299 22143 -1156
Sources: PSP Social Balance (2007 and 2008) and PSP Activities Report (2008)—see www.psp.pt
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(operational objectives), key performance
indicators (KPIs), as well as the respective
verification sources.
Another important
aspect is that performance measures are
organized into:
•Effectiveness—measures the extent to which
a service achieves its objectives and obtains
or exceeds the expected results.
•Efficiency—measures the relationship
between outputs and the resources used.
•Quality—measures the extent to which
outputs meet users’ needs.
The performance measurement system
must be designed to work with the planning
and control system and with the management
cycle, therefore providing a tool for
monitoring and assessing compliance with
strategic goals and annual targets based on
quantitative indicators. Five key stages are
involved:
•Setting objectives for each organizational
unit for the following year.
•Approval of the budget and statement of its
personnel.
•Definition of the activities for the coming
year and the key PIs (both for units and
for the organization as a whole).
•Monitoring the revision of the objectives.
•Performance report with qualitative and
quantitative information on the
achievements and annual self-assessment.
The monitoring and revision of the
objectives allows for feedback on what has
already been accomplished and the
introduction of improvements throughout
the system. The performance report explains
the achieved levels of effectiveness, efficiency,
and quality compared with the commitments
set out in the planning and control
documents. Political leaders therefore have
quantitative and qualitative information on
outputs and outcomes in order to evaluate
the performance of top managers.
As a result of these organizational
changes, policing in Portugal has moved
from a reactive and rigid model to a more
pro-active and modern management model.
Framework of performance indicators
used by the PSP
Following SIADAP requirements, the PSP
elaborates a QUAR for each fiscal year that
includes a framework of PIs based on
measures of effectiveness, efficiency, and
quality. Operational objectives (based on the
five key stages) are defined with objective
and quantitative PIs. Defining targets allows
an organization to assess its achievements, as
well as quantify gaps between desired and
achieved goals. The 2008 PSP QUAR
consisted of 13 objectives, seven effectiveness
indicators, four efficiency indicators, and
two quality indicators. Thus, a single
indicator and target was used to measure
achievements according to each operational
objective. Table 2 summarizes the main PIs
adopted by the PSP for self-assessment for
this year.
Some interesting and important issues
emerge from the analysis of table 2. First,
different metrics are used by the PSP to
measure PIs (for example number of actions,
days). Also, there is a high level of consistency
between objectives, indicators, and targets.
Second, effectiveness measures are
greatly oriented toward the PIPP objectives
(i.e. the percentage of subunits that integrate
the PIPP and the percentage of visible
policing actions), particularly the reduction
of crime (the number of special operations in
crime prevention). The PSP emphasizes
community policing actions and police
presence in the streets to increase the public’s
feeling of security. However, the PSP did not
develop any measures aimed at increasing
public safety or reducing crime rates, which
are important outputs of police work.
Third, the efficiency measures are
oriented towards processes. There is an
emphasis on time response and the
simplification of processes, such as the
reduction of the average time taken to issue
licences. This could be a consequence of new
administrative procedures introduced in the
Portuguese public sector called SIMPLEX,
which aims to shorten and simplify
administrative procedures—reducing ‘red
tape’. There is still a lot of room for
improvement, particularly in the short term
with additional measures of outputs,
outcomes, and the use of resources.
Finally, quality measures are focused on
service delivery and have a greater
orientation toward the implementation of
good practices in the PSP. With regard to
achievements, the majority of the objectives
have been met, and, in most cases, the PSP
exceeded the targets in 2008 and again in
2009 for effectiveness measures. Although
other factors can be associated with
improvements in the PSP, the results shown
for 2008 (and 2009) show some degree of
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