Bureaucracy, contracts and networks: the unholy trinity and the police.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Fleming, Jenny
• Date: 01 August 2005

Over the past thirty years, police services in the UK and Australia have been subjected to a series of demands for change and reform. This article describes these reforms as a shift from command and control bureaucracy through markets to networks and argues that constant reform is a result of the unintended consequences of change. Many of these unintended consequences stem from the limitations and incompatibility of each of these governing structures. We show that the conflicts between the core ideas that distinguish each governing structure create dilemmas that render all reforms contingent.

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Towards the Network State

In the past 30 years, police services in the UK and Australia have been characterised by change and reform. The major agendas for reform have been fuelled variously by demands for efficiency and effectiveness, a concern about the relationship between police and the community they serve, and organisational corruption (see Bayley, 1994; Chan, 1997; Fleming & Lafferty, 2000; Prenzler & Ransley, 2002). In the UK industrial strife and public disorder provided the impetus for the reforms of the 1980s (Scarman, 1981). More latterly the imposition of structural and organisational reforms was driven by managerialist concerns about operational effectiveness, efficiency and accountability. In Australia, while the managerialist agenda contributed significantly to police organisational reform, successive inquiries into police misconduct also provided the momentum for change (Fleming & Lafferty, 2000). Reform has in effect become cyclical.

Why is police reform constant? The short answer is because it is plagued with unintended consequences. This article describes recent reforms as a shift from command and control bureaucracy through markets to networks. It argues that many of the unintended consequences stem from the limitations of each of these governing structures. We do not make an argument for bureaucracy, contracts or networks. We argue that each can work or fail. It depends on the context and the mix. At some point we have to accept that the structures mix like oil and water.

We recognise that most accounts of police reform use 'police culture' as an explanatory variable (see Chan, 1997; Paoline, 2003; Reiner, 1992). That is not our aim. We approach the topic of reform from the subfields of public administration, public policy and public management. We ask what these fields can add to our understanding of the subject. We do not seek to offer a critique of other approaches. Rather, we show that conflict between incompatible ideas simply makes it too easy for dynamic conservatism to win out. Our account of the limits to change complements rather than contradicts accounts rooted in culture.

In this section, we tell the distinctive stories of the Bureaucratic State, the Contract State and the Network State. We take these three sets of ideas as delineated in the literature and show how they have been variously adopted by police organisations. We ask to what extent these ideas contribute to the problems associated with police reform. We do not believe that the police service will develop in a single direction. Rather, we tell three distinct stories knowing they encapsulate trends that will diverge and intersect. We separate them and extrapolate to get a clearer analytical purchase. If you prefer, we explore the effects of the sour laws of unintended consequences on police reform. The stories are diagnostic, not descriptive.

We then focus on the newest way of delivering services--networks--and its effects on other forms of service delivery. Through semistructured interviews with 27 senior officers ranking from Sergeant to Commissioner conducted in the UK and Australia, we explore the limits and prospects of such cooperative policing. The interviews took place in 2003. Interviewees were selected randomly with senior rank being the only requirement. Four of the interviewees were women. Our aim remains diagnostic. We move beyond the scepticism of sworn officers to show that the conflicts between the core ideas that distinguish each governing structure create dilemmas that render all reforms contingent, and sometimes nugatory.

Governing structures are often presented as organisational phenomena yet they can also be seen as webs of beliefs about ways of allocating resources, resolving conflicts and coordinating actors. For both Australia and Britain, the beliefs of elite actors, that is, politicians and senior public servants, about the relative effectiveness of these governing structures has shifted away from hierarchies to markets and more recently to networks (Bevir & Rhodes, 2003; Davis & Rhodes, 2001; Rhodes 1997a, 1997b). In the following section we briefly discuss each governing structure.

The Bureaucratic State

The story of bureaucracy is the dominant story of the 20th century. Its characteristics are well known--hierarchy, roles, merit appointments and permanency. Bayley (1994, p. 61) notes that police organisations are structured on authoritarian, paramilitary lines, regulated through strict organisational rules and legislation with an emphasis on internal and vertical communication. There is a premium on compliance rather than initiative ... decision-making is 'rarely participative or collegial across rank lines'.

Critics deem bureaucracy to be inherently inefficient, too large and expensive, and lacking the structure of incentives of a market. Bureaucracy was suited to standardised administration, not management, and the management of bureaucracy was obsolete. Even worse, the routines of bureaucracy made it risk-averse, discouraging innovation. Constant though change may be, bureaucracy is still with us and alive and well in police organisations. Contracting out is one of managerialism's main tools but this has not supplanted bureaucratic forms of organisation. Indeed, the unintended consequences of contracting may be to 'reinvent' the bureaucratic state. It needs a permanent, autonomous, career-based and policy-focused core public service, committed to neutral professional advice. This small but essential group draws on the techniques of strategic management rather than traditional public administration. Bureaucracies provide direct, hands-on control of policy and services through their hierarchical, rule-based structure. These characteristics favour intervention. Should any future government rail against the constraints of fragmented service delivery systems and seek to steer, they are likely to deploy bureaucracy as the most appropriate tool for hands-on management and control.

The Contract State

The central plot of the contract story extends contracts beyond organising and managing the public sector to embrace the link between government and citizens (Yeatman, 1995). What was once a political association now takes on an implied contractual form. Electors become clients, their rights and expectations encapsulated in a 'Citizens Charter' or a 'guarantee of service'. This contract binds the state to produce or facilitate certain levels of service, and specifies penalties for failure to comply. The principal and agent model, in which mutual obligations are spelled out in writing, becomes an organising principle for public life.

In recent years there has been a determined effort to use contracts to deliver police services (Bayley, 1994, pp. 130-132; Fleming & Lafferty, 2000). For example, governments hold contracts with police services with such general objectives as creating a safer and more secure locality through the contractual provision of police services.

Police contracts focus on crime and safety management, road safety, crime prevention and successful prosecution data. Each service has many, often inconsistent, performance indicators (PIs). How, for example, do we reconcile maximising the number of successful prosecutions with crime prevention objectives of reducing levels of crime? In effect, there is a quasi-market, with the police under great pressure to show that resources are being used efficiently with each objective maximised simultaneously (Moore, 1990, p. 73). Scott (1998, p. 283) argues that PIs empower management by 'providing a way of measuring where police resources are being allocated' and increasing levels of managerial accountability. As Moore (1990, p. 74) points out, such measurements set 'useful benchmarks' but are 'always susceptible to criticism and change'.

An unintended consequence of contracting is rising transaction costs. Contracting out initially cuts costs, but it is less certain that such savings endure. The costs of overseeing contracts are high, not least because managers have had little time to develop the necessary skills and systems. Contract rigidity can impose unanticipated expense, when circumstances need more or different work. And circumstances and priorities change often in crisis-driven organisations like the police. PIs encourage a 'checklist approach' to output measurement and a focus on short-term results, which:

narrows responsibility to simple compliance with what is on the list, and prompts Chief Executives to disregard responsibility...