Meet James Sweetland – His Passion for Problem-Solving, Policing and Technology
Our team is the reason we consistently deliver exceptional results for our clients. We want to introduce you to our team members who are the driving force behind Leapwise. Meet James Sweetland James is a Consultant at Leapwise. With extensive experience consulting and researching on police effectiveness and technology, he’s passionate about helping public sector organisations pursue sustainable solutions to complex problems. Professional […]
New Year’s Resolution for Public Sector Leaders – Be Radical to Reform Public Services
Welcome back to your first Leapwise blog of 2025! We hope you had a good break – especially readers who were working hard in public services where Christmas often means higher demand, rather than a quieter few weeks. As we reflect on 2024, it’s worth recognising how much change we saw across the public sector. […]
Fit For The Future: The case for a reformed national policing landscape – Tom’s view
Earlier this week, Leapwise and the Police Foundation co-published a brand-new policy paper: ‘Fit for the Future: the case for a reformed national policing landscape.’ If you didn’t catch it, you can find the full version here. We also published a launch op-ed in Policing Insight – co-written by Leapwise MD Tom Gash and Police Foundation Director Dr Rick Muir – for a quicker summary of […]
London Borough of Hounslow: Accelerating a New Preventative Model in Local Government – A Leapwise Case study
Introduction Within the public sector, adopting a preventative approach is generally recognised as a sensible course of action – for both financial and non-financial reasons. Financially, prevention offers the opportunity to reduce costs at a time when budgets are tight. Cashable savings or demand avoidance can create space to re-allocate resources to pressing challenges elsewhere, […]
Public Sector Productivity: 4 Tips for Effective Process Redesign
Between the challenging fiscal context and the significant demands across the state (see prison spaces, NHS waiting lists or court backlogs), public services are under exceptional strain. And we saw thischallenge played out in the lead up to the Autumn Budget, with various Cabinet ministers successfully making the case for additional resources for their departments, funded by tax increases. However, funding for public services remains extremely tight. Public services will (like business) need to pay the increased National Insurance contribution – typically at a cost of […]
Autumn Budget: Six Ways Leaders can Thrive in the New Fiscal Environment
Next week will see the new Government’s first major political set piece (if you leave aside the PM’s recent International Investment Summit.) When Chancellor Rachel Reeves announces the full details of the Budget, we’ll get a much clearer sense of Labour’s plan for government and, crucially, the financial outlook for public services in the Parliament ahead. We already know what the core tension in this Budget […]
A New Era of Police Efficiency: Savings Beyond the Salami Slicer
In a recent Leapwise blog, we talked about the local pathways to delivering sustainable savings within policing. We called on forces to avoid the tempting simplicity of ‘salami slicing’ or simply applying across–the–board budget cuts to achieve savings. Instead, they need to make well-targeted changes that deliver value for money, and build the muscles needed to deliver more productive, transformed services. Local policing doesn’t work in a vacuum, of course. Forces draw on national functions and services, such as the […]
Home Office: Developing a Blueprint for Professionalising Support for Police and Crime Panels – A Leapwise Case study
Policing in England and Wales is highly decentralised, with each of its 43 constituent forces operating with much more independence than in many other comparable countries. The same is true for police scrutiny functions. Police chiefs are held to account by their local Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) who, in turn, will be scrutinised by […]
Navigating the New Era – Top 5 Policing Challenges for 2024
Policing at a Crossroads – A Service Under Pressure Policing’s leaders today are under intense pressure – trying to navigate demand and performance pressures with stretched resources and a new workforce. This article summarises these critical challenges policing must fact up to: stretched resources, growing pains, growing demands, performance pressures, and a crisis of confidence. […]