As all police leaders know, funding has been squeezed for forces across England and Wales for many years. That’s created an environment in which those same leaders must carefully justify spending and seek productivity improvements with even greater urgency.
However, as this case study shows, it’s still possible to create meaningful change at a time when funding is tight – allowing forces to avoid the ‘salami slicing’ approach that can leave people struggling with demand
In just 6 months of close collaboration, Norfolk and Suffolk (N&S) Constabularies have managed, with Leapwise support, to successfully identify efficiencies, strengthen internal capacity, and develop a Joint Transformation Programme (JTP) that’s already delivering benefits.
The Challenge
Police forces – including N&S – face significant financial pressures, with limited funding and restrictions on how they can use their budgets. These two forces have long collaborated together and Leapwise had already successfully supported N&S to establish its JTP through 2024 with similar aims.
In this project, Leapwise were commissioned to build on that progress, acting as an ‘acceleration partner’ for the programme we co-designed with the leadership of both forces. Our goal was to help the JTP develop its culture and ways of working, build a high-performing team of talented staff, and unlock early savings.
Our Approach
We engaged with Norfolk and Suffolk over a six-month period, taking three key steps:
- Embedding Leapwise staff in the programme on a time-limited basis: we embedded a senior Leapwise staff member in the JTP as a joint transformation lead, providing daily leadership, coaching, and upskilling support to N&S personnel. Other Leapwise team members also worked in the team on a time-limited basis to help the JTP deliver projects as soon as possible.
- Building capacity and core capabilities within the JTP: we supported N&S with recruitment activities in order to grow capacity within the programme rapidly, as well as designing and implementing governance and documentation to set up the programme for success.
- Delivering and co-delivering initial work packages: we followed an ‘I do, we do, you do’ model in which we delivered initial projects directly, before transitioning to a co-delivery and upskilling model soon afterwards. This demonstrated success in pilot areas – giving ‘quick wins’ to the programme – before building long-term capability within the programme team to operate independently of support.
Results
Across our six months of acceleration work, we supported N&S to create a fully functional transformation programme, including senior leadership, benefits tracking, governance, wider staffing, and core documentation and products. We also established a Transformation Leadership Group that offered senior stakeholder buy-in and pan-organisational leadership to help the JTP achieve its goals.
Crucially, our work on initial work packages also yielded measurable results, including:
- A process improvement which will deliver £100,000 of recurring annual savings within an operational policing area
- A change governance process which saved 17 days of senior leadership time per year
- A revised approach to joint chief officer team meetings that is more outcomes-focused and capable of supporting JTP delivery and scrutiny
- A service catalogue process, which has now been tested in two key functions, and has identified well over £1m of potential efficiencies
There is, of course, much more to do but the team developed during this acceleration will continue to deliver transformation work – and savings – for both constabularies for years to come.
“Working with Leapwise, we identified opportunities for transformational change and pinpointed the key business areas to focus on. This partnership created a programme and a team that quickly achieved efficiencies and savings, as well as identifying new and improved ways of working to meet modern-day policing challenges.”
– David Skevington, Director, Joint Transformation Programme
What other public sector organisations can learn from this
This project showed that even with limited budgets, a focused transformation programme can deliver immediate benefits and set the stage for long-term change. By building capacity through an acceleration programme, Leapwise were able to help N&S quickly improve delivery while keeping costs low.
If you want to learn more about how Leapwise can help you deliver savings in your organisation, speak to our team by clicking the button below.