Four individuals from police forces around the country will receive certificates for the Queen's Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development, organised by the National Policing Improvement Agency. The awards, which are personally approved by Her Majesty The Queen, are about enhancing the learning and development of individuals and teams in the police service. Minister for Crime Reduction, Alan Campbell and Angela O'Connor, Chief People Officer at the NPIA will present the awards at an event in central London. Minister for Crime Reduction, Alan Campbell said: "The winners of this year's Queen's Awards clearly demonstrate the importance of innovative learning and development to the police service. "To make a difference and rise to future policing challenges, we need to harness the talents of our officers, staff and volunteers. The Queen's Awards enable us to do this by rewarding the talents of our innovative colleagues whose efforts have brought significant benefits to their forces." Angela O'Connor, Chief People Officer at the NPIA said: "These awards highlight how important the learning and development of police officers and police staff is for an effective and professional police service. "Talent is the most valuable commodity that any business has and we take seriously the need to continuously encourage, support and grow our workforce. By doing so, the police service can benefit from the new ideas developed by individuals and teams in forces across the country to help the police service meet the ever changing challenges of fighting crime." Notes to Editors Mark Brier of South Wales Police - Simulated Operations in Driver Safety Louise Brennan of Merseyside Police - The Hidden Disability Programme The central proposal of the project is to increase the provision of audio learning. If successful the potential benefits of this project could be: Lisa Atkinson-Brown of Humberside Police - Growing our Own Leaders CLDP will be attended by officers and staff and will develop and equip managers to demonstrate good practice in terms of leadership in a modern and successful Police Force. Within Humberside Police, this will have an important impact in terms of continuously improving management skills and, by extension, force efficiency and operational performance. The Force is also considering the possibility of offering the programme to other partners in the community. Ben Honey of the Metropolitan Police Service - Narrative Based Evaluation If successful, this could have a significant impact within the Metropolitan Police Service and, potentially, nationally and internationally. It would demonstrate the importance of leadership learning and development in terms of improved operational performance. About the Queen's Awards About NPIA NPIA is a single national organisation created to support effective policing. It provides expertise in areas as diverse as information and communications technology, support to information and intelligence sharing, core police processes, managing change and recruiting, developing and deploying people. The organisation's creation in April 2007 streamlined and simplified the way that policing improvement is delivered locally and nationally. NPIA works for the police service and is governed by a tripartite board comprising ACPO, APA, Home Office and independent members. The ACPO President is a member of the NPIA Board.
In February 2008, four applicants were selected by a judging panel and given £15,000 to bring their enterprising ideas to life. A year later, they are being recognised for successfully completing their projects:
The adjudication panel, chaired by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and consisting of senior representatives from organisations such as the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), the Home Office and the Association of Police Authorities (APA), selected the winners.
Overview of the award winners and their projects:
The project aims to improve the driving standards of police officers, police staff and other emergency service providers through the development of training software for a driver simulator. If successful, the project will have the benefit of minimising risks to the public and providing a generic driving assessment mapped to national occupational standards which could be rolled out nationally (thus creating consistency in driving standards).
This project is an expansion of an existing programme, The Hidden Disability Project. It was designed to enhance the development of student officers with a learning disability. Its expansion, however, would be aimed at a wider audience: not only those with a "hidden disability", but also other student officers as an alternative learning method or resource.
This project is aimed at second line managers and proposes to apply an existing methodology (Core Management Development Programme) to enhance the national Core Leadership Development Programme (CLDP) by providing student support in the form of:
In the context of cultural and organisational change, collaborative working and citizen focus, the Metropolitan Police Service are to initiate a project to design a modular leadership programme allowing learners to select individual development pathways to address their personal learning needs.
In line with its mission to improve policing across England and Wales, the NPIA took responsibility for the Award from the Home Office in 2007.
The award is biennial and was launched in 2001 (by the Home Office) to replace the Queen's Police Gold Medal Essay competition. The main difference is that the Queen's Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development is project based, as opposed to essay based.
The competition is intended to:
The 2008 competition was launched in November 2007 and closed in February 2008. The topic for the competition was challenging but applications to the Award were received from a number of forces across the UK. The topic for the 2008 award was as follows:
How can the link between learning and development and improving operational performance be demonstrated, highlighting in particular return on investment and benefits realisation?
