The Queen's Award for Innovation in Police Training and Development
As of 2007, in line with the NPIA's broad mission to improve policing across England and Wales, the NPIA took responsibility for the Award from the Home Office. 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?' 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 four winners in February 2008. Her Majesty then approved those selected winners for the 2008 award. Four prizes of £15,000 were awarded to each of the winners to implement their project proposals over a period of 12 months. During this period, the progress of the projects was monitored by the project teams and the NPIA through an interim and final project report. On 9th July 2009, the four winners of the competition were each awarded a Queen's Award certificate to mark the successful implementation of their projects. They were awarded by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Crime Reduction, Alan Campbell MP and NPIA Chief People Officer, Angela O'Connor, at a ceremony held at the prestigious Church House, in Central London. The winners and their projects for The Queen's Award 2008 are as follows: The project has delivered a number of products to achieve these aims - the driving simulator, a pilot in psychometric testing, a hazard perception test and increased engagement with young people and the wider community. The central proposal of the project was to increase the provision of audio learning. Benefits of this project have been:- The project has been a great success. To date the Initial Police Learning and Development Programme (IPLDP) is available in audio format, not only within Merseyside, but also nationally via the NPIA National Centre for Applied Learning Technologies (NCALT) system. Additionally, audio notes are available for PCSO training and plans are underway to expand to more foundational programmes. The Programme was identified by HMIC as best practice. The NPIA continue to work with the project team at Merseyside Police in applying this on a national level and ensuring that existing audio learning materials are kept up to date. An online tutorial service and forum will be in place in the near future to assist students in their learning, through discussions of the work material and sharing of ideas.
The narrative evaluation method was used with an existing leadership development programme (the Portfolio Leaders Programme) and proved successful in many ways. Applied to the policing context for the first time, it established that the narrative based approach has a role to play in the future evaluation of MPS learning programmes - particularly given the unique information it produces concerning the impact that the learning has in real terms i.e. on individuals work experiences. The MPS plan to further develop the narrative based evaluation approach, as it is seen as having the potential to be an invaluable tool in evaluating learning and development programmes, not only within the MPS but nationally. Should you have any queries or comments regarding The Queen's Award, please email:queens.award2008@npia.pnn.police.uk. Note: Normally, at least one of the awards should be given to an applicant from outside the UK. However, unfortunately there were no applications to the 2008 Award from such applicants. Therefore, the judges, with the approval of Her Majesty, granted the fourth award of £15,000 to a UK applicant.The 2008 Award winners approved by Her Majesty The Queen
Mark Brier of South Wales Police - Simulated Operations in Driver Safety
The project aimed 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. The project aimed to minimise risks to the public by decreasing the number of initial assessments on public roads, reduce abstraction time from frontline duties and provide a generic driving assessment mapped to national occupational standards which could be rolled out nationally (thus creating consistency in driving standards).Louise Brennan of Merseyside Police - The Hidden Disability Programme
This project was 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, was aimed at a wider audience: not only those with a "hidden disability", but also other student officers as an alternative learning method or resource.
. Reduced learning time for all students
. Improved information absorption
. More flexible, mobile learning (reducing the need for classroom learning)Lisa Atkinson-Brown of Humberside Police - Growing our Own Leaders, Phase 2
The objective of the project was to improve the management skills of middle managers within the Humberside force and among partner agencies. In order to do this,an existing local methodology was applied, the Core Management Development Programme, to enhance the national Core Leadership Development Programme. The project has delivered:-
A modular programme for general management training and operational training The development and delivery of workshops to accompany each of the programme workbooks An intranet site to provide the course materials electronically and links to other relevant web resources.Ben Honey of the Metropolitan Police Service - Narrative Based Evaluation
The project's aim was to test narrative analysis as a training evaluation tool, which it was hoped would make explicit the links between flexible and targeted learning and development programmes and improved operational performance.
