Working Time and Wellbeing in the Police Service: Practical Steps to Monitor, Manage and Balance the Working Hours/Working Lives of Police Inspectors

Many Police Inspectors currently work excessively long hours to the detriment of their personal health and wellbeing, their family and social relationships, and the effectiveness of the British Police Service. While this is a long-standing problem at this Rank, the Comprehensive Spending Review recently cut the number of Inspectors by over 8% (between 2009-11) and the Police Service is increasingly stretched by a lack of resilience and a 'time famine' at higher ranks (as demonstrated during the London riots).

Our research with the Police Federation of England & Wales (PFEW) and the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has already mapped out the nature and extent of the problem - Inspectors' hours are not systematically or accurately recorded and more than 1-in-4 work in excess of 48 hours per week (available at: http://policeinspectors.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Time-for-Justice-report-low-res.pdf). More importantly, Police Inspectors face an especially high risk of 'occupational burnout' because working 'beyond the call of duty' is neither entirely voluntary (officers can be commanded to work in accordance with the 'exigencies of duty') nor fairly rewarded (overtime was 'bought-out' of their contract in 1994, the 'buy-out' is no longer regarded as adequate recompense for the hours/duties they must perform, and most Inspectors find it difficult, if not impossible, to 'recover' excessive hours by working shorter hours during subsequent shifts). Inspectors' concerns over working time have been exacerbated by the Independent Review of Police Officer and Staff Remuneration and Conditions (the Winsor review).

Improving this situation for the benefit of Inspectors, the Police Service, and the communities it serves is no easy task. Professional pride and a 'macho' work culture - 'doing whatever it takes to get the job done', including working excessively long hours - makes officers reluctant to complain (or to entertain complaints). Nonetheless, the Inspectors' Central Committee (ICC) of the PFEW, and their Scottish equivalent, are committed to working with both their own representatives (via the regional Inspectors' Branch Boards, IBBs) and senior police management to manage hours more effectively and to promote the health and wellbeing of their members.

To capitalise on this commitment, the Knowledge Exchange (KE) project will involve 11 regional workshops, jointly organised by Cardiff Business School and the ICC (PFEW and SPF), with input from the Investigators, the ICC, legal experts, and occupational health specialists. The target audience is IBB reps, the Superintendents' Association (SA), the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), senior police HR managers, the Home Office, and the new Police and Crime Commissioners. The workshops will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, the dissemination of good practice, and the identification of more effective methods to monitor, manage and balance the working hours and working lives of Inspectors so that Police Forces can allocate personnel and schedule hours in a way that meets the needs of the community for effective police services and with the needs of officers for rest, recuperation and social interaction. The KE activity is designed not only to kick-start this process of awareness, education and training, but to develop an on-going forum for dialogue and ultimately concrete polices for the Police Service to adopt (e.g. guidelines on reasonable working hours for Inspectors, more effective Duty Management Systems, and flexible working arrangements). Policy changes are anticipated to have an impact beyond the health and wellbeing of the Inspecting Ranks and their families, most notably in relation to the resilience and quality of police services.

This project aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Police Inspectors in England, Scotland and Wales by developing more effective ways to manage, monitor and balance hours of work. The key and direct beneficiaries will therefore be those who occupy the Inspecting Ranks, but benefits will also accrue to their families, their work teams, the Police Service and the communities it serves. There is particular concern about the impact of excessive working time on female Inspectors and how this might create a 'sticky floor' as opposed to a 'glass ceiling' (i.e. the 'requirement' to work long hours at more senior ranks makes it more difficult for women to gain the experience they need in particular roles and therefore to progress through the ranks).

Beyond the Police Service there is growing concern about wellbeing and work-life balance, reflected in the government's response to Dame Carol Black's review of the health of Britain's working age population and on-going research coordinated by the ONS. Within the academic research community there is growing interest in how professional occupational groups manage their working time, especially when they have access to flexible working arrangements (specifically, why do some professionals use flexible working arrangements, smart phones and the like to extend their working day rather than achieve a better work-life balance).

Having established the nature and extent of long working hours in the Police Service within the Inspecting Ranks, and having identified the principal causes of working 'beyond the call of duty' (e.g. lack of resilience, the failure to systematically record and monitor working time, the 'macho'/'can do' workplace culture, the desire of many Inspectors to secure promotion to Chief Inspector and Superintendent, the failure to fully implement flexible working arrangements) the Knowledge Exchange (KE) activities (workshops, networks, and policy briefings) will facilitate the sharing of good practice and the development of policies and guidelines designed to meet the needs of Inspectors, their families and the Police Service. Involving all the stakeholders in this process, including superintendents, ACPO, the Home Office, and the new PCCs, will create a 'common recognition' of the problems (based on our research evidence) and 'shared ownership' of any proposed solutions.

A novel feature of our approach will be to focus on the organisational and collective (cultural) causes of stress rather than the episodic and individual (psychological) causes. Although the Police Service recognises stress caused at the extreme end of policing (e.g. violent confrontations or serious road traffic accidents) the everyday organisational stress caused by long hours, a heavy workload and ever increasing responsibility is obscured in a bureaucratic (target driven) Police Service characterised by a lack of resilience and a (macho) culture that prizes speed, strength and capability. By addressing these deeper organisational causes of ill-health the KE activities are expected to have a more lasting impact on the Inspecting Ranks and the Police Service. Agreed solutions to the problems created by long working hours will also help policy-makers (most notably the Home Office) 'square the circle' of promoting employee health and equality, fighting crime, and maintaining service standards with a diminishing budget.

While the project has the potential to inform policy and practice in the other emergency services, our focus on the Inspecting Ranks will also inform current research on middle management and professional groups where questions of work-life balance (WLB) are of growing concern. Our planned academic publications will address key debates around WLB, the 'lumpiness' of labour demand for professional workers, the role of (professional) identity and the apparent intractability of the macho work culture, with a particular focus on the impact on women officers in the Police Service.