Tag Archives: performance management

The Professionals

Imagine a police force that handed out firearms to its officers without training them. Or one that chose to opt out of established good practice for investigating serious crime. Or one that refused to work with partner agencies because it … Continue reading

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Chain Reaction

No, nothing to do with an old Diana Ross track, but the title of a presentation I gave at the UK’s first ever TEDx policing event in Leeds yesterday – #OldBillRebuilt, ably organised by Gareth Stubbs. Hopefully, the footage will be … Continue reading

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Freeze Frame

Watching the TV programme ‘The Force’ last night (which follows the work of officers from Greater Manchester Police), I thought of yet another analogy to help explain why binary comparisons are rubbish. (Yes, I know I go on about this, … Continue reading

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Detox

Whilst flicking through TV channels recently, I came across a consumer advice programme, where the reporter was researching the effectiveness of self-administered ‘detox’ products. The TV crew followed her for three days as she consumed nothing but ‘specially formulated’ fruit … Continue reading

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Comfort Blanket

When Stick Child was a bit younger, he had a little comfort blanket. Here he is with it, dreaming about smashing up some arbitrary numerical targets. (That’s supposed to be the moon in the window by the way – not a … Continue reading

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The Wrong Conversation

Stick Child has been getting increasingly irritated by the slack methods some adults use to present information about really important stuff, such as how long it takes for patients to be seen in Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments. Many a … Continue reading

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Avoidable Harm

I recently had a conversation on Twitter about a national campaign called ‘Sign up to Safety’, which aims to reduce avoidable harm in the NHS. Now, avoidable harm is clearly something worth tackling. The sticking point for me was that … Continue reading

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Stick Child and The Fraggles

Recently, Stick Child was watching the television channel ‘Stick Gold’, when he came across an episode of the 1980s children’s show, Fraggle Rock. If you’re about the same age as Stick Child’s Daddy, you may well remember it too. Fraggle … Continue reading

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Top of the Table

When the Chair of the House of Commons Education Committee asked Michael Gove (Secretary of State of Education at the time) about comparative performance measurement between schools, this happened: Chair: If “good” requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and … Continue reading

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It’s Criminal

I’ve been meaning to get around to writing about the issue of using crime figures as an indicator of police performance for a while now. Aside from the risk of mis-recording crime due to target-driven performance management, I believe there … Continue reading

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