Original Article

International Journal of
Police Science & Management
Police reform in Scotland: What 1–11
ª The Author(s) 2019
can we learn from the experiences Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1461355719882441
of front-line officers? journals.sagepub.com/home/psm

Yvonne Hail
University of Stirling, UK

Abstract
Little is known about how front-line police officers navigate major structural reforms within their organization. The
findings presented in this paper were collected as part of the first ever empirical study of the newly created Police
Service of Scotland between October 2013 and June 2014. The findings discussed here are pertinent to the wider
academic literature in that they fill the current gap in knowledge on how front-line police officers experience major
structural reforms at a police operational level; by exploring the ways, if any, reform impacted on the routine delivery
of local policing. This paper focuses on three main themes which emerged from the analysis of 68 interviews
conducted with a stratified sample of serving police officers; front-line police officers, their supervisors and
managers across two geographically distinct case study areas in Scotland. The paper highlights police officers’
concerns around a lack of front-line involvement in either the planning or implementation of reform, the pace at
which the changes associated with reform were rolled out and the internal communication processes adopted
throughout the reform journey, all of which they claim impacted negatively on their daily routines. This unique
data was collected using a variety of qualitative and ethnographic research approaches including non-participant
observations, walking interviews, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews at the precise time major
structural reform was being implemented across Scotland.

Keywords
Police reform, front-line experiences, organizational change, pace of reform, communication processes

Submitted 11 Apr 2019, Revise received 17 Jul 2019, accepted 16 Sep 2019

Introduction In 2013, however, Scotland experienced the largest, sin-

gle piece of police reform in decades with the introduction
For the most part, organizations change and adapt on a
of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012. The Act
continual and incremental basis in order to survive the
paved the way for the amalgamation of the existing eight
ever-changing political, social, economic and business
regional police forces into a single national police service
environments in which they exist. For the police to remain
for Scotland. The level and scope of this reform was unpre-
effective in their roles across communities they have
cedented in contemporary policing, with little known in
reformed policy and evolved practice to suit the external
either academic or policing circles about any potential
changes that occur within each society, which has resulted
impacts or implications of such a large-scale amalgamation
in a variety of policing organizations that look to both
on operational policing. The outline business case for
mirror and support the specific society in which they are
situated. Change within a police organization is therefore
not a new concept, with many authors claiming that change Corresponding author:
is the one constant in any policing organization (Bevir, Yvonne Hail, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK.
2010; Hail, 2016; Hart, 1996; Skogan, 2008). Email: Yvonne.hail1@stir.ac.uk
2 International Journal of Police Science & Management XX(X)
police reform published by the Scottish Government in
2011 claimed that in the main, reform of policing in Scot-
land was based on the projected financial savings that could
be made by introducing a single police service and reported
that restructuring the police organization towards one, sin-
gle national police service for Scotland would offer a way
to protect local services in the financial climate of the time
and also offered ‘ . . . the highest potential for long-term
financial sustainability’ (Scottish Government Outline
Business Case for Police Reform Programme, 2011:23) for
policing in Scotland.
Despite there being a large number of existing studies
labelled as police reform, when we examine them in detail,
there is a distinct lack of research exploring structural or
macro-levels of reform, such as that experienced in Scot-
land, particularly from a front-line perspective. With the
exception of recent work published by Fyfe and Henry
(2012), Terpstra and Fyfe (2015), Moggré et al. (2018) and
Terpstra and Fyfe (2014), the majority of current police
reform literature has tended to examine the more opera-
tional or micro-level changes related to police practice,
such as the work of Skogan (2006) who examined the
impact of community policing initiatives.
The lack of empirical research on front-line police offi-
cers experiences of structural reforms has been discussed
by various authors including Bevir (2010), Brunetto and
Farr-Wharton (2003), Savage (2007) and Sklansky and
Marks (2008), with Brunetto and Farr-Wharton suggesting
that within current policing research, the experiences of
individual ‘ . . . police officers in particular has been a sec-
ondary focus’ (p. 44) of scholars and has resulted in the
experiences of front-line officers being ignored. Bevir
(2010) develops this argument and claims that existing
police reform policy and research has focused on examin-
ing what he refers to as the ‘ . . . elite forms of expertise that
inspire reform’ (p. 227) with rank and file officers con-
sulted in the most ‘cursorily’ manner. By marginalizing the
input and voice of front-line officers in relation to police
reforms, or by ignoring what Bevir (2010) refers to as the
‘local cultures of rank and file’ there is currently a gap in
existing academic knowledge that can be filled only by
incorporating the perceptions and experiences of the front
line. It was therefore decided that by focusing on front-line
officers experiences of reform, the overall findings of the
project would produce new knowledge in relation to police
reforms.
The data presented here is the first of its kind and will
expand current police reform literature to provide a more
robust view of structural reform in a police organization by
including the perceptions and experiences of local police
personnel presented through their very specific cultural
rank and file lens (Bevir, 2010). Importantly, the findings
will also highlight to policy-makers the impact of rapid
change at the operational level of the organization at a time
when many international police organizations have also
begun to either discuss or implement their own police
reform and amalgamation of existing services. The insights
presented here therefore not only fill the existing gap in
current academic knowledge, but also provide empirical
evidence to assist police organizations in the planning and
delivery of future structural police reforms from a front-
line policing perspective.
The focus of this paper is to discuss the experiences of
police using the three main themes raised by police officers
of front-line marginalization, the pace of reform and the
internal communication processes during reform, before
concluding that there are important lesson to be learned
from the Scottish experience which can be translated inter-
nationally and used to develop a framework for future
structural police reforms.
Methods
Existing research examining police change has, in the
main, focused on micro-level changes, such as Skogan
(2006) and his longitudinal study examining the impact
of community policing initiatives, and Bradford et al.
(2014) who examined police practice during the implemen-
tation of new police policies such as community policing
(CP). It was therefore decided that given the prominence of
the scope and level of police reform and the unique timing
of the data collection (which ran in parallel to the imple-
mentation of reforms), a qualitative research strategy
would provide valuable in-depth data, based on an authen-
tic insight into each participant’s lived experiences of
reform to the wider academic and policy communities.
To enhance the robustness of the findings, the project1
employed multiple qualitative approaches to data
collection including an ethnographic approach with non-
participant observations, walking interviews and
semi-structured in-depth interviews. A qualitative research
strategy was deemed the most appropriate in order to be
able to provide robust empirical evidence collected in a
real-world context to extrapolate each participant’s own
lived experience of ‘policing as they experience it’ (Sun-
shine and Tyler, 2003). This standpoint is supported by
Silverman (2001) who suggests that the principle under-
pinning qualitative research is to ‘ . . . enable respondents
to have their voices heard’ (p. 124).
The existing police organizational change literature,
which had been utilized to provide a theoretical framework
although not completely suited to the study of macro-level
reform in a police organization, did offer a method of situ-
ating the current findings in a wider theoretical foundation.
To provide the most robust theoretical framework possible,
it was decided to engage with the broader public sector
Hail
organizational change literature (Kezar, 2001; Pardo del
Val and Martı́nez Fuentes, 2003; Todnem, 2005). The addi-
tion of the work of Bevir (2010) and his discussions on
police reform and front-line culture was also added to sup-
port the theoretical framing of the findings.
Because of the geographical scale of Scotland as a
whole, it was decided to employ a case study design for
the purposes of data collection. A case study is the most
suitable design to study social phenomena from within a
real life framework ‘ . . . location . . . community or orga-
nization’ or within a ‘ . . . bounded system’ (Creswell,
2007). Employing a collective case study design in the
data collection therefore offered the researcher ‘ . . . the
opportunity to use many different sources of evidence’
(Yin, 1994: 91), including non-participant observations
of community council, community safety and police scru-
tiny meetings.
Data was collected between October 2013 and June
2014 across two distinct geographical police divisions in
Scotland. During the consultation process there was a high
level of media coverage from what was the Grampian
Police area including local Members of the Scottish Par-
liament (MSPs), members of the Grampian Joint Police
Board and the Grampian Chief Constable, highlighting
what they believed to be specific issues with regards to
the differing methods of local policing carried out in some
of the more northern and rural areas of Scotland (BBC,
2011). It was therefore decided to include a field work
area in the predominantly urban central belt of Scotland
(Easton) and one almost 100 miles north in the more rural
Highlands of Scotland (Longphort). Easton is defined as a
traditional working class urban community, with an esti-
mated population of 22,000 plus, which has undergone
major redevelopment in recent years in terms of both
commercial activities and residential properties, with an
increase in more professional people moving to the area
resulting in a very mixed community. By contrast, the
population of Longphort is estimated at 13,140 and in
contrast to Easton, this population is dispersed across a
large rural space and broken down into villages, small
hamlets and market towns, and is made up of a unique
mix of great affluence and even greater deprivation which
changes on a street by street scale.
The data was collected from a stratified sample of police
personnel from across various ranks, roles and responsibil-
ities and comprised: police constables (PCs), front line
supervisors (FS), including sergeants and inspectors; senior
managers (SM) including chief inspectors, superintendents,
chief superintendents and assistant chief constables. In
total, 68 interviews were conducted for the project – 39
in the first study 1 and 23 in the second. Full ethical
approval was granted by the University of Dundee to con-
duct the research.
3
Findings from the front line: what did we
learn?
The following section provides an outline of the main
themes highlighted by police officers as having the most
impact on front-line officers engagement with the reform
process, operational policing and staff morale during the
implementation stage of reform.
1. A perception that there had been no opportunity for
front-line police personnel to offer input or feed-
back during the reform process
2. The rapid pace and implementation of reform
3. The quantity and quality of communications offi-
cers received throughout the reform process.
As discussed above, change or reform within a policing
context is nothing new with various changes occurring
across and within police organizations for generations.
Pardo del Val and Martı́nez Fuentes (2003) refer to the
‘ . . . scope of change . . . ’, whereby the changes ongoing
within an organization can be identified and classified by
the scale of change taking place to the structures and oper-
ations of each organization. Pardo del Val and Martı́nez
Fuentes argue that the scope of organizational change tak-
ing place can be defined as either transformational or incre-
mental change. Todnem (2005), argues that in the main
transformational change occurs as a result of ‘ . . . an orga-
nisational crisis . . . ’ which can be unpredictable. In con-
trast incremental change or what Kezar (2001) refers to as
‘first order change . . . is characterised by evolutionary
change, a linear process . . . ’ and is implemented in ‘incre-
mental approaches’. This notion of incremental change in
policing was also discussed by participants in Scotland,
with front-line officers across ranks and areas concurring
that change, although not of the same level or scope, has
always been an ongoing concept for the police
organization.
However, what did emerge from the data analysis was a
consensus from front-line officers and their supervisors that
on this occasion they had been marginalized from the
reform process in particularly in terms of their lack of
opportunity to contribute to either the planning or imple-
mentation of reform.
. . . when the discussion came about whether it was a good idea
to have a single police force they didn’t actually ask anybody
who worked in it . . . . (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)2
Many front-line officers appeared to be shocked,
although not surprised that although there had been a public
consultation process prior to reform, which not all police
organizations or local authorities replied to, there had been
no official platform available for them to take part in the
4 International Journal of Police Science & Management XX(X)
consultation process. As the above comment, just one of
many similar in tone and content, indicates front-line offi-
cers believed they were in a much better position to report
on how the changes would/did impact on the delivery of
day to day policing.
More recently, work conducted by Moggré et al. (2018)
examining police leadership in times of police transitions
across Scotland and the Netherlands reported similar find-
ings from Police Scotland senior police managers. Their
data showed that although Police Scotland managers were
understanding of the need for police reform, they too felt
marginalized from the process in relation to their sugges-
tion put forwards in the early stages of planning reform that
‘ . . . a limited programme of mergers’ (Moggré et al., 2018)
which would have seen the creation of three or four
regional police services in Scotland.
A lack of police involvement
As discussed above, the general lack of consultation with
rank and file officers throughout any reform process has
been acknowledged previously by multiple commentators,
with Bayley (2008) claiming that in the main front-line
officers are ‘ . . . very rarely consulted about the kind of
changes needed’ (p. 13) during the planning of reform and
are ‘ . . . regarded by senior officers as the source of unhelp-
ful complaints rather than useful insights’ (p. 14), and Bru-
netto and Farr-Wharton (2003) claiming that within current
policing research, the experiences of individual ‘ . . . police
officers in particular has been a secondary focus’ (p. 44) of
scholars. To add address this lack of knowledge, front-line
officers and supervisors were asked how they perceived
their role in the reform journey and in what ways, if any,
were they and their colleagues able to contribute to reform.
In the main, responses were negative, with front-line offi-
cers commenting that they believed that they had no input to
either the planning or implementation stages of reform.
. . . we haven’t had any input into this process . . . look at the
shift changes they are talking about; there has been no
consultation with us officers or line managers. (PC 01 Easton;
M 5)
. . . when the discussion came about whether it was a good idea
to have a single police force they didn’t actually ask anybody
who worked in it . . . . (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)
. . . has anybody ever asked me about police Scotland? No.
(Sgt 02 Longphort; M 24)
Initially, police responses from the project indicated that
change, although not of this level or scope, was not a new
experience for the policing organization and that generally
police personnel were adaptable and pragmatic in their
approach to change with officers commenting that:
. . . the police is always changing, this is what happens . . . this
is not the first time things have changed . . . it’s just the transi-
tion period people don’t like, it will change again in five years
and people will be like ‘we liked it the way it was . . . ’. (Sgt 03
Easton; F 10)
When discussing the macro-level reforms and percep-
tions of how the reform was being experienced at the grass
roots level participants highlighted the role of traditional
‘street cop culture’ as discussed by Bevir (2010) and how,
in general, they believed that members of the policing orga-
nization were not finding the concept of change in itself
difficult because of their pragmatic approach to change.
Police officers are good team players it’s a good organization
to be in and because we are all in the same boat we help and
support each other, we are all in it together and nobody is
enjoying it . . . . (PC12 Easton; F 4)
Many front-line officers appeared to be shocked,
although not surprised that although there had been a public
consultation process prior to reform, which incidentally not
all police organizations or local authorities replied to (see
Hail, 2016), there had been no official platform available
for them to take part in a consultation process. From the
perspective of front-line officers, they were in the best
position to report on exactly how the proposed changes
would/did impact on the delivery of day-to-day policing
and yet they had been marginalized from the process. The
language and tone of the examples cited above illustrate the
officers’ frustrations and a lack of ownership or control of
the reform process and suggest that rates of resistance to
reform have the potential to be high within the organization
going forward.
For many of the officers, their inability to offer feedback
on or engage with the reform process meant that they were
unable to highlight to senior managers the potential impacts
of many of the operationally focused reform changes to
their existing local practice. In terms of local policing and
engagement with their local community members, officers
from Easton who were interviewed in October 2013, just 6
months after the introduction of Police Scotland, were
already beginning to experience the negative consequences
of one of the first major changes to local policing, the
realignment of response and community teams, which
management claimed would
. . . bring them much closer together so there isn’t so much of a
void between response and community . . . really we are all
officers serving our community to a certain extent . . . . (Sgt
03 Easton; F 10)
Hail
In relation to police reform, Bevir (2010) highlights the
lack of front-line officer involvement in reforms and dis-
cusses the concept of police reform being a top down
approach to change that very rarely takes account of the
real-life experience of the front line and claims that for
front-line officers ‘the question is rarely whether or not to
embrace change, it is how to make proposed change work
given the nature of their duties and job environment’
(Bevir, 2010: 240). This concept was of particular rele-
vance for officers in Easton who were already reporting
that the compulsory movement of response officers who
had been transferred to the community policing team (CPT)
without their agreement was having a negative impact on
the team.
. . . a lot of them who are here now didn’t want to be there in
the first place, they don’t want to be community officers
but . . . it’s like who do you want to punt to the CPT team?
They are not going to punt their best thief catcher they are
going to punt who they want to get rid of so you have pressed
men and women up there who don’t want to be there . . . . (PC
walking interview 02 Easton; M 12)
Reform had also introduced a new shift pattern for CPT
members which was described by police management as a
way to increase the number of officers on the streets, as
Police Scotland say ‘having the right people, in the right
place at the right time’. Again, from a front-line point of
view, officers questioned the methods employed in work-
ing out who were the right people, where was the right
place and what was the correct time, highlighting a lack
of consultation from those on the front line in the decision-
making process:
I think we are the folk that should be asked about the right folk
and the right place and the right time you know we are here
and it’s like yes well is that really the right place to put them
you know? (Sgt 01 Longphort; M 15)
So did this lack of officer involvement in the reform
process impact on the practice and delivery of local poli-
cing across Scotland? In the main, there was a general
divide between local officers across the case study areas
into two specific groups, those who refused to engage with
change and those who did.
The policing mentality is you are a cop, get on with it . . . I
come in and do my job and go home. (PC 03 Longphort; M 7)
Police officers from across both case study areas
claimed that many of the changes brought by reform
such as changes to traditional shift-working patterns, the
amalgamation of response and community personnel,
and the removal of designated local beat areas, which
5
they had no opportunity to comment on, had altered
their routine practice until it was unrecognizable to what
went before.
. . . the community engagement, the local policing the working
with the community, where is it all going? It’s gone . . . On
paper it’s supposedly the same, we are supposed to be linked
in with our communities, we are supposed to be liaising with
them properly, taking on what they say . . . From experience
though that is not the case . . . I feel very frustrated, almost
gutted because I think a lot of the good work we had been
doing has been undone. Not through any deliberate act to undo
it, but just through the way the change has come in . . . . (Man-
ager 02 Longphort; M 20)
As a consequences of the changes, officers discussed
how they now had less time for local engagement, which
had resulted in the breakdown of some long-standing local
relationships and importantly, a loss of local community
knowledge.
. . . we just don’t get the time . . . yesterday for the first time
since the change, I went into the Gudwara [Sikh tem-
ple] . . . normally I would have weekly contact with them just
dropping in to one of the committee members houses for a cup
of coffee . . . the first thing the president said to me was ‘where
have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages, we thought you
had disappeared . . . ’. (PC 10 Easton; M 8)
A local focus is a core element for the delivery of local
policing, which is based on a policing style that situates a
designated officer in a geographically bounded area where
they become a familiar face to the local population, acquir-
ing in-depth local knowledge of the area and its inhabitants.
Front-line officers from both case study areas discussed the
negative impact there had been on community engagement
since the post-reform removal of their individual beat areas
while explaining that they were now expected to serve a
much larger area
. . . you felt that that was your own wee empire if you like and
that was yours to look after and you would take it personally to
a degree if there were issues in your area it was left to you to
solve it. It was always my aim, it didn’t always work out but
most of the time it did . . . . (PC 13 Easton; M 6)
With another PC from Easton explaining that in his
opinion the lack of an allocated beat area for officers to
focus on had resulted in a lack of ownership of local issues
for many officer’s post reform.
. . . we don’t have a beat anymore, there is no more
beats . . . that is the worst thing that they could have done.
People now sit in the office with no ownership of things that
happen in their area . . . . (PC 04 Easton; M 6)
6 International Journal of Police Science & Management XX(X)
The findings as set out above also relate to the work
of Bevir (2010) who discusses politicians and policy-
makers, and the primacy they give to the role of spe-
cialist expertise in the development of reforms, ignoring
the lived experience of rank and file officers and their
specific culture in terms of how they interpret and then
attempt to apply reform policy in a variety of local
contexts. For Bevir (2010), police reform implemented
with only the most cursory input or acknowledgement
from the front line is why contemporary policing
appears to be in the midst of long-term and ongoing
reforms that never quite succeed in achieving their
stated outcomes or aims.
Based on the findings set out above, this paper recom-
mends that policing organizations who are planning
future structural reforms include in their processes for-
mal and meaningful consultation with serving rank and
file police officers early in the initial planning stages to
provide a bottom-up or what Bevir (2010) refers to as a
‘ . . . participatory approach to police reform’ (p. 227).
Including front-line officers in the early stages of plan-
ning police reform will provide those officers with the
opportunity to contribute to and be part of any change
process.
Front-line involvement throughout the implementation
phase of reform will also deliver a robust on-the-spot eva-
luation of the stated aims of reform. Being able to assess
how change is being operationalized and experienced at
street level on an ongoing basis will enable the develop-
ment of a robust evaluation of change and provide an
opportunity to reply to Bevir’s (2010) statement above on
the causes of ongoing, long-term change in the police orga-
nization. From an operational policing context, providing
front-line officers with the means to deliver immediate
feedback will allow rapid remedial processes to be put in
place together with identifying best practice which can then
be shared throughout the organization.
The rapid pace of change
The speed at which the changes occurred in Scotland was
identified by participants, both front-line staff and their
supervisors across case study areas, as causing particular
difficulties for operational policing. However, this is a con-
cept that appears to be ignored in the wider change litera-
ture with no empirical work found to support or refute the
claims made by police officers in Scotland regarding the
fast pace of reforms and the impact this had on operational
policing.
From the perspective of front-line officers and their
supervisors the speed at which the changes were implemen-
ted caused the most anxiety.
. . . it’s all been so rapid and constant . . . it’s too quick and too
much change . . . too much change too soon and it’s not over.
(PC 12 Easton; F 4)
With a front-line supervisor also adding that
I am struggling to keep up the change of pace . . . if you asked
me am I on top of what is happening with Police Scotland I
would have to say no, because there is so much change . . . .
(Sgt 01 Longphort; M 15)
When the above comments are viewed alongside the
comments from front-line officers who claimed they had
no time to read all of the email communications sent
regarding new processes and learning packages, it becomes
apparent that the pace of the implementation stage of
reforms exacerbated the reform experiences of those on the
front line particularly.
As discussed above, police participants were shown to
be generally adaptive to changes within the organization
and viewed it as part of modern-day policing. However, the
comments from front-line officers and their supervisors
highlighted how many were struggling to keep up-to-date
with the pace of organizational reforms. Front-line officers
in particular reported that a consequence of the rapid and
daily changes,
I struggle now to do what we did prior to reform because
there is less time on your beat to engage with the public. I
struggle to get time to go to meetings and things . . . . (PC
03 Easton; M 17)
Overall, there was a general sense of frustration and
resignation from across case study areas regarding how
quickly the changes were being introduced, with a consen-
sus between front-line officers and supervisors adding
weight to the claims made regarding the impact on opera-
tional policing.
. . . it’s all been so rapid and constant . . . it’s too quick and too
much change . . . too much change too soon and it’s not over.
(PC 12 Easton; F 4)
. . . maybe things need to change but not all at once . . . . (PC 05
Longphort; F 17)
With front-line supervisors also adding that;
I am struggling to keep up the change of pace . . . if you asked
me am I on top of what is happening with Police Scotland I
would have to say no, because there is so much change . . . .
(Sgt 01 Longphort; M 15)
Hail
. . . it’s the sheer volume of change and how quickly it’s been
done . . . it can seem at times that everyday its change, like
yesterday we had these three priorities and today we now need
to get this done as well. (Sgt 03 Easton; Female 10)
The comments above illustrate how front-line officers
and their supervisors were struggling to keep up-to-date
with the pace of organizational reforms, resulting in their
paying less attention at this particular time to the specifics
of operational changes to local policing. As stated above, it
became apparent that there has been little attention paid to
effects of the pace of organizational change on employees.
Kotter and Schlesinger (2008), however, do discuss the
‘optimal speed of change’ and define two separate cate-
gories to assist organizations in deciding how quickly or
slowly change should be implemented. In the first instance,
they suggest that the organization should implement rapid
change only when ‘ . . . the organisation risks plummeting
performance or death if the present situation isn’t changed’
(Kotter and Schlesinger, 2008: 1) and that they should pro-
ceed incrementally if they perceive resistance to be intense
and extensive. Incremental change or what Kezar (2001)
refers to as ‘first order change . . . is characterized by evolu-
tionary change, a linear process . . . and incremental
approaches’ (p. 16). Incremental change is also described
in the literature as change that is planned, where the
changes implemented sit alongside, support and develop
pre-existing organizational structures (Kezar, 2001; New-
man, 1998; Todnem, 2005).
The nature and pace of the change experienced by front-
line officers left many individuals unsure as to their future
within the organization, which ultimately affected morale
and motivation. Conversely, police managers did not dis-
cuss the pace of reform or its impact on staff morale or
operational policing matters, indicating that the majority of
changes being made on a daily basis were more operational
in focus and therefore had more of an effect on front-line
officers who then had no way of feeding back their con-
cerns. It is therefore recommended that future public sector
reforms should be carefully planned with the input of front-
line officers and implemented at a slower pace, with change
managers acknowledging that not all divisions work to full
capacity at all times, which has a direct impact on how they
ultimately experience the changes being implemented.
In their paper published in 2018, Moggré et al. suggest
that it was the overly political influence on police reform in
Scotland that controlled and steered the pace of change and
quote the then-cabinet secretary for justice as saying ‘You
can take a long time and stage it over two or three years, or
you can go the other way: change it and fix all the concerns’
(Moggré et al., 2018: 394) indicating the government’s
intention to manage the change rapidly in a top down and
centralized fashion.
7
The quantity and quality
of communications
The delivery of effective communication strategies at times
of organizational change is cited by multiple authors as
being a fundamental principle of achieving successful
change (Pardo del Val and Martı́nez Fuentes, 2003;
Osborne and Brown, 2005; Tops and Spelier, 2012). The
overall consensus is that organizations should provide suit-
able communication strategies that will support and guide
their workforce through the planning and implementation
of organizational change With Elving (2005) claiming that
If organisational change is about how to change the individual
tasks of employees, communication about the change, and
information to these employees is vital . . . communication
with the employees should be an important and integrative
part of the change efforts and strategies. (p. 130)
Internal strategies of communication where therefore
included in the examination of police reform in Scotland
to explore what systems of communication had been
employed and how effective they were. When front-line
officers in Scotland were asked how they were kept up-
to-date with the changes that were being operationalized
across the service during the reform journey they stated that
in the main information was relayed using the internal
police intranet. In terms of the platform chosen there were
no concerns,
. . . as for how we communicate I don’t think that has changed,
as for how much we communicate yes that has changed. (Sgt
03 Easton; Female)
This reply was mirrored across the case study areas with
no issues raised regarding the use of the internal intranet.
However, what officers from across case study areas and
ranks did highlight as a concern was the quantity and the
regularity of the emails they received.
. . . we get bombarded with information . . . . (PC 01 Easton;
Female)
. . . you were bombarded daily with emails . . . . (PC 03 Long-
phort; Male 7)
. . . I do think you get bombarded with emails . . . . (PC 04
Easton; Male 6)
Middle and senior police managers were also asked to
relate their experiences of internal communications
through the reform process. The addition of this data relates
to the work of Bevir (2010) and Reuss-Ianni and Ianni
(2010) who defined two separate and distinct cultures
8 International Journal of Police Science & Management XX(X)
within the policing organization. By exploring the percep-
tions and experiences of varying ranks of officers and pla-
cing them side by side, the overall findings can then be
described as being more comprehensive in their range
while also offering the potential to extrapolate and explore
any differences in perceptions that were based on the ranks
of participants.
However, in terms of the communications strategy
employed throughout Police Scotland, no difference was
found in the perceptions of front-line supervisors and man-
agement, with police managers also claiming they were
being inundated with emails and operational packs which
were arriving on a daily basis
. . . its email overkill . . . . (Middle manager 01 Longphort;
M 2)
. . . I could spend all day and I still wouldn’t get through what
was on the briefing sites . . . . (Middle manager 02 Easton; M
20)
This bombardment of emails received on a daily basis
had particularly negative consequences for officers when
they were on days off or on court duty which saw them
return to work to a backlog of emails.
. . . you can regularly come in after your days off to maybe 30
or 40 emails . . . . (PC 02 Longphort; M 24)
When probed further on how they were able to find the
time to read through their emails and ensure they were up-
to-date on new processes and learning packages, many
officers claimed they waited until they were working a
night shift when it was quieter.
Night shift, 3 am when you are not really awake [laughing] you
have just got to find the time, if we are super busy then you just
can’t . . . there is always time if you make time . . . . (PC 04
Longphort; F 2)
However, worryingly, some officers admitted that in
general they were skim reading operational documents in
the hope of gaining an overview of the contents.
. . . I tend to have a quick scan and get the idea of it if I can get
the specifics then good, I don’t have the time I have too much
else to do . . . I am a supervisor and a community officer we
don’t want to be in the station reading we want to be out . . . .
(Sgt 03 Easton; F 10)
Other officers claimed that they were depending on oth-
ers in their team having read the documents and sharing
that knowledge on an ad hoc basis as it was required, and
others claiming that there was no possible way of them
working through such a backlog during their shift and keep-
ing abreast of changes.
. . . you are expected to look at your emails, look at what has
been happening, check the intelligence database, check the
daily infos, check the briefing and that is before any-
thing . . . oh the public damn we forgot them (sarcasm). (PC
02 Longphort; M 24)
In addition to the quantity and regularity of email com-
munication received, officers also highlighted their frustra-
tions with the content and relevance of the information being
passed to them, claiming that they sometimes received mul-
tiple emails, some of over 50 pages, that had no direct cor-
relation with either their role or their rank status.
I will be honest I do not read a lot of the emails we
get . . . because it doesn’t mean a lot to me . . . I just delete it.
(PC 03 Easton; M 8)
. . . there is not enough about what is really important and there
is a total overload about what is just crap . . . . (PC 02 Long-
phort; M 24)
Similar themes regarding the communication processes
employed throughout the reform journey were discussed
within ranks and across the case study areas, with an overall
consensus that police personnel were feeling overwhelmed
and were receiving an overabundance of emails with no
time to read them and that many of the emails had no
bearing on their rank or role. The method of working by
front-line officers although adopted through necessity,
potentially raises questions regarding how up-to-date offi-
cers were with operational policy amendments and
changes brought forth by Police Scotland, a further nega-
tive impact on local policing originating in the reform
process. The similarity of experience and consistency of
themes indicated from the varied geographical locations,
sex and years of service adds emphasis to the comments
and, it might be suggested, could be used as an indication
of how communications were received across the organi-
zation as a whole.
The findings reported above show that the experiences
of police officers in Scotland during reform are in contrast
to the wider literature on organizational change, which
states that successful change in any organization is depen-
dent on effective and robust communication strategies
aimed at preparing, coaching and supporting the workforce
through the planning and implementation of organizational
change (Bevir, 2010; Elving, 2005; Pardo del Val and Mar-
tı́nez Fuentes, 2003; Osborne and Brown, 2005). It is
through effective and open communication lines that
change managers are able to first gain employees support
Hail
for upcoming change, monitor employee concerns sur-
rounding the change feeding back into the change evalua-
tion process and be able to measure and evaluate outputs
against how effective the change is (Elving, 2005).
Similar findings to those reported above regarding inter-
nal communications, were also reported in the first ever
Police Scotland staff survey which was published in
2015. The findings stated that information and communi-
cation were issues faced by police staff and that since the
introduction of Police Scotland there had been ‘ . . . a heavy
reliance on non-verbal communication (particularly email
and intranet) . . . ’ (Axiom, 2015: 38). In a similar vein to
the discussion above, respondents to the staff survey also
commented on the relevance of much of the communica-
tion posted, claiming that it was not always relevant to
them or their role.
Police officers concerns regarding the quantity and con-
tent of emails during reform were further corroborated by
evaluation reports published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate
of Constabulary Scotland (HMICS) and the year one and
two evaluations of police reform conducted jointly by the
Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR), What
Works Scotland and ScotCen (Scottish Government,
2016, 2017). These reports claimed that the lack of a robust
internal communication system had overwhelmed officers
with information irrelevant to their rank and/or role, mar-
ginalized them from the process of reform and combined
had negatively impacted upon staff morale during the
implementation of reform.
Based on the findings as set out above, further recom-
mendations for future reform would be to ensure that poli-
cing organizations considering structural reforms put in
place effective, targeted and reliable two-way communi-
cation procedures between management and staff during
all stages of the change process. In addition, it is recom-
mended that taking a streamline approach to future inter-
nal communications will help reduce front-line officers
feeling they are being overwhelmed with (mis)informa-
tion that is not relevant to them, encourage them to engage
with the relevant operational packs and briefings, while
also reducing the time spent backtracking through mail
after days off or training.
The content of internal communications between man-
agement and the front line during organizational change
should also be of importance for future change managers.
A more directed communication strategy should be put in
place to ensure that all members of the policing organiza-
tion are provided with information relevant to them and
their role and as way to prevent overloading front-line staff
with information. The information passed to front-line offi-
cers should be concise and include the need for change
together with providing a transparent vision and rationale
for change to help staff understand how change will be
9
operationalized and to maintain positive working relation-
ships between the front line and their managers as cited by
Terpstra et al. (2019).
Conclusion
Change within police organizations occurs on a regular
basis, whether that be change in operational direction,
focus, leadership, or change to local working patterns.
However, the recent experience of police reform in Scot-
land has brought both a new scope and level to police
reform nationally and internationally, notwithstanding the
pace at which this particular reform took place. In the
experience of front-line officers, the changes brought about
by reform, specifically perceptions that they were margin-
alized from the reform process, the rapid pace of reform
and the internal communication process adopted through-
out the process, produced unintended and negative conse-
quences for the delivery of local policing in Scotland. The
findings presented here provide a unique opportunity to
examine, for the first time, how front-line serving officers
negotiated their way through change and the implications
this had for the delivery of local policing.
Participants from both Easton and Longphort reported
that although change was not a new concept within the
police organization, and was something with which they
were more than familiar, they could identify specific
problems with regards to the recent reform as set out
above. From a conceptual point of view, the findings
reported above add to the knowledge base of public sector
reform more generally and police reform specifically in
terms of the effective implementation of future police
reform. From an empirical point of view, the findings also
offer police organizations a unique insight into how
reform is experienced at the front line, highlighting the
complex nature of policing through change with the inten-
tion that the findings will support the implementation of
future reforms.
A key motivation for conducting applied research is
that the findings are able to provide empirical evidence
to support and promote changes to both policy and prac-
tice, it is therefore anticipated that these lessons learned
from the single, largest piece of police reform in genera-
tions will be used to develop a framework that will support
future police reforms from both policy and operational
standpoints by highlighting the impact of non-intended
consequences on front-line staff and therefore operational
policing.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
10
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Yvonne Hail https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9721-8935
Notes
1 The research findings used in this paper were taken from a 3-
year doctoral research project which was funded by the ESRC
and the Scottish Institute for Policing Research based at the
University of Dundee and supported by Police Scotland. The
aim of the project was to examine the ways if any, in which
local policing had been altered as a result of the Police and Fire
Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.
2 Indicates the sex and years of service of each participant.
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Author biography
Yvonne Hail is a research fellow who has a conducted multiple
research projects with and on policing organisations both in Scot-
land and across Europe as part of a Horizon 2020 funded project
examining best practice in community policing. She defended her
PhD thesis “Local Policing in Transition: Examining the initial
impacts and implications of Police Reform in Scotland” at the
Scottish Institute for Policing Research in 2016 which looked to
exam the impact of police reform on local policing.