ABSTRACT
I think we must recognise that the skill-set required for success as a police leader has changed. In the 1970s and early 1980s, chief constables like their counterparts in other public services were relatively anonymous individuals, rarely venturing into public view, with one or two notable exceptions. An annual report of the chief constable of my own force from that period hardly features police performance statistics in the report. Contrastingly, there are stories of human endeavour, bravery and one-off incidents that had occurred throughout the year. This was found to be typical during a review of chief constables’ annual reports in one police force in England and Wales for the period of 1969 to 1998. In summary, the review concluded that the ‘annual reports studied were poor, particularly in the early years – they contain no indicators of efficiency and only two measures which may be used as a proxy for efficiency … [and] … do not provide the information needed for police authorities to exercise indirect control’ (Law 2001: 88).
