MyPolice go to the RSA

This week MyPolice went to London to take part in a very exciting collaboration between the NPIA and the RSA.

At the heart of what the RSA does is human capability. They believe every citizen has the potential to be:

• self reliant
• resourceful
• self sufficient
• altruistic

and behave in a way that their actions contribute to the social fabric of society.

The opening session began by questioning and pointing out the large gap between what we say we want our future to be and the way we behave at the moment.  We are not creating our ideal future.

Much of the day unraveled to thinking about citizenship and how we can get the public involved in the notion of ‘self policing’.  The sentiments delivered echoed some of the work discussed in the Young Foundation’s Piece, ‘Public services and civil society working together’ – looking at more self reliant citizens and self sufficient communities.

What do we have to do to enable this to happen? It seems we are heading in the right direction as Matthew Taylor pointed out:

“the police force ‘get’ this more than any other public service”

Tony Ixer delivered an introductory speech, discussing that the real figures are not as important as peoples perception.  Tony talked indepth about police having to change their thinking from target hitting to putting people first in service delivery, saying that they often:

“hit the target but miss the point”

We should be pushing for more human service delivery. If a community is more confident in the police they are more likely to report crime, to stand up in court as a witness, listen to advice from the police, contribute to self-policing their neighbourhood.

This perhaps symbolizes a move away from police forces talking less about enforcing laws but about looking holistically at policing to drive up confidence and looking at preventative measures to stop crime.  We are at a crucial point now where 65% of the public think crime has gone up where in fact is had gone down, stipulating the need to drive up confidence and perhaps become more visible in new ways.

Ben Reason, founder of Live|Work, presented the work they had been doing in Petersborough, through the service design lens. Their work shadowing police officers revealed officers:

“didn’t have the tools to measure feedback and improvement…we need a framework”

The live|work team generated solutions, and visualised them to bring them to life.  The most interesting part of their presentation was Ben stating that police had strategic ambitions and that the police would need greater emotional intelligence.  The idea is that perhaps service design tools and techniques could be passed over to frontline staff in a bid to create a framework for a more human approach to service delivery and understanding.

Jamie Young talked about persuasive technology and how design can make public services more fun, using the fun factor video, piano stairs to show us.  It was about designing with intent, and Jamie later introduced Dan Lockton in the workshop which Sarah attended to discuss 6 lenses to change the way we design and manipulate people’s behaviours.

In Jamie Young’s session, after an introduction from Dan, we worked at tables as a mix of police and outsiders to brainstorm new ideas based on Dan’s work, Design for Intent. The groups generated ideas like police wearing flashing lights on their jackets to show when they were busy, using street lighting to show when an area is perhaps high risk, and surveillance in your home so communities could help to actively police better.

Lauren attended Ben Reason’s breakout session about Qualitative Productivity where they created characters and created questions the police should be asking them.  The questions asked focused on knowing the name of your local police officer under government law to citizens understanding the process of the police. The police within the group highlighted that focus shouldn’t be on officers all the time, police staff are also invaluable and extremely empathetic.

Nurses and doctors wash their hands in front of patients, this is coined as ‘visible action’. Sometimes the police dust for fingerprints, even though they know the likely hood is there won’t be any, its all about reassuring the customer. MyPolice is a new route to visible action.

The last speaker was Campbellkeegan, who focused on ‘problem solving’ from an organisational psychology approach.  We were questioned about the FAST culture of public sector organisations, and if we are to creatively problem solve, time is needed.  So how can we slow down this culture?  Is it about shifting targets to promote problem solving?  How can we reward and incentivise problem solving?  And how can it be accepted by senior managers?  They came down to focusing on empowering frontline staff, echoing some of Ben’s work which had mentioned supporting the frontline with tools, to think differently. The speaker mentioned a book called Policing by the Public which is now on our Christmas list.

No one is asking what is your vision of the police is 2020? Why is no one having this conversation. public raise money for schools, ambulances, and the NHS yet we don’t seem to raise money for the police in the same way? As soon as this happens the conversation changes…

One man who always has us skipping out the door when we meet him is Nick Keane. Huge thank you to Nick for all his support and enthusiasm.

It was our plasure to meet Jeremy Crump who described Service Design as a way of injecting new energy and new thinking. And we agree.

See our pictures from the day here.