Transforming public order management

Challenge

The client - a police agency - sought to improve the precision of its public order threat and risk assessments and enhance operational planning. It sought a standardised and intelligence-led approach to mission planning that would enable a more effective and human rights compliant response to public order events.

Approach

Siren supported the agency to transform its public order approach by introducing a human rights compliant doctrine and establishing systems that underpin effective mission planning.

The Public Order Manual of Guidance, which the agency adopted as doctrine in 2020, is at the core of this. It covers the legal framework and principles of public order policing; leadership styles and resourcing; orders, instructions and organisational learning; tactical options; relationships and communications between various stakeholders. This document is foundational for combatting the conditions that contribute to a disorganised, disproportionate and fear-based response to threat. Commanders are obliged to follow the Manual when planning and conducting missions. Use of force guidelines accompany the Manual and further embed the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality and accountability within the agency's public order management processes.

Siren supported the agency to better exploit its intelligence-led policing ecosystem in public order planning and management. This included training and mentoring command and control officers on mission planning processes; using data and analysis for coordination and resource deployment purposes; and managing and debriefing public order events. Siren additionally developed a custom public order module on the agency's digital policing platform to aid planning and management. Officers are obliged to use it when conducting their mission planning, logging and debriefing. The tool reinforces the Manual by building its procedures directly into planning workflows. Its digitised processes also create an audible record of decisions for greater accountability.

Siren supported the agency to monitor the implementation of the Manual processes by forming a specialist unit that assesses officers’ performance and human rights compliance during public order missions, identifies areas for improvement and develops corresponding capacity building plans. We also helped the client establish a strategic training unit that owns and delivers human rights mainstreamed public order training to all concerned units, guaranteeing long-term self-sufficiency in public order training.

Outcomes

• 100% of staff involved in planning public order events, and over 1,499 frontline NCOs and officers trained on the updated public order management processes.

• Command and control officers routinely develop and maintain a calendar of upcoming events, aggregate and analyse data to produce pre-planning informational products to inform mission planning. The agency is now better able to staff and deploy units based on an evidenced assessment of threat and risk.

• Commanders routinely adopt the Manual’s decision-making model when planning events, which informs the distribution of roles and resource deployments. They follow clear operational protocols and delegate authority and functional and ordered communications according to roles set out in the command structure, rather than rank.

• More than 943 public order missions managed through the agency's custom digital policing platform since 2018.