Operational Review (Details)

Name of province/ territory:

British Columbia

City/ Region:

Vancouver

Description of Initiative:

There were four components to the operational review:

  • Civilianization study: We looked at the police department and looked at which positions really required an officer and which could be replaced by a civilian. Through that process we civilianized 19 positions and saved $600,000. Shared services were also reviewed as part of the civilianization study. We looked at wholesale or partial shared services with the City of Vancouver for services such as facilities fleet and tactical training areas. We found it is more efficient to share services than to go it alone in many of these areas.
  • Overtime study: We looked at how we were spending on overtime and started to take a close look at what we were doing wrong with overtime. We developed overtime policies, electronic reporting and a database to track, report and provide information to senior management on overtime.
  • Patrol deployment study: This involved a complete data analysis of deployment and the application of proper metrics. We worked with ECON and PRIME Corp to get data. It resulted in a 1,300-page report that analyzed calls for service, etc. We found out that only 25% of our service calls were related to criminal offences. It was an interesting finding as we could quantify how much we deal with other social issues that have been downloaded onto the police, rather than fighting crime. The police respond to every 911 call that isn’t fire/ambulance-related. We looked at how much time we spend reacting to calls, utilization rates, shifting and scheduling. We looked at the correlation between call out and staffing—supply and demand—and moved away from archaic models of scheduling (four days on, two off) because they are not efficient. It is less efficient to have the same number of officers at any time, on any day, than it is to have more officers during peak hours and fewer in slow times. These are just some of the components that we reviewed.
  • Administrative and investigative deployment study: We looked at the mix of officers being sent out (two officers and one officer deployment) to determine what the right mix is—some calls always require two officers and some always require one and we want to have proper mix. If we are only sending out one-officer patrol cars, yet we know we need a certain percentage of two-officer cars to respond to certain calls, then we lose money (gas, cars, etc.) by sending out two one-officer cars, etc. These were the types of things we looked at in this part of the review.

Initiative Key Objectives:

The objective was to make the police department as efficient and effective as possible by looking at the way we do business and, looking at the complete organization (2000 people, with a budget of $200 million), trying to find synergies and efficiencies.

Section Responsible for Implementation:

Planning, Research and Audit section

Key Contact:

Drazen Manojlovic
drazen.manojlovic.vpd.ca

Groups/ Agencies/ Key Partners Involved:

  • civilian governing authorities
  • other government departments/agencies
  • academic institutes (research and evaluation)
  • police association or union

Level of Involvement (consultative - information sharing) and/or cooperative - direct involvement):

There was direct involvement with the City of Vancouver and Simon Fraser University (SFU), and information sharing with the union and police board.

Amount of Time Initiative has been in Place:

This initiative has been in place for 2.5 years.

Reason for Undertaking the Initiative:

We started doing it because the department was under-resourced and we were looking for efficiencies. By the completion of the review, the economy had really gone downhill so it became about finding cost savings.

Resources Required to Implement this Initiative:

The costs associated with this review are related to staff time (in-kind costs, with three to six people at a time working on the project) and a consulting fee paid to the SFU researcher.

Method of Implementation:

This initiative was phased in. The first phase was the civilianization study / shared services study; phase two was the patrol deployment study; and the third phase was the administrative and investigative deployment study. We changed the composition, numbers and shift schedules in our police department once we realized what our true needs were. This was all done over a period of couple of years. Shifting and scheduling is a huge thing when people look at how they are deploying their resources.

Key Outcomes of the Initiative:

See "Description of Initiative." This was a huge study with many detailed results.

Availability of a Communication Strategy:

Yes

Key Messages used to Publicize the Initiative:

We communicated with the union, police board, city council and the media. The key message was that we were looking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our department.

Forms of Evaluation by which the Initiative will be Assessed:

  • internal
  • quantitative
  • qualitative

Evaluation Completed or Community Feedback Received:

No

Summary of the Outcomes:

We performed a review of the changes we made based on our review. The findings indicated that the changes were successful; the actual measures matched our projections. We were very pleased with that.

Summary of the Performance Measure Data Collected:

N/A

Economics of Policing Pillars:

Further Details:

The model that we came up with for shifting, civilianization and overtime has been followed by other agencies as a result of our success. We give presentations to other police agencies from across Canada and the United States.

Additional Comments or Suggestions:

One component of the study was reviewing our fleet. Now that we are tuned into the carbon footprint and sustainability initiatives we are also looking for efficiencies in our fleet and are changing the types of vehicles (going from V8 and V6 investigative vehicles to hybrids, and using idle stop technologies). There are start-up costs at the beginning, but in the long term we think it will save money on gas, etc. Also the start-up costs can be balanced by efficiencies achieved in other areas (i.e., having the right number of vehicles out there with the right officer mix).

Record Entry Date:

2013-08-01

Date modified: