The PPAF Surveys: The Way Ahead

Performance assessments of the police are changing, and in 2007 APACS will be introduced. The survey programme incorporates a number of important changes that will improve both the quality and comparability of the data, not least the mandatory telephone methodology. As an approved framework supplier we welcome the opportunity to work with you on these important surveys.

We acknowledge that you may be looking to collaborate with other Forces / Authorities to benefit service provision where such opportunities arise. We will have the capacity to meet the demands of the 2006/7 surveys and as such will offer consortia significant discounted rates and economies of scale.

We Are Well Qualified To Run Your Survey

We have the largest telephone survey operations in the UK and Ireland, unrivalled quality procedures and extensive experience of conducting large-scale telephone surveys for partnerships and consortia.

We can guarantee the highest possible response rate, the most rigorously monitored fieldwork and the highest quality data to ensure your results are as robust as possible.

We have conducted the Witness and Victim Experience Survey (WAVES) since its inception; indeed, we informed its development and design. This involves continuous liason with all 42 Local Criminal Justice Boards. We are also conducting more Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI) surveys for local authorities than any other agency.

Added Value We Offer

Currently performance indicator PPAF 2a — percentage of people thinking their local police do a good job — is only available at force-level from the British Crime Survey. We will add this question free of charge and therefore provide you with these ratings at BCU level. Only three demographic questions are mandatory: to help you collect more information to help you understand influencers of satisfaction we will include measurement of others such as employment, disability, and newspaper readership as extra, free, questions.

We can help you make the most of your data by running regression analysis to determine what are the most important influencers of opinion. We can map data sources such as deprivation scores and BVPI measures (for example, views of crime and antisocial behaviour in their area) onto your satisfaction scores to help you understand to what extent you can realistically expect to influence satisfaction levels. We would be happy to provide you with insightful reports and presentations of your findings — ensuring actionable recommendations at a local level.

We Understand The Public's Relationship With The Police

Nationally, 50% of us think our local police do a good job (BCS 2005/6).

We have contributed to the understanding of what determines confidence in the police, helping central government and individual forces understand what is driving customer satisfaction, and informing action plans. For example, our police customer satisfaction data for the Cabinet Office identified a number of key drivers of satisfaction with contact with the police (using regression analysis) with overall contact including:

• Feeling that the police had made the effort to understand customers' needs
• Being satisfied with the overall outcome
• Feeling that the police had taken them seriously
• The customer reaching someone who could deal with their query quickly.

MORI's Public Confidence in the CJS Survey for the Home Office (Understanding Public Attitudes to Policing and the Criminal Justice System) identified the police as by far the most important agency in determining overall public perceptions of the CJS. We were subsequently able to dig deep into the views of traditionally hard to reach groups and ascertain what was driving perceptions of the police. Tailored analysis we have conducted for one police force has highlighted the importance of understanding concerns in driving perceptions among some minority groups. We are also acutely aware of the importance of looking at the views of groups separately (understanding the differences between views of different ethnic minority groups for example).

The focus groups we recently conducted for the IPCC highlighted important distinctions in the way people relate to the police and we were able to build on broad typologies we developed to help us understand this.

We have a team of researchers dedicated to working with police forces and we are looking forward to hearing from you. If you would like any further information please email the core team or telephone on 020 7347 3000.