Developing organisational excellence: Applying benchmarking for guiding and measuring police agency performance – Abu Dhabi Police case study
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14613557231184694 |
| Author | Peter Neyroud,Brigadier Khalfan AlMansoori,Amanda Davies,Faisal Ahmed Mohamed AlKaabi |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
Developing organisational excellence:
Applying benchmarking for guiding and
measuring police agency performance –
Abu Dhabi Police case study
Peter Neyroud
Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK
Brigadier Khalfan AlMansoori
Abu Dhabi Police, United Arab Emirates
Amanda Davies
Rabdan University, United Arab Emirates
Faisal Ahmed Mohamed AlKaabi
Rabdan University, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
The process of developing organisational excellence requires identifying benchmarks and a model or framework to guide
the operationalisation of an organisation’s aspirations. Developing evidence through application of strategies to meet
benchmark criteria requires commitment at all levels of an organisation to demonstrate a sustained quality level of
achievement through continuous improvement to standards of excellence. This article presents the process and out-
comes for a police organisation (Abu Dhabi Police [ADP]) utilising the European Foundation for Quality Management
(EfQM) criteria to guide development and measurement of organisational excellence. In 2021 ADP were awarded a 6
Star Global Award from the EfQM. This case study explores the extent to which EfQM is an effective framework for
organisational excellence in policing.
Keywords
Policing, EfQM, excellence, performance management, rule of law, evidence-based policing
Submitted 1 Jun 2022, Revise received 6 Jun 2023, accepted 10 Jun 2023
Introduction
One of the many implications of the COVID-19 pandemic
between 2020 and 2022 was to throw into sharp relief the
debate about the role of the police, the police mission and
its boundaries, as well as questions about ‘good policing’
(Maskaly et al., 2021). In many countries in the Global
North, as police forces were entering the pandemic, they
were already amid a crisis of legitimacy, with, in the
US, for instance, calls for root and branch reform,
‘defunding’and even, from some quarters, abolition
(Vitale, 2017). At the centre of the perceived crisis has
been a discussion as to whether and how the police can
be reformed and improved, both to meet new challenges
Corresponding author:
Peter Neyroud, Associate Professor, Institute of Criminology, University
of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DT, UK.
Email: pwn22@cam.ac.uk
Original Research Article
International Journal of
Police Science & Management
2023, Vol. 25(4) 484–499
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14613557231184694
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm
and to respond to criticism of past failures (Bayley, 2006;
Sklansky, 2007).
Quite a substantial part of the debate about improving
police performance has centred on the merits or otherwise
of targets for improvement and the mechanisms to translate
them into action, such as CompStat (Weisburd and Braga,
2019). Much of the published literature on police perform-
ance has tendedto focus on the Global North and,especially,
on North America, Australasia, the United Kingdom and
Northern Europe. Although this is changing, there remains
far less coverage of developments in the Middle East,
Africa and Asia.
This article seeks to move the police performance debate
outside the Global North and beyond targets. The focus is
on continuous improvement, supported by a process of
benchmarking, using the European Foundation for Quality
Management (EfQM) framework, in the Abu Dhabi Police
(ADP). The Office for Justice Programme’s handbook on
benchmarking is defined as ‘a continuous process of compar-
ing an organization’s systems and services to the best in the
field’(Gay, 1996: 1). The use of EfQM allows a police organ-
isation like ADP to benchmark systems and services not just
with other policing organisations, but also with other organisa-
tions in the private and public spheres. Furthermore, within the
United Arab Emirates (UAE), for more than 20 years, a pan-
government approach has mandated the use of EfQM for
improvement. This study uses a descriptive analysis to
explore the use and development of EfQM by ADP.
EfQM, its development and implementation
for organisational development
EfQM was developed at the beginning of the 1990s as a
European model for total quality management (TQM). It
has been through several stages of development in the 30
years since its inception. The most significant of these have
been the 2012 model(Figure 1) and the more radical revision
in 2020 (Figure 2), in which EfQM embraced the United
Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.
According to Nenadal (2020), EfQM has had three main
components:
•the core concepts of excellence: Nenadal (2020: 19)
described these as ‘adding value for customers, cre-
ating a sustainable future, developing organisational
capability, harnessing creativity and innovation,
leading with vision, inspiration and integrity, man-
aging with agility, succeeding through the talent of
people, sustaining outstanding results’;
•the criteria –9 main and 32 sub-criteria (in the 2012
model);
•the RADAR –(Risk Assessment Database and
Register) assessment framework which enables the
assessment of the current excellence level and
helps to identify the areas for future improvement.
The EfQM model was developed as a generic quality man-
agement (QM) model capable of adoption in a wide range
of organisations, regardless of size or sector. Nair (2006)
argued that QM is essential for organisational performance.
Nair’s meta-analysis of earlier studies demonstrated that
QM enablers of leadership, people, strategy, partners and
processes, as set out in EfQM 2012 (Figure 1), were posi-
tively correlated with performance. However, none of the
studies included was within the law enforcement sector.
Some researchers have suggested that not all the enablers
in the EfQM 2012 model have equal effect (Gomez et al.,
2011). However, a systematic review of quantitative
research on EfQM by Suarez et al. (2017) concluded that
there was a strong correlation between the enablers and
results. They also found that organisations ‘that partially
used the model did not significantly improve their results’
and ‘it is necessary to develop all the facilitators to maxi-
mise the correlation of these criteria with the results (holis-
tic approach) and thereby optimising the use of the EfQM
model’(Suarez et al., 2017: 154). However, as with Nair
(2006), the studies reviewed, from education and tourism,
did not include law enforcement organisations. Taken
together, it seems likely that Nair (2006) and Suarez et al.
(2017) would provide more relevant evidence for the direc-
tion criteria than for execution, and particularly the cus-
tomer or citizen engagement areas.
The extent to which organisations adopting the EfQM
have ‘developed all the facilitators’and achieved results
has become the focus of the award system linked to
EfQM. Boulter et al. (2013: 197) analysed the award
winners for the EfQM standard and found, based on
metrics such as share price and earnings, that ‘stronger per-
formance is again achieved by the TQM-oriented award-
winning companies’. Suarez et al. (2017) qualified this by
finding that the most consistent gainers were organisations
who had been pioneers. They did not find significant differ-
ences relating to the levels of award, except that the highest
levels of award –500+–were strongly correlated with
organisations that pay more attention to the people criterion
and were associated with higher results for people.
Development of the EfQM 2020 standard (Figure 2)
reflected, in part, a response to some of criticisms of the
earlier standard and, in part, a desire to develop a more
‘logical and business minded structure’(Fonseca et al.,
2021: 15) which embedded both the potential for transform-
ation towards Industry 4.0 or, more specifically,
technology-enabled change, and emphasised sustainability
by adopting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Fonseca et al. (2021) and Nenadal (2020) have analysed
the differences between EfQM (2012) and EfQM (2020).
Neyroud et al. 485
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