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REPORT RAPPORT |
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REPORT RAPPORT |
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DATE: |
16 November 2009 |
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TO: |
Executive Director, Ottawa Police Services Board |
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FROM: |
Chief of Police |
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SUBJECT: |
STRATEGIC DEPLOYMENT PLAN PROJECT - UPDATE |
That the Ottawa Police Services Board receive
this report and presentation for information.
Ottawa is growing and changing—and so are the demands on police. As the population of Ottawa closes in on one million and our society continues its rapid pace of change, it is the responsibility of the Ottawa Police Service to reflect on the best possible ways it can provide effective and efficient policing to the community.
In the summer of 2007, Chief White identified several strategic priorities, including one calling for an operational review that would result in the assurance that the Ottawa Police Service would have the “right people in the right place at the right time.” Chief White's priority echoed the first of four strategic priorities set out in the Ottawa Police Service's 2007–2009 Business Plan – "Managing and Reducing Crime: What we do and how we do business."
In October 2007, the Strategic Deployment Plan (SDP) Project Team was formed by the OPS Executive and given the mandate to conduct a comprehensive review of identified priority service delivery areas (robberies, fraud, break and enters, traffic, marine and dive, demonstrations and the dangerous offender/long-term offender process). The Team was also charged with the responsibility of making recommendation to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of frontline response by examining shift options, district support, and call path and call management.
The review includes an examination of the current service delivery model, which was launched in 2001. Geographically based, it takes into account population density and the number of calls for service. The three patrol divisions (East, West and Central) have frontline Patrol Officers who respond to Priority 1 calls (or emergency calls), Neighbourhood Officers, School Resource Officers, Traffic Officers, Community Police Centre Officers, Investigators, and Crime Analysts. These functions are supported by the centralized services of Emergency Operations, Support Services, and Criminal Investigative directorates.
Specifically, the scope of the SDP Project Charter included the following goals:
1. To increase the capacity of frontline Patrol Officers to deter crime through proactive policing;
2. To review the priority service delivery areas (by asking, who does what, when, how and to what effect?) in order to identify areas requiring improvement and to recommend ways of realizing improvement in these areas;
3. To design an efficient staffing model for the priority service delivery areas reviewed, in order to increase OPS's organizational effectiveness.
4. To develop a strategic deployment plan for the recommended service delivery model that would increase frontline effectiveness and ensure the safety of officers and the public.
The project plan is depicted graphically in Annex A and provides a quick understanding of the SDP Project's breadth.
Below is a brief outline of the SDP Projects Team's approach, followed by a high-level review of all the key elements reviewed. This update document only presents key findings and key outcomes from the comprehensive SDP review. All key outcomes have been approved by the SDP Steering Committee. Some of the outcomes have been implemented. Details are included where appropriate.
A complete report documenting the detailed findings and outcomes of the SDP Project Team is due out by the end of 2009.
The Strategic Deployment Plan
Project Team was given a wide-reaching mandate because the most valuable
recommendations possible are best developed by combining a broad perspective
with detailed knowledge of OPS operations and policing delivery.
To provide the most thorough and
helpful review possible, the SDP Team undertook the following for each major
element of the review:
In the past decade, the total call volume has climbed by more than 30%, and the time required to handle calls has grown by more than 25%. Moreover, the volume of emergency calls (or Priority 1 calls) has risen by more than 80% since 2001.
In light of these increased pressures, the SDP Team formed the Shift Sub-Committee to review the performance of the current shift schedule. With representation from all three patrol divisions (including urban and rural) and the Ottawa Police Association, the Shift Sub-Committee examined changes to the shift schedule that would meet the needs of the public, OPS members and the organization. Maintaining OPS members' quality of life was one of the guiding principles in determining a new shift proposal, balanced equally with the need for the shift schedule to achieve operational goals and meet the service demand curve.
To achieve this, the Shift Sub-Committee used surveys and focus groups to consult with members of the organization from all ranks. It analyzed officer availability and workload demand in the context of OPS approved operational goals.
Officer availability is critical to the ability of a service to police effectively. Inaccurately calculating staffing has a number of associated risks: failure to meet citizen demand; excessive overtime costs; inability to free staff for development opportunities; increased staff turnover; inability to provide required breaks for staff; and, lack of proper staff backup to handle emergencies.
Officer availability is more than simply how many officers are available for duty. It is intertwined with issues of workload and strongly linked to shift design and deployment strategies. Monitoring workload demand and employee availability improves the police services’ ability to deliver programs and services, decreases potential liability, and ensures that costly staff resources are used in the most efficient way. Resources need to be carefully managed and staffing levels monitored. Under the current organization of resources, the review found that the demand for service (calls from the public) exceeds the capacity of frontline resources to respond in accordance with performance goals during certain hours of the day. Further, demand for service challenges the officers to apportion their time between response, proactive, and administrative responsibilities. As a result of the demand-for-service review, workload gaps were identified that need to be remedied by modifying the patrol shift and the addition of resources.
The Ottawa Police aims to respond to Priority 1 calls for service within 15 minutes 90% of the time, citywide. The organization has been unable to consistently meet this standard, further driving home the need to review the patrol shift schedule and factors inherent to the schedule that are preventing consistency.
Workload
demands from the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system were fed into OPS Staff Wizard® software in order to
identify resource requirements 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Using staffing
levels, key calls for service, and workload statistics, the staffing software
highlighted times in the day when service demand outstripped officer
availability. Achieving response time bench-marks becomes problematic during
these times. (See Annex B – Service Demand Curve)
Key Outcomes:
1. Three recommendations for a new patrol shift schedule were brought to the Executive Team for their approval. Two options were accepted to be brought forward to the Ottawa Police Association (OPA).
2. In June, the OPA surveyed its membership and received a mandate and parameters for shift negotiation.
3. In late September, representatives for the Chief of Police and representatives for the OPA began a collaborative process of designing mutually acceptable shift options.
4. In early November, the representatives achieved their collective goal of designing two shift options.
5. The OPA is preparing information sessions for its members and will hold a shift option vote by the end of November.
The following section presents some highlights from the review of the identified priority service areas: robberies, fraud, break and enters, traffic, marine and dive, demonstrations, and the investigative support required for successful dangerous offender and long-term offender applications.
The OPS Executive identified that personal and commercial robberies are not being investigated as effectively as they should be. When these occurrences are not investigated in a timely fashion there is an impact on the community and potential liability for the organization. In November 2007, a review of the Robbery section was undertaken by the SDP Team using a Business Process Improvement (BPI) approach. The review was conducted to determine the best and most effective way of investigating all types of robbery, to uncover potential bottlenecks in the system, to identify and evaluate business improvement opportunities, and to propose recommendations.
Key
Outcomes:
1.
A centralized Robbery Unit in Criminal Investigation Services
(CIS), with dedicated resources, its own clear chain of command independent
from Major Crime was established in February 2008.
2.
The centralized Robbery Unit has clear ownership of
all robbery type investigations (personal and commercial).
3.
The Robbery Unit's mandate
incorporates Crime Prevention, with a
priority given to information sessions about the impact of robberies on
victims.
4.
Movement of personnel: Staff Sergeant
position moved from Central Division to Robbery; four positions from Strategic
Growth Initiative 2013 (SGI) to Robbery; and one Sergeant position from within
CIS re-deployed.
Fraud
The OPS Organized Fraud unit regularly operates with a large volume of outstanding cases, which translates into lengthy waits for reports to be investigated. Increases in fraud-related crimes are not isolated to Ottawa. Other police services contacted during this project stated that they also experience high volumes of fraud reports. The Internet, expansion of organized crime, theft of electronic information and the growth of identity theft have been key drivers of the increased caseload. In 1998, the OPS Fraud unit received 1,400 reports. In 2007, it received 3,200 reports, with no increase in staffing. An examination of best practices revealed that the implementation of intake strategies and evaluative criteria can help to deal with this volume.
Key Outcomes:
Community surveys consistently place Break and Enters (B&Es) in the top five community concerns. Over the past few years, there have been several internal reports concerning B&E investigations, authored by various members of the Ottawa Police Service. Each of these reports refers to the serial nature of B&E offenders and the need to target prolific offenders using intelligence-led policing. Recommendations varied from report to report, but there was consensus around the opinion that our current generalist approach to B&E investigations was not appropriate due to the nature of the crime. A review of best practices identified a specialized approach to be the most effective. A pilot by Central Division, where they allowed District Investigators to specialize and focus on B&Es, proved to be successful.
Key Outcomes:
Currently the deployment model for traffic enforcement consists of a centralized Escort Unit that is responsible for escorts, citywide traffic enforcement initiatives, and the Integrated Road Safety Plan. In addition, OPS has decentralized district traffic officers responsible for local traffic complaints and enforcement. Combined, 41 constables dedicated to traffic related functions work in these two areas. Rural traffic enforcement is conducted by rural patrol officers. All patrol officers also contribute to road safety through education and enforcement. The OPS Executive wanted to ensure that co-operation and communication was well established between the work units within different Divisions, that our working partnership with City of Ottawa Traffic Services was optimized, and that the Ottawa Police was positioned to make meaningful contributions to road safety. Moreover, the Executive was concerned about the impact of motor vehicle collision reports on frontline workload and wanted this issue explored.
Key Outcomes:
From May to October, the Ottawa Police Marine Unit is responsible for patrolling 180 km of navigational waterway on three reaches of water—the Ottawa River, the Rideau River, and the Rideau Canal. Resources to staff this unit are primarily drawn from Patrol Operations, creating an additional staffing pressure during the busy summer vacation months. In addition to Marine Patrol, members perform an underwater search-and-recovery dive function that has stringent training and certification criteria, as established by the Canadian Safety Association, the Occupational Health and Safety Standards, and provincial Adequacy and Effectiveness Standards for policing services. The OPS Executive wanted to ensure that OPS operations were at maximum efficiency, satisfied Ministry of Labour guidelines, and provided optimal service to the public. Canvassing the current practices of other services identified units that combined all-terrain, marine and motorized snow vehicle enforcement.
Key Outcomes:
As Canada’s capital city, Ottawa experiences more politically motivated demonstrations than any other city in the nation. Resources deployed to manage these events are also utilized for labour disputes, parades, special events and VIP functions. The scale of these events vary greatly, from those requiring a major organizational response with assistance from external partners, to organizational events requiring resources from all Divisions, to daily events requiring an active police response or monitoring. The OPS Executive sought assurances that staffing for these events did not impair other ongoing operations and that intelligence gathering and dissemination aided in our ability to deploy to events, often on short notice.
Key Outcomes:
No greater threat to the safety and security of the citizens of Ottawa is posed than by those persons capable of causing serious personal injury or death. In 2003, the Attorney General created the Dangerous Offender/Long-Term Offender (DO/LTO) East Region Crown Attorney position, dedicated to bringing applications for indeterminate sentence periods before the courts. The OPS Executive recognized the lengthy and specialized investigative process required to aid the Crown in bringing forward a successful DO/LTO application. Resource allocation to this important work was to be reviewed.
Key Outcomes:
C.
District
Support Officers
In 2001, the Ottawa Police Service organized its Divisions according to geography, with two main groups of uniformed officers in each division: Patrol Officers and District Support Officers. The type of officer deployed depends on the nature of the incident being investigated and the expected response time for that incident.
Patrol Officers respond to emergency calls (or P1s) that have a response-time goal of within 15 minutes 90% of the time. They are also assigned lower priority calls (P2s) that have a two-hour response time goal.
District Support Officers respond to chronic and problem-oriented calls for service that have a response-time goal driven by other Divisional priorities and individual officer workload limitations. There are five groups of District Support Officer: 1) School Resource, 2) Neighbourhood, 3) District Investigations, 4) Community Police Centre, and 5) Front Desk. Each group has its own mandate, staffing, scheduling and deployment models. Variations of these models have developed across the Divisions.
During the course of the SDP, the Team discovered a common challenge faced by all five groups of District Support Officers. The Ottawa Police Records Management System (RMS) is not designed to record administrative or non-investigative work that is typical of the collaborative community-focused initiatives undertaken by District Support officers on a daily basis. A creative solution to this dilemma was required.
The following briefly outlines the review conducted on each group of District Support Officers, and presents the resulting outcomes.
School Resource Officer (SRO)
The Ottawa Police Service's 24 SROs are assigned to elementary, middle and high schools within their Divisional boundaries. The current prioritization of SRO programs results in time spent on middle- and high-school matters often at the expense of elementary schools. Each SRO is supported by a Sergeant in their Division and the program Sergeant in the Youth Intervention and Diversion and Guns and Gangs Section of CIS. Emerging issues and trends within the student populations (i.e. a rise in criminal behaviour among a certain student body) make the current delivery model challenging and raises the need to be more strategic. The current organizational structure places the Youth Intervention and Diversion Officers in a Division that is separate from the SROs.
Key Outcomes:
Neighbourhood Officer (NHO)
With Patrol Officers focused on responding to emergency situations, a significant portion of community-based policing has become the purview of NHOs. Across the city, NHOs use an intelligence-led approach in applying the principles of pro-active and problem-oriented policing. The foundation of their continued success is formed by the relationships they develop with the community. Ongoing operational priorities within the Divisions are established on a weekly basis during Supervisor meetings. Through these weekly meetings, the Districts consider crime analysis data, emerging issues and complaints. District complaints are received from a variety of sources, making them challenging to track and prioritize. Once the weekly priorities are set, the information is shared with frontline Patrol Officers by way of e-mail. NHOs have evolved over time from being strictly uniformed into a blend of plainclothes and uniform, which has resulted in a reduction of visible presence. NHOs working in Central Division have the added responsibility of dealing with the nearly 700 special events that take place annually in the nation’s capital.
In the fall of 2007, under the command of then Superintendent Larochelle, Central Division piloted a task group to tackle street level drug activity. Known as the Street Crime Unit, this group of officers has achieved much success in dealing with this persistent criminal activity.
Key
Outcomes:
District Investigators (DI)
Advanced investigative support for frontline Patrol Officers is divided between specialized investigative units within the Criminal Investigations Services (CIS) and DIs working in the East, Central and West Divisions of Patrol Operations. CIS has started a review of its operations and mandates, and is working closely with SDP assigned personnel. While a patrol officer attending a scene most often initiates the investigative process, the majority of cases are concluded with the assistance of additional investigative support. Currently, general practice in the Districts requires that follow-up for all criminal investigations be assigned to District Investigators, regardless of a case's complexity. On duty investigative support is available to frontline patrol operations 19 hours per day.
Key Outcomes:
1. Divisional Case Managers will assign minor criminal investigations to other frontline resources, rather than to District Investigators. The assignments will lessen the workload on the DIs and offer developmental opportunities for the frontline officers. DIs will provide support as required.
2. In Q1 2010, establish a working group to collaborate with local gasoline retailers in order to optimize police response to incidents of gas theft. Taxed investigative and frontline capacity is further impacted by this completely preventable crime.
3. In June 2009, District Investigation Staff Sergeants conducted a needs analysis for 24-hour staffing coverage. The results of the study will be provided to the CIS Enhancement Project for review.
4. CIS is currently taking the lead on establishing a protocol to deal with overlapping investigative mandates. This work will get further attention in the CIS Enhancement Project.
Community Police Centre Officers
(CPCO)
The Police Services Act requires that all police services provide community-based crime prevention initiatives. Driven by this requirment and motivated to provide accessible community-focused services, the Ottawa Police established Community Police Centers (CPC) across the city. Charged with the responsibility of engaging the community, dedicated CPC Officers work from the Centers. The catchment area for each CPC is defined by the Divisional boundaries of the OPS, which in many cases cross civic ward boundaries. Over the years, the OPS Executive has closely monitored fiscal and service delivery issues related to CPCs. The track record of CPCs show that office location has little to do with whether or not a CPC Officer is successful at engaging the community (it's not about bricks and mortar, it's about service delivery). In its external scan, the SDP Team discovered several current practices including: hosting a series of evening information sessions in order to share crime-prevention information and raise awareness; and clustering crime-prevention functions together in the organization's structure to create greater focus and obtain synergy of effort.
Key Outcomes:
The Ottawa Police maintains counter services at five locations across the city. A full array of policing services is available at these locations, such as taking complaint reports, receiving motor vehicle collision reports, and handling lost-and-found property. They also provide fee-based services, such as background checks and copies of reports. Patrol Officers assigned to a Division will frequently be assigned to their respective Front Desk for brief periods when they require time to recover from short-term injuries. Officers requiring longer-term workplace accommodation are also assigned to Front Desk duty. In assessing Front Desk workload, the Executive has pondered the efficacy of technology based self-reporting solutions. Consistent with the OPS effort to be the Employer of Choice For All (as outlined in the 2007–2009 Business Plan), the Executive has questioned the capacity to provide job-enriching opportunities for long-term accommodated officers.
Key
Outcomes:
1. Effective October 5th, 2009 the management and administration of Front Desk Services fall under one Staff Sergeant. The Front Desk officers and their Sergeant supervisors remain deployed from Divisional buildings (centralized command, decentralized deployment). This arrangement will enhance sharing of resources and maximize service delivery to the community.
2. Create a working group to explore job-enriching opportunities for long-term accommodated officers.
3. Implement a Collision Reporting Centre Pilot and Internet Reporting Pilot.
4. Implement payment kiosks at all Front Desk locations.
5. Movement of personnel: Front Desk Staff Sergeant position identified through redeployment. No new positions required.
District Support Inspector
One of the common challenges encountered throughout the SDP Project was trying to assess the efficiency of a staffing model that employs specialists versus generalists. A second common challenge was trying to determine the efficacy of a centralized versus decentralized deployment model. The current OPS organizational structure orients Criminal Investigative Services, Support Services, and the Emergency Operations Division with centralized deployment models. In contrast, Patrol Operations functions with a decentralized model, driven by their geographically based frontline service delivery. In effect, each Patrol Division is structurally independent of the others. Each Patrol Division is commanded by a Superintendent, who in turn oversees Divisional Inspectors, Staff Sergeants, and so on. There are no positions within Patrol Operations that cross Divisional boundaries. Under the current OPS organizational structure, centralizing a work function would require the placement of that function outside of Patrol Operations.
To achieve maximum operational effectiveness, there are several
frontline work functions that would benefit from centralized command and
decentralized deployment within Patrol Operations. The OPS Executive tasked the
SDP Team with exploring options to make this deployment feasible within the
current organizational structure.
Key
Outcomes:
D. Reviewing the Ratio of Sworn Officers to
Civilian Members
When the project charter for this review was being developed in 2007, Chief White set as a priority the goal of establishing that we have the "right people, in the right place, at the right time." Chief White also voiced concerns that the ratio of sworn–to-civilian personnel may impair the OPS's ability to deploy sworn personnel in response to major incidents. Three areas of inquiry were identified in order to fully explore the Chief’s concerns:
· A review of the sworn-to-civilian ratio since amalgamation
· A comparison of sworn-to-civilian ratios in other police services
· An examination of the staffing and deployment of positions across OPS
Sworn-to-civilian Ratio Since Amalgamation
From 1996 to 2008, the sworn-to-civilian ratio has ranged between 2.48 and 2.27, averaging 2.39. Over that 13-year period, 427 sworn positions were added to the complement, an increase of 49% (see Table 1). During the same period, the number of civilian full-time and full-time equivalent (FTE) positions increased by 171, or 47%. Since amalgamation and throughout all of the growth initiatives, our sworn-to-civilian ratio has remained fairly constant. However, in 2009 the authorized sworn complement will increase to 1,386, while the authorized civilian complement will decrease to 516 (based upon the 2009 Budgeted Complement document). This complement change will raise the sworn-to-civilian ratio to 2.68, which is above the 13-year average and outside the range for that period.
Table 1: Ratio of Sworn Officers to Civilian Members, Ottawa Police, 1996–2008
Year |
Sworn |
Civilian |
Term/Casual FTE |
Civilian Total |
Grand Total |
Ratio |
|
1996 |
873 |
365 |
-- |
365 |
1238 |
2.39 |
|
1997 |
951 |
384 |
-- |
384 |
1335 |
2.48 |
|
1998 |
1023 |
389 |
39 |
428 |
1451 |
2.39 |
|
1999 |
1040 |
434 |
1 |
435 |
1475 |
2.39 |
|
2000 |
1046 |
424 |
-- |
424 |
1470 |
2.47 |
|
2001 |
1054 |
446 |
-- |
446 |
1500 |
2.36 |
|
2002 |
1088 |
458 |
-- |
458 |
1546 |
2.38 |
|
2003 |
1161 |
483 |
-- |
483 |
1644 |
2.40 |
|
2004 |
1161 |
485 |
-- |
485 |
1646 |
2.39 |
|
2005 |
1161 |
501 |
11 |
512 |
1673 |
2.27 |
|
2006 |
1251 |
511 |
11 |
522 |
1773 |
2.40 |
|
2007 |
1270 |
527 |
9 |
536 |
1806 |
2.37 |
|
2008 |
1300 |
527 |
9 |
536 |
1836 |
2.42 |
Notes:
1) Civilian Total = the sum of civilian and
term/casual FTE positions
2) Ratio = the number of sworn officers
divided by the civilian total
Sworn-to-civilian
Ratios in Other Police Services
The SDP Team contacted 13 other
Canadian police services that foster best practices, collecting data to
determine their sworn-to-civilian ratios. Table 2 (below) includes a summary of findings using 2007 authorized
staffing levels, with services ranked in descending order by the
sworn-to-civilian ratio.
Table 2: Complement of Sworn and Civilian Personnel - Canadian Police
Services, 2007
Service |
Sworn (authorized) |
Civilian (authorized) |
Sworn-to-Civilian Ratio |
2007 Population |
Sworn–to-Population Ratio |
|
Winnipeg |
1318 |
356 |
3.70 |
648000 |
491.7 |
|
Vancouver |
1231 |
368.5 |
3.34 |
611869 |
497.1 |
|
Durham |
807 |
281 |
2.87 |
603090 |
747.3 |
|
Calgary |
1593 |
556 |
2.87 |
1019942 |
640.3 |
|
Hamilton |
761 |
267 |
2.85 |
518181 |
680.9 |
|
York |
1297 |
461 |
2.81 |
983056 |
757.9 |
|
Edmonton |
1369 |
489 |
2.80 |
763732 |
557.9 |
|
Toronto |
5510 |
2001 |
2.75 |
2503281 |
454.3 |
|
Waterloo |
699 |
266 |
2.63 |
515600 |
737.6 |
|
Peel |
1795 |
701 |
2.56 |
1177500 |
656.0 |
|
Halton |
563 |
223.5 |
2.52 |
453700 |
805.9 |
|
Sudbury |
255 |
102 |
2.50 |
157857 |
619.0 |
|
Ottawa |
1270 |
536 |
2.37 |
884765 |
696.7 |
|
Niagara |
647 |
297 |
2.18 |
435125 |
672.5 |
|
Ontario Average |
-- |
-- |
2.60 |
-- |
-- |
Notes:
1) Civilian (authorized) includes full time and FTE
2) Sworn-to-Population Ratio is based upon 2006 census data
3) Ottawa Police numbers are
based upon the 2007 tabled budget. The civilian number includes full-time and
full-time equivalent employees.
As noted in Table 2, four
out-of-province services were found to have higher sworn-to-civilian ratios,
reaching as high as 3.7 to 1. The reasons for these higher ratios are readily
explained by the staffing make-up of the services, namely:
· The services have communication centres that are not staffed by police civilians; and
· Their municipal courthouse cellblocks, custodial and security functions are performed by provincial employees (Sheriffs) and are therefore not included in the police complement.
Although
this staffing arrangement was not seen in Ontario, the current practices
observed in the western provinces present opportunities that could be further
explored for feasibility and potential cost savings. The opportunities include
the amalgamation of emergency service communication centres and the
out-sourcing of custodial staffing to the Province.
Examination of the Staffing and
Deployment of Positions Across OPS
The third component of the sworn-to-civilian ratio review involved an examination of the deployment and staffing of positions across the service. In co-operation with Human Resources, the SDP Team undertook a review of all positions in the OPS, sworn and civilian. The goal of the review was to identify positions (e.g., the Fleet Sergeant's position) that could be analyzed further in order to determine if a conversion from sworn to civilian, or civilian to sworn, was practical. Regrettably, staffing pressures within the Human Resources Section curtailed this examination prior to its conclusion, but the work will be revisited by the Civilian Review Committee.
In the end, the sworn-to-civilian ratio was found to be consistent with other Services to which we have historically compared ourselves, and furthermore was determined to not impact our ability to respond to major incidents.
E.
Corporate
Services Review
At the request of the OPS Executive in May 2008, the SDP Team participated alongside the OPS Executive and leaders in Human Resources (HR), in a Corporate Services Review of the Human Resources Section. The overarching goals of the review included:
Three facilitated exploratory
sessions took place involving members of the OPS Executive, HR, the
Professional Development Centre (PDC), and the SDP Team. In addition, Geoff
Gruson from the Police Sector Counsel and Brenda Clark, President of the
Ottawa-Area Human Resources Professionals Association, were invited to attend
the second meeting and were asked to provide research information and advice regarding
key issues. The sessions led to the development of a series of recommendations
and the design of a new organizational structure for Corporate Services. The
new organizational structure was approved by the Police Services Board on
October 27, 2008.
Key
Outcomes:
· On February 2, 2009, the creation and staffing of the Resourcing and Development Executive Director position. This position is supported by the Outreach and Development Inspector for operational expertise and by the Director of HR for expertise related to areas of HR subject matter.
· On October 20, 2008, the creation and staffing of the Outreach and Development Inspector position, which places a senior sworn member into HR thus providing operational experience in combination with the subject matter expertise of the Director of HR.
· On June 22, 2009, the creation and staffing of the position of Staff Sergeant in Career Development. This recommendation was consistent with the recommendation from the Tenure Committee.
· On February 9, 2009, the creation and staffing of the position of Corporate Support Executive Director. This position oversees Finance, Information Technology, and Police Facilities.
· Both Executive Director positions provide a senior-level opportunity for a civilian or sworn member to gain experiences in Corporate Services, and Resourcing and Development that are required to develop future leaders for the organization.
In addition to giving OPS members the opportunity to develop skills that are essential for organizational leadership, this set of changes will reduce the number of people reporting directly to the OPS Director General position to two. The new reporting structure aligns with the reporting for both Deputy Chiefs and permits the Director General to focus more attention on strategic considerations. (See Annex C - new Corporate Services Organizational Chart)
F.
Executive
Services Review
The current Ottawa Police organizational structure has seven direct reports to the Chief of Police from Executive Services. As a result, the Chief is responsible for all administrative requirements, including significant time-consuming responsibilities of the performance review process. The SDP Team was tasked by the Chief to find out how other police forces handle their reporting relationships between the Chief and functions of Executive Services, and also how they organize the Office of the Chief. The sections examined include Executive Officer, Corporate Planning, Corporate Communication, Community Development, Professional Standards and Legal Services. Research revealed that current practices elsewhere organize these senior management functions into an “Office of the Chief” structure, reporting to the Chief’s Executive Officer at the rank of Superintendent. The scan also revealed a common feature of these executive sections: while reporting to an Executive Officer or Superintendent, they still have a direct reporting line to the Chief for functional purposes.
Within
the executive services sections of other services, other current practices were
noted, such as strong emerging interest in business performance indicators
(also referred to as business intelligence) and ongoing operational planning
work. Many services also feature standalone Crime Prevention branches or
sections, supported by executive services at the strategic level.
Key
Outcomes:
1. Effective October 5th, 2009, the creation of an Office of the Chief to be overseen by an Executive Officer at the rank of Superintendent. Executive Command has committed to working with the Chief to optimize this new arrangement while not forsaking the existing functional reporting lines.
2.
Creation of an
Operational Planning / Business Performance unit within Corporate Planning to focus on performance indicators, benchmarks, section reviews, and to provide ongoing monitoring of OPS service delivery practices. Timeline
Q2 2010.
3. Reporting to the District Support Inspector within Patrol Operations, the creation of a Crime Prevention Services Section to oversee crime prevention programming citywide, and link directly to Community Development for strategic direction. Timeline Q2 2010.
G.
Professional
Standards Section (PSS) Review
The Strategic Deployment Project (SDP) was asked to conduct a review of the Ottawa Police Professional Standards Section (PSS). It is recognized that PSS enjoys the support of and has credibility with its many stakeholders—such as the Ottawa Police Association, the Senior Officers' Association, the OPS membership, the Executive of the OPS and the OPS Board. However, a number of organizational concerns have emerged—including the legal requirements of Police Service Act to have an Inspector (or higher rank) in PSS. Other important concerns include the absence of operational expertise at the senior officer level within PSS and, conversely, the lack of opportunity for senior officers to take a leadership role in or to gain practical experience from the Professional Standards domain. With these concerns in mind, the Chief asked the Strategic Deployment Project to conduct a review of the section, specifically around the report-to structure, and to provide an analysis outlining the best structure to move forward.
In brief, most of the Professional Standards sections reviewed were centralized. About half were housed in the headquarters building and half were off-site. All services contacted had a sworn member in charge of the section, with the Inspector rank being the most frequent. Often, that section head would report directly to the Chief of the police service, but it was also common for the lead to report to other senior officers in lieu of the chief.
Key Outcomes:
1. To meet current and emerging Police Services Act requirements, the Ottawa Police Service has restructured its Professional Standards Section to include a sworn officer at the rank of Inspector who is directly responsible for the Section’s activities.
2. Consistent with a proposal for restructuring Professional Standards that was presented to the Chief in July of 2007, the position of the Quality Assurance Inspector was redeployed to oversee Quality Assurance and Professional Standards. The new position title is Professional Standards Inspector.
3. To offset the increased workload resulting from the Inspector now overseeing Quality Assurance and Professional Standards, the current Voluntary Conflict Resolution Program Coordinator Sergeant position in PSS has been redeployed to a Staff Sergeant position in Quality Assurance.
The new section structure is as follows:
H. Modified Job Share
In July 2008, sworn members of the OPS were canvassed for their interest in participating in a job share pilot project. The initiative was proposed as a further enhancement to the existing Job Share Program and affords members another opportunity to balance work and personal needs. Similar to the current Job Share Program in place, this modified job share pilot program would enable sworn officers to work a 20-hour week instead of the traditional 40-hour week. The pilot program will be frontline patrol focused, with duty times from Thursday to Saturday, between the hours of 5pm and 3 am. Two officers would occupy one FTE position, and both officers would be required to work 20 hours per week. The addition of resources on these days and times would help to offset high service demands that occur in the evening and early morning hours from Thursday to Saturday nights. (See Annex D - Workload Demand by Time and Day of Week)
Due to the interest shown for the job-sharing initiative by OPS members, the SDP Project Team worked with Human Resources to research and develop a pilot program for Executive and Association approval.
Key Outcomes:
1. A patrol-focused, 12-month pilot program was developed
2. A Letter of Understanding to be agreed to and signed by the OPS and the Ottawa Police Association, detailing the parameters of the 12-month pilot.
3. A policy and procedure framework will be developed in order to manage all job share programs, and evaluative criteria will be identified to measure its success.
I.
Creation
of Patrol and District Directorates
During the amalgamation process in 1999, the OPS Executive opted to deploy and command frontline police resources based on a geographic model. Under the command of the Deputy Chief of Patrol Operations, three Divisions were established—East, West, and Central. Between 1999 and 2001, the number of Districts within each Division was modified, resulting in the new service delivery model currently in use.
Each Patrol Operations Division has a command team headed by a Superintendent and includes Inspectors who oversee patrol operations and district support operations within the Division. The establishment of this command team with a mandated geographical focus marked the first time that officers at the rank of Superintendent were assigned to direct their attention on local issues, unlike the citywide perspective held by their peers in Support Services, Criminal Investigations, and Emergency Operations Divisions.
From a managerial perspective, the geography-based Divisional
command structure has strongly supported the careful and professional oversight
of resources, staff development and operational issues. The OPS Executive
recognizes that, while this structure offers many benefits, it also
compartmentalizes responsibility and does not, by itself, foster system-wide
thinking. This is due
to the geographical emphasis of our frontline service delivery approach. Under
the current deployment model there are no positions within Patrol Operations
that cross Divisional boundaries. A common complaint compares the three Divisions to three silos. This
sentiment is reflected in the recent OPS 2009 Member Survey, which revealed “members
do not agree that OPS Divisions communicate well with each other.”
The current frontline deployment structure encourages senior command staff to focus on Divisional priorities versus city-wide priorities leading to some inconsistencies and inefficiencies. From the perspective of developing executive talent, the Executive saw strong reasons to implement change within Patrol Operations at the Superintendent level in order to increase strategic capacity for all Superintendents.
Key Outcomes:
· Provides for increased fluidity of resources
· Flattens operational hierarchy
· Balances Division-based priorities with organization-wide priorities
· Provides executive-talent development opportunities
2.
Inspectors, will remain District-based and have increased strategic
responsibilities.
· Empowers Inspectors to take on more responsibility for District issues
· District issues will be prioritized in co-operation with other District counterparts
· Cascading developmental opportunities arise as Inspectors in turn give more responsibility to Patrol and District Staff Sergeants, and so on
3. Movement of Personnel: The move to a Patrol Directorate and District Directorate within Patrol Operations enables the redeployment of one Superintendent position from patrol to the Office of the Chief as Executive Officer. This in turn permits the redeployment of the Executive Officer Inspector position to the District Support Inspector position. No new positions required.
In the late 1990s and as a result of amalgamation, the Ottawa Police Service established a three-level call-dispatch priority system for mobile response, using a new computer system and employing best practices at that time. With the majority of the Priority 3 (or P3) calls being handled through alternate response (e.g., through the call centre), there are essentially only two modes of dispatch for frontline patrol.
Although the call-dispatch priority system has served the Ottawa Police well for the better part of a decade, the main users of the system—the staff in the Communications Centre—are asking for it to be reviewed.. Much of the need for change is driven by the belief of Communications Centre staff that they are restricted by having only two dispatch priority options available to them. This often forces dispatch to place a call for service into the Priority 1 queue, even though there may not be an equivalent level of urgency.
Much work has been done already, with the review looking at issues in relation to dispatch call management by the Ottawa Police Service. The review of this area has focused on the following:
Throughout the Strategic Deployment project, a common theme was the need for data analysis and trending information, and the need for resources to perform these intelligence functions. Several units, such as Organized Fraud, Robbery and SACA, have each requested that a crime analyst be assigned to their units. Therefore in an effort to achieve a highly effective and efficient intelligence-led organization, the SDP Team turned its attention to the Crime Analyst function within OPS in an attempt to augment resources.
A formal presentation to Executive Team took place on September 22, 2009. Recommended outcomes are now being considered and will be brought forward after due diligence.
Highlights of this report will be delivered via Public Information Sessions to the three Divisions and the two Rural Districts.
Future Initiatives
Several initiatives are being explored further in an effort to leverage
technology to assist with some of our deployment challenges.
Building upon the relationship with
and experience developed by the Ottawa Paramedic Service, frontline real-time
deployment software promises to be very supportive for communications staff and
road supervisors. This software is designed to deal with day-to-day real-time
deployment challenges in meeting the demand of calls for service and in meeting
performance measure benchmarks. The OPS is currently exploring opportunities to
partner with the Canadian Police Research Centre to test the viability of this
software in a police environment.
Internet reporting software provides
citizens with an alternative way of reporting crimes and disturbances to
police. Internet reporting software currently being used by York Regional
Police and has received favourable feedback. Internet reporting software would
alleviate some of the workload pressures in our Call Centre and provide them
with the capacity to explore other ways of supporting frontline patrol.
One of the tasks of the SDP
frontline review was to identify ways of freeing up patrol officers' time. One
approach in use by a number of services in Ontario involves the creation of
Collision Reporting Centres ( CRC ), either run by the service itself or in
partnership with the private sector, who
currently provide alternative police response to property damage
accidents for about 25 police services in Ontario. The expected outcome of a
CRC would be freeing up patrol officers from taking lengthy property-damage
collision reports. A project team will be created to implement Collision
Reporting Centres here in Ottawa.
A key ingredient to successful
deployment of personnel is appropriate analysis and management of time off.
There are several roster software tools that are compatible with our current
SAP software system that would enable the OPS to examine challenges and
implement service-wide solutions, with respect to deployment business rules as
they relate to the availability of existing staff in responding to service
demands.
The Strategic Deployment Plan Project has maintained expenses within its approved budget envelope.
The financial impact of implementation is being studied and a report will be prepared for the Chief in January 2010.
The Strategic Deployment Plan
Project will be brought to a conclusion upon the completion of work related to
the Items Still Under Review. A
Strategic Deployment Plan Implementation Team has been formed to support and
oversee the implementation of approved outcomes.
(original
signed by)
Gilles Larochelle
Acting Chief of Police
Annex A
Graphic Depiction of the SDP Project
Annex B
Service Demand Curve
Annex
C
New Corporate Services Organizational Chart
Annex
D
Rising
pre-midnight call volume on Friday (black) and Saturday (red) nights
.
