Reforming police governance in England and Wales: managerialisation and the politics of organisational regime Change

This article examines reforms to the governance of local policing in England and Wales over the last two decades, from the managerialisation of policing in the early 1990s through to recent plans for the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners. This ‘long view’ facilitates an appreciation of politically driven shifts in organisational regimes, initially from bureau-professionalism to managerialism, and more recently from managerialism to a hybridised model of local governance that combines elements of consumerism, democratic localism and bureau-professionalism. These regimes, however, act less as determining structures, and more as unstable equilibria that are open to contestation and negotiation. Drawing upon insights from governmentality and governance studies, the article reviews the progress of reforms and shows that the ‘success’ of regime changes is contingent upon the translation of regimes into practice. More specifically, understanding regimes as discourses allows us to probe their internal coherence, and their achievements in influencing the strategies and subject positions adopted by actors in local policing policy networks. This enables us to appreciate both the limited successes of regime change reforms to date, and the prospects for the latest reform, namely the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners in each police force area outside of London.