Further Detail

Independent Review of Police Scotland’s Health and Wellbeing Programme (Thrivewise)

Over the past three years, Police Scotland / SPA's health and wellbeing offerings have evolved, incorporating various supportive measures such as occupational health, employee assistance programmes, trauma risk assessment, resilience assessments and wellbeing champions. However, a key challenge has been evaluating and assessing the impact of the wellbeing offerings on the workforce and the organisation as a whole.

The purpose of this independent evaluation, undertaken by Thrivewise who are specialists in organisational health and wellbeing, was to address a key challenge in evaluating and assessing the impact of an ever-evolving health and wellbeing offering on the workforce and the organisation as a whole. The independent evaluation is to help bridge this gap by ascertaining the appropriateness and effectiveness of the current health and wellbeing approaches for the workforce of Police Scotland / SPA and to provide expert insight and guidance on future wellbeing impact measurement strategies. The evaluation aims to ensure that the wellbeing offerings continue to move in a direction that is beneficial for Police Scotland / SPA, while also laying down a framework for ongoing assessment and improvement.

Evaluation Approach

To evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of Police Scotland's health and wellbeing programme, this independent evaluation employed a qualitative methodology, integrating literature review, internal documentation analysis and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. This approach, designed to assess the wellbeing ecosystem as a whole rather than isolated initiatives, was grounded in the ‘Explore and Embed Framework’ developed by the University of East Anglia and RAND Europe. Using this approach, insights were gathered against five interdependent themes that together produce a sustainable and mature approach to workplace wellbeing. These themes are:

• Aligning to thrive – building the narrative of aligning wellbeing and productivity in your organisation.

• The importance of dialogue – achieving continuous development through listening, imagining, piloting and evolving.

• Proactive approach – building the will and finding the time to set out on a positive path to wellbeing.

• Sharing the load – enlisting the involvement of senior leaders, people-focussed professionals and the wider workforce in your wellbeing efforts.

• A discerning eye – reviewing all progress against key principles.

The key findings against each theme are summarised below:

Alignment to Thrive

• There is recognition within Police Scotland/SPA that workplace wellbeing is crucial and should be woven into the organisational fabric.

• The People Strategy and implementation plan underscore a commitment to prioritising wellbeing, with clear strategic objectives aimed at addressing the complete wellbeing of the workforce.

• There is concern regarding the actual implementation and the gap between the organisation's stated commitments and practical actions.

• The visibility of senior leaders in wellbeing initiatives is crucial for building trust and demonstrating a genuine commitment to wellbeing.

The Importance of Dialogue

• Effective workplace wellbeing in Police Scotland/SPA hinges on a continual dialogue with the workforce to ensure strategies evolve with their needs, aspirations, and perspectives.

• Your Voice Matters is infrequent and has limitations in providing timely, actionable wellbeing information point to a gap in understanding of drivers of wellbeing.

• Police Scotland/SPA has invested in the development of a wellbeing champions network and these individuals play a crucial role in disseminating wellbeing information and signposting to wellbeing supports.

• Recent procurement processes for occupational health and employee assistance programmes involved a range of stakeholders to ensure that the services are in line with workforce needs and address previously identified concerns.

• There is a need for clearer guidance on accessing health and wellbeing resources so that people can access the right supports at the right time.

• The hierarchical culture within policing poses challenges to open dialogue, suggesting a need for a more human-centric approach to encourage genuine communication across ranks.

Proactive Approach

• Police Scotland/SPA employs a wide spectrum of health and wellbeing interventions demonstrating a commitment to both individual and organisational wellbeing. However, most interventions are focused on supporting people once issues have already arisen or that focus on individual resilience.

• There have been considerable attempts to identify those at higher risk of psychological ill-health due to the nature of their roles, in line with good practice. Police Scotland/SPA also enables individuals in any role to have a wellbeing assessment to enable timely support. However, low uptake of these suggests a lack of awareness and trust in the process.

• Stigma around mental health is a persistent challenge for policing in general and Police Scotland have ongoing efforts to address this, through lived experience programmes and training on mental health. Culture change takes time but early indicators of impact on attitudes and behaviours are encouraging.

• The role of interventions like Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) and the exploration of Trauma Impact Prevention Techniques (TIPT) illustrate ongoing efforts to address the impact of trauma within the force.

Sharing the Load

• There are a range of key players involved in creating a culture of wellbeing in Police Scotland/SPA, including external providers, line managers, senior leaders, wellbeing champions, peer facilitators/assessors, staff associations and trade unions.

• Research consistently shows that managers have a critical role in the success of a wellbeing strategy. Their effectiveness depends on their skills, knowledge and mindsets, but also on their capacity and empowerment.

Discerning Eye

• There are examples of ‘deep dives’ and internal reviews of particular wellbeing interventions and programmes, but most of these lack a robust theory of change and evaluation mechanisms to enable an assessment of their impact.

• There is considerable scrutiny of sickness absence data but a need for more multifaceted indicators that can capture the complexity of organisational wellbeing.

HMICS Frontline Focus – Wellbeing Inspection

In response to The HMICS Scrutiny Plan 2022-2025, HMICS committed to conduct a series of strategic reviews, focusing on the frontline, with the purpose of exploring challenges, identifying issues and providing recommendations to drive improvement. Wellbeing was selected as the first review of this nature, given its significant priority to Police Scotland/SPA and its impact on officers and staff.

The aim of the review, final report received on 10 April 2024, was to engage directly with frontline officers and staff to identify the issues they consider support or impact on their wellbeing, and to assess the work undertaken by Police Scotland/SPA to improve wellbeing.

Inspection Approach

The latest HMICS Inspection Framework was used, which is based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model and Best Value characteristics, to structure a risk-based and proportionate review, focused on improving the delivery of policing in Scotland. The objectives were to:

• Identify the factors that officers and staff consider support or impact their wellbeing.

• Assess the approach taken by Police Scotland in comparison to recognised professional guidance and approaches elsewhere.

• Engage with frontline officers and staff to assess their awareness of Police Scotland’s approach to wellbeing, associated activities and the effectiveness of this approach.

HMICS used a range of tools to gather information for this inspection, including engagement with organisations such as the SPA, the Scottish Police Federation and Lifelines Scotland (a project supporting the health and wellbeing of emergency responders), review of relevant documents, including policies, procedures and survey results, consideration of professional guidance, Attendance at relevant Police Scotland and SPA meetings and interviews with stakeholders and key members of staff.

Since the primary objective was to understand the perceptions of frontline officers and staff, HMICS used a combination of focus groups, interviews, and observation. An online polling platform to was set up to capture views and comments directly from those taking part in focus groups and five divisions within Police Scotland were selected, to give a breadth of geography, size, function and a mix of both officers and police staff. Those divisions selected included Argyll and West Dunbartonshire (L Division), Forth Valley (C Division), Northeast (A Division), Contact, Command and Control Division (C3) and Criminal Justice Services Division (CJSD)

The key findings that emerged from the inspection are summarised below:

• HMICS found inconsistency across Scotland in the level of resource (human and financial) dedicated to support officer and staff wellbeing.

• HMICS found little evidence of a cohesive wellbeing strategy and while they found a great deal of effort, well-intentioned activity and wellbeing initiatives, they found no evidence of a mechanism to evaluate the worth of these, or to share best practice.

• Officers and staff cited organisational stressors as the primary factor they perceived as impacting negatively on their wellbeing, however HMICS found no recognition or reference to this in any of the work currently being undertaken in relation to wellbeing.

• HMICS heard that resourcing levels on the frontline are having a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of officers and staff, with those on the frontline feeling unable to provide the level of service they would wish. This results in diminishing job satisfaction.

• Cancellation of rest days and the inability to take rest days when requested has a significant impact on the wellbeing of frontline officers and staff. This impact is not the same throughout the organisation, with those on the frontline most affected by it.

• HMICS found inconsistency in the standard of physical working environments across the country. Working environments for frontline officers and staff were, in some cases, significantly lower in standard than those used by corporate functions and specialist divisions.

• Interviewees repeatedly cited that family, peer and line management support was critical in maintaining good wellbeing, when experiencing life or work challenges.

• HMICS heard mixed views on the extent to which officers and staff felt that wellbeing was an organisational priority. While many considered that the organisational commitment to wellbeing had improved, many felt it was simply paid lip service.

• When those to whom HMICS spoke on the frontline experience points of crisis, they feel supported by their line managers and the wider organisation.

• HMICS heard that line managers have not received training in respect of wellbeing and that they rely on experiential learning. This has resulted in inconsistent levels of support from line managers.

• HMICS found an absence of face-to-face management conversations between line managers and those they supervise, at all levels in the organisation.

• HMICS did not find any evidence of a wellbeing impact assessment approach in considering how decisions or policies would impact on staff and officer wellbeing.

• Frontline officers and staff with whom HMICS spoke had only a vague awareness of wellbeing provisions and services provided by Police Scotland.

• HMICS found an absence of engagement with officers and staff about their wellbeing needs and a lack of evaluation of existing wellbeing provision.

Alignment of Recommendations and the way forward

The timing of both pieces of work has provided us with a huge amount of insights and indeed recommendations which we feel we must strive to align to develop a coordinated and effective way forward for health and wellbeing. We are committed to formally submitting an action plan to HMICS by 10 July 2024 which addresses the recommendations and advises on the progress against the areas for development for the health and wellbeing programme as a whole. Below we have attempted to align the recommendations from both pieces of work and outline action areas.

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