A Framework for Measuring Performance of Nigerian Police Force Organization

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Introduction The public sector reform movement of 1980s introduced many changes in the study and practice of public administration management. The drivers for these reforms include the need for optimal performance of public service organisations in a bid to provide cost effective public goods and services to the citizens. The adoption of performance management practice in the public sector could be attributed to the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the traditional model of public administration that focuses more on public service inputs provision without much emphasis on measuring public service outcome. Hood [1] argues traditional bureaucratic model of public administration has failed to live with the expectation of citizens in the area of prompt provision of public services and efficient and effective resources. Specifically, some of the problems associated with the traditional bureaucratic model of public administration include too much emphasis on inputs (increased in public spending and staffing) without paying attention to the actual results produced and its impact on the citizens; lack of clear accountability for results, because public servants are asked to be impersonal in the conduct of their work [2; 3]. The renewed emphasis on performance management is dated back to 1980s and 1990 aimed at improving both efficiency and effectiveness of public sector organisations in responding to growing demands for cost effective public services in an era of austerity affecting government over the world, and this idea gives outcomes and quality of public services more prominence in many countries of the world [4]. In response to these, the global public management reform agenda requires public sector agencies to concentrate more on achieving results as against inputs/ process. This reform agenda introduces new management techniques that could be used to improve economy, efficiency and effectiveness of the public sector [5]. Performance management framework is among the set of these new management techniques. It presents information on what agencies have done or expect to do with the annual budgetary allocations provide [4]. The question begging for answers is that does performance management technique is applicable to African countries since many African countries engage in shaping and reforming their public administrative system. De Waal [6] submits that like other continents of the world, performance management technique is appropriate for African public sector organisations. Similarly, Kasim [7] discovered that effective application of performance management techniques can improve delivery of public services in Nigeria across three tiers of government (federal, state and local governments). Additionally, to properly employ the use of performance management in Nigeria, public managers must have the capacity to formulate goals and objectives in accordance with the mission statement of particular public sector organisation and also embrace the culture of target setting, accountability, performance standards [7]. The Nigerian Police Force as an organisation is mandated to ensure public safety through maintenance of law and order. Despite its old history, the rate of criminal activities such as armed robbery, kidnappings for ransom, killing of innocent citizens, ethno-religious conflicts in many parts of Nigeria is on the increase. Adejokun [8] reports that the Global Peace Index (GPI) ranked Nigeria 146th least peaceful of 163rd countries in 2021. This is connected to the various form of criminal activities that the Nigeria Police Force and other security agencies are mandated to prevent, manage and tackle. Previous studies have revealed factors that contributed to underperformance of Nigerian Police Force, but there is an insufficient attention given on how to measure the performance of Nigerian police as a public service organisation, especially by using the new performance management approach. This study contributes to the growing body of literature by contextualising a model that could be used to measure the performance of Nigerian Police Force as a public sector organisation. The Concept of Performance The term performance is a contested concept as it means different things to different people. Drawing from Dubnick cited in Van Dooren, Bouckaert, and Halligan [5], it could means ability to carry out tasks such as a police patrol, a vaccination campaign, a medical treatment, teaching a subject, judging in court. These tasks are example of performance on the basis of accomplishment not actually on measured positive impact. Thus, performance could be viewed as quality of actions accomplished not much about quality of results achieved. That is ability to successfully finish a given task within a particular period of time. Different from carrying out the task and doing it accurately, performance is also considered to be about quality of achievement or results. That is the actual value achieved in real term and its impact on the intended course of action. Relating performance to the context of organisational studies, Dooren et al [5:4] ‘defined performance to means productive organisation’. That is organisation that has the capacity to converts its inputs and outputs into outcome (positive impacts). Performance Management Andrews [9] defined performance management as the use of policies, strategies and techniques intended to direct public managers and employee’s actions to improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness. This definition centres on external control of public managers to account for performance. Public managers are tied with expectation of what to achieve with the allocated resources. According to Bouckaert and Dooren [4] the main thrust of performance management is to improve efficiency and or to direct public spending in meeting demands and needs of the citizens. This is in response to the inadequacies of the traditional model of administration where performance of public service agencies is measured through compliance to formal rules and regulations service, ethics and impersonality [2]. Dooren et al [5:20] view performance management as ‘a type of management that incorporates and uses performance information for decision making’. The performance information is used to measure the level of inputs, outputs or outcomes produced by public organisation [4]. In this sense, the need for quantification of output and outcomes in relation to the inputs used becomes necessary. This paves way for emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness as the two major tools of performance management. Efficiency and Effectiveness - Output and Outcome OECD [10] defined efficiency from economic theory as a ‘relationship between one of more inputs (factors of production) and one or more outputs [4. P. 162]. This is regarded as production model of performance management, which derived from the private sector [5]. According to Rutgers and Van Der Meer [11] efficiency is getting things done in time with least costs to achieve outcomes (effectiveness). This production model of performance focuses on prudent utilisation of scarce resources, time, tools, equipment and manpower to maximise outputs/outcomes. That is achieving maximum outputs from a given level of resources used to carry out a task. For instance, a private firm usually converts resources in form of funds, manpower, time and efforts into finished products, which are taken to the market for sale. Thus, the efficiency of this firm depends on the quantity of the maximum outputs it produces against the level of the inputs invested. According to Alford [12. P. 4] in the private sector, manager’s task is to produce ‘the kind of goods and services desired by the customers, producing as much of them at minimal cost’. Most of the above postulations consider efficiency of an organisation as the minimising costs to maximise outcomes. But this could be more related to private sector practices where stress is on utilising scarce resources (inputs) to maximise profit (outcomes), which the New Public Management [1] paid much emphasis on. In NPM, Hood, argues to ensure delivery of better outcomes to citizens, there is need to stress much emphasis on outcomes instead of just inputs and or outputs. Hood maintains that explicit performance standards should be put in place to measure the outcomes of the delivered public services. This development has pushed many public sector organisations to adopt strategies such as performance measurement in order to provide the desired outcomes to the citizens. However, there is concern on whether efficiency and effectiveness model of the private sector could be feasible in the public sector, especially looking at how it stresses much emphasis on the economic model of efficiency and effectiveness. In this regard, Manzoor [13] argues that managing performance in the private sector is seemingly possible because of profit driven motive where outcomes can simply be quantified using monetary value. The outcomes of the private sector products and services are determined through the market forces of demand and supply. For instance, Alford [12] puts that private sector gains its resources if the firm is producing what the customers desired most and at affordable rate, the return of market sales measured as the value generated by the private organisation. While on the other hand, in the public-sector organization’s inputs are usually identifiable in monetary value (that is public funds allocated, staffing and other equipment), but the outputs and outcomes cannot be measured in monetary term but only measured in social value [14]. That is the extent at which public service provision improve the general wellbeing of the citizens and or their satisfactions. However, unlike in the private sector where market forces determine return on investment, for instance, Mihaiu et al [14] poses a question of under which basis the economic benefit of constructing a school in a village could be measured? The only things that could probably be measured here are: all the costs incurred for the construction, the material basis, the wages etc. Mihaiu et al maintain that there is no answer to the efficacy of the economic benefits using construction of school in village, but social benefits (the intangible) can be seen in terms of increase in the ‘level of literacy, ensuring better labour market and higher living condition’ (14. P. 134). Additionally, in response to what constitutes public service outcome, Manzoor [13] argues that public service outcome could be view in terms of goal fulfilments, which Mihaiu et al [14] says is on the quality of human life (social value). However, it is important at this juncture to question the applicability of performance management in the public sector, especially in relation to provision of valued outcome to the citizens. As shown in the literature, performance management practice could lead organisation to achieve better outcomes if properly use [7] through setting of standards and measuring the impact of end results produced by the organisation. Noordegraaf [15:71] asserts that performance management makes agencies to pay more attention on achieving objectives (effectiveness, value for money), produce results (efficiency, productivity, accountability), respond and adapt to changes (flexibility and innovation). This indicates that nowadays public sector organisations do set targets to achieve in line with the available resources to produce the desired results which in turn are expected to provide better outcomes for the citizens. Similarly, according to Andrews [9] the use of some performance tools such as performance planning, target settings, league tables and performance data in the public services have strengthened the application of performance management in the public sector. This shows that introduction of performance management has apparently turned public service organisations to result driven agencies. It is in this arrangement we can cite example on how politicians set targets to be achieved by the public managers aimed at delivering the desired outcome to the citizens. In this regard, Hughes [7. P. 312] aptly captured this: ‘Agencies enter into a bargain where money is allocated through the budget to carry out particular activities but with conditions set in terms of expectations. If those expectations are met, then the manager had delivered on what was promised; if not, budgets may be cut in future and the manager blamed for non-performance’. Hughes assertion shows that performance management makes public managers to deliver desired outcomes, which must tally with the inputs provided and citizens expectations. This could be a major contribution of performance management to the public sector in terms of cost-effectiveness and the provision of outcomes to the citizens and change the narratives from focus on inputs and outputs to more focus on outcomes achieved. Furthermore, achieving the set targets (in line with mission and vision statement) within the stipulated period of time by an organisation means that the organisation is efficient. This could be translated in reflection of the main target of police service organisation, which is to enforce law and order aimed at ensuring peace and safety in the neighbourhood. In this sense, police need adequate funding, staffing, equipment to carry out operations such as patrol and surveillance to achieve their target. Noordegraaf [15] asserts that the standard for measuring police performance is determined by the peaceful coexistence in the neighbourhood and significant reduction of criminal activities. Alford [12] rightly says the citizens are more likely to be concerned about the reduction of crime (outcome) than just the daily patrols and surveillance (an output). Additionally, in a bid to create public outcomes, adoption of performance management makes public sector organisations to be conscious of their strategic direction. That is to channel organisational capabilities to create value to the citizens. According to Moore [16] the value produced by the public sector is determined by the satisfactions of the citizens who enjoy desirable consequences derived from public services. Therefore, we could say to a certain degree, if use properly performance management could push public sector organisations to be more conscious of their actions geared towards effective provision of public services that best meet the satisfaction of the citizens. Input-output-outcome model According to Bouckaert & Dooren [4. P. 149] input-output-outcome model refers to measurement of inputs, outputs or outcomes, or it may focus on economy, efficiency or effectiveness. This explains that performance measurement could be at a certain level or at aggregate. It could be at input level, which means to quantify the level of resources invested, or at output level, to measure the level of output produced or at outcome level, to measure the overall result achieved. As stated earlier by Dooren et al [5] performance could either be measured by action carried out, timely accomplishment and importantly quality of the results achieved. Bouckaert & Dooren, [4] specify inputs as (public funds, personnel and infrastructures) to produce outputs (services, actions, responses) leading to positive results outcomes (citizens’ wellbeing). Noordegraaf [15] for instance, posits that police use public funds to procure equipment’s and tools (the inputs) to investigate criminal cases, or to enforce public order and to ensure public safety. These output processes are patrol, surveillance to catch thieves, making arrests and or issuing fines (the outputs), which may lead to peaceful, safer and stable society to live for everyone (the outcomes). Furthermore, in relation to the above, better outcomes could be measured when public services improve citizens standard of living. Smith [17] argues to measure public sector performance, inputs (utilisation of resources) must reflect the desired quantity of goods and services provided, while the outcome refers to measuring the intangible consequences of public services on the society. The public sector performance management using inputs-outputs and outcomes model supposedly leads to creation of public outcomes (citizens wellbeing), while private sector performance management is used to quantify inputs, outputs and outcomes in monetary terms. This indicates the advantage of input-output model on actualising organisational mandate through prudent utilisation of resources and subsequently provision of valued outcome to the citizens. Going by this, the most important question to answer is how could input-outputoutcome model be contextualised in the Nigerian Police Force? The subsequent section contextualises performance management model of input-output-outcome model in the Nigerian Police Force. Performance Management and the Nigerian Police Force Organisation The main thrust of performance management in the public sector is to track how well agencies and organisations are carrying out their duties and responsibilities [18]. Every public sector organisation has a mandate to achieve, which is translated in the mission and vision statement. In this sense, the Nigerian Police Force as a public service organisation that serves as the principal law enforcement agency in Nigeria. It has branch offices across the thirty (36) states and seven hundred and seventy-four (774) local government areas of the country under the command and control of the Inspector General of Police. As obtained from the website of Nigerian Police Force, the vision statement of Nigerian Police Force reads: ‘to make Nigeria safer and more secure for economic development and growth; to create a safe and secure environment for everyone living in Nigeria’; while one of its mission statement stated that ‘to participate in efforts aimed at addressing the root causes of crime while ensuring that any criminal act is investigated so as to bring the criminals to justice in a fair and professional manner’ [19]. As found on the website of Nigerian Police Force, part of its efforts to manage and report performance, department of Research and Planning of the Force Headquarters, Abuja is charged with ensuring standards and uniformity in the delivery of police service in Nigeria. Some of the functions of this Department those that are related to performance management include monitoring and evaluation function to support modern police operations and public safety practices through collation of statistics on crime, accident, traffic violation, police personnel, human right violation, domestic violation as well the preparation annual reports to present activities and performance of police. This indicates a presence of performance management and measurement system in the Nigerian Police Force, but it requires proper application in line with core tenets of modern performance management system, especially linking it with inputs- output-outcome model. Foregoing from the above, the performance measurement of the Nigerian Police Force is interpreted to mean the ability of police as an organisation to utilise its inputs to generate outputs towards the provision of outcome. The UK Home office stresses that performance management in policing is ‘about constantly striving to improve quality of service, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour, and bring offenders to justice - in short, deliver safer and stronger communities, and do so in a way that provides the very best value for money to the public’ [20]. Therefore, the performance of Nigerian police organisation is measured in terms of outputs produced such as patrol services, surveillances, number of arrests, catching of thieves, while the outcome should reflect reduction of crimes and restoring of public safety, law and order as contained in its vision and mission statement. To understand this further, Maslov [18] provide metrics also known as direct measure use in measuring performance of police as an organisation as follows: a. Number of arrests and fines issued: This is used in measuring the level of output. That is the ability to bring criminals to book, punish them by enforcing law and order. For example, a website-based report of 18th May 2022 credited to Nigerian Police Fore stated thirty-one (31) suspects were arrested in connection with major violent crimes such as kidnapping, culpable, homicide, rape, unlawful possession of firearms etc. The report also contains that sixty-one (61) firearms, three hundred and seventy-six ammunitions, twenty-two (22) cartridges and cash amounting to the sum of two million naira recovered from these criminals [19]. b. Clearance rate: This refers to the percentage of crimes solved within a particular period of time. c. Call for service response rate: This refers to the ability of the police organisation to respond promptly to a call put forward by the citizen seeking for police intervention where there is breach of law and order. d. Crime rate: This is useful in measuring the outcomes of police organisation. The main metric here is the prevention and or reduction of criminal activities and the state of public safety. To achieve this police outcome, according Noordegraaf [15] ‘police organizations use taxpayers money and manpower (inputs) to investigate criminal cases or to safeguard public order (throughput), which produces (outputs) such as catching thieves, making arrests or issuing fines, which in turn might produce more safety and more stable public order (outcomes)’. This shows that performance could only be achieved in policing when there is adequate supply of inputs that are ingredients for actions and commitments from the police force in order to produce the desired result of public safety. However, in contrast, a report by Adaku [21] shows that Nigerian Police Force lacks adequate inputs (sufficient tools and logistics platforms) to tackle myriads of security challenges bedevilling the country. In furtherance to this, a study on performance in crime control from the perspectives of the citizenry that the police are expected to protect by Afolabi, Joseph, and Babatunde [22] reveals that performance of Nigerian Police has not improved in the area of crime prevention and combating due to factors such as poor funding, shortage of personnel, inadequate training and development of manpower, poor personnel welfare and corruption. The public perception component of the study also shows that, the Nigerian Police Force lacks accountability and transparency system. Therefore, to improve performance of Nigerian Police Force, there is need for adequate inputs the use of input-output-outcome model in Nigeria’s security sector should identify government priority objectives over the medium term, and to concentrate necessary for resources to achieve them. Information on what to be done and the expected results/outcomes should be clearly made available. Fig. 1. Performance Measurement Framework for Nigeria’s Police Organisation Source: designed by authors. In the above proposed model, it shows that adequate inputs should be made available in order to produce outputs, which would later be used to measure outcomes/result generated. According to Bouckaert and Dooren [4] outputs are not the same with outcomes. Outputs are the quantity of services provided (as illustrated above), while outcomes represent the consequences of what the output produced. That is absence or minimum rate of kidnappings, armed bandits’ attacks, and farmers-herders’ clashes. The level of efficiency depends on prudent utilisation of human materials resources to produce outputs and effectiveness represents outcomes (that is the increased in the level of safety as illustrated above). It is important to note that the outcomes delivered by the public sector should not be narrowed to only economic benefit as obtained in the private sector. Mihaiu et al [14. P. 136] ‘the outcome of public expenses implies a relation between the economic and social value resulted from the delivered of public services, and the efforts made to finance the delivery’. But the question of whether the citizens are satisfied with the produced service could be very difficult to answer. Smith [17] argues that in the private sector where willingness of customer to purchase firm products in the market is the determinant of achieving market value, but in contrast, the public sector has no such market forces arrangement that can provide quantified information on citizens’ satisfaction on the delivered service. This could be attributed to lack of quantitative data for measuring the outcomes of the delivered public services unlike in the private sector counterpart where market forces determine the outputs and outcomes of the business enterprises [14]. Building from the above, the most interesting debate among academics and the practitioners is on the extent at which the outcome produced by the public sector can be measured. Hughes [2] argues measuring the outcome produced by the public sector may worked well theoretically but difficult to be realistic. He maintains that the setting some array performance indicators could turn outcome measurement a complex task. For instance, performance indicators are developed at all levels of public manager’s activity such as targets, outputs and outcomes, this could lead managers to design indicators that favour them. For example, UK citizens believe there is no significant decrease of crimes despite official statistics showing reduction in the level of crimes and public safety has been restored in UK [2]. Nonetheless, the changes brought about by the introduction of performance management in the public sector make it possible to easily assess the level of performance achieved by the public sector organisation. For instance, by comparing community A where public safety and order are relatively high and community B where public safety and order are very low, one could argue that police service organisations in community A are providing outcome for the citizens of that community. In this sense, Mihaiu et al. [14] noted that the distinction between outputs and outcomes as what constitutes the notion of public outcomes. Similarly, according to Australian Productivity Commission creation of public outcome is the extent at which policy objectives are achieved [23]. That is to say, the government effort of restoring peace and order through police organisation is achieved. Conclusion The study contextualised performance management framework in Nigerian Police Force as a public service organisation. This was done by employing inputoutput-outcome model. The study considers performance of police organisation in Nigeria as the ability to utilise its inputs to generate outputs towards provision of outcome. The study shows how performance of police organisation can be improved through adequate provision of inputs (human and material resources) to enable them carry out actions as outputs (patrols, arrests, prosecution of offenders) in order to produce outcome (peace and safety in the society). Even though, performance of public service organisation could be difficult to measure due to its subjective nature and lack of clear means of quantification, we argue that the performance of police organisation can be measured by the level of peace and safety in the society (that is absence of crimes or decreased in the rate of crimes). The study could be useful to policy makers and police managers working to improve and measure performance of police organisation in Nigeria. Finally, the study is not devoid of limitations. Firstly, the study conceptually localised performance measurement model in Nigerian Police Force; future empirical studies should test the applicability of this model. Secondly, we could not find available performance data from the Nigerian police organisation; other studies should search for this data especially on inputs (number of personnel, equipment, tools etc) to empirically measure the level of output and outcome.

About the authors

Mansur M. Bello

Federal University Gusau

Email: mmbello@fugusau.edu.ng
Lecturer of the Department of Public Administration 860242, Gusau, Nigeria

Chubado Umaru

Federal University Gusau

Author for correspondence.
Email: chubadoumaru@fugusau.edu.ng
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9769-5870

Assistant Register of Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration)

860242, Gusau, Nigeria

References