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Evaluation of the 10 merged police zones
Valentijn Vanoeteren
Expert Regional & Urban Development
"Thanks to a well-founded methodology and a strong collaboration with UGent, we were able to map the many facets of merger in police districts, from the impact on individual staff to the managerial and strategic considerations."
The challenge
The Minister of the Interior is convinced that scaling up the 184 police zones would strengthen local police work. A study by IDEA Consult and UGent commissioned by FPS Interior (FOD Binnenlandse Zaken), General Directorate of Security and Prevention (Algemene Directie Veiligheid en Preventie) brings together insights from the first 10 mergers of police zones.
The process & results
The study addresses three dimensions of merger evaluation:
- the context in which the merger took place and in which the organisation operates to date;
- the preconditions listed in the UGent study by mayors, chiefs of police, police unions, and supra-local actors (DirCo, DirJud, governors and PdK);
- the impact/effects of the merger.
These aspects were examined by combining:
- Desk research of data from zonal security plans, morphologies, crime statistics, budget documents, reporting from the Politiecollege,…;
- Semi-structured interviews of 9 chiefs of police, 37 mayors, 16 HR or finance staff, and 22 supra-local actors such as Prosecutors (Procureurs des Konings), administrative director-coordinator (DirCo), judicial director (DirJud) and representatives of police unions;
- A survey of all staff in the nine police zones.
The study shows that the outcome of the merger depends very much on the choices made. For instance, some of the merged police zones put a strong focus on specialisation and attracting expertise, others paid more attention to improving support services, while a limited proportion focused on (financial) efficiency. But the common thread of the study is that the organisation of the merged zones is more robust and thus better able to cope with shocks.
The researchers partially debunk some concerns around merger. In many cases, the district operation remains what it is and the reception does not change either. They also say involvement from local politics is only reduced in exceptional cases. Although the direct impact of a merger on citizens is limited, almost all mayors of merged police districts did say that the merger improved service delivery.