Productivity estimation and the size-efficiency relationship in English and Welsh police forces
An application of data envelopment analysis and multiple discriminant analysis
Leigh Drake, Richard Simper
Department of Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, England
Abstract
This article utilizes data envelopment analysis DEA to estimate the productivity of the English and Welsh police forces and to determine whether there are categorical scale effects in policing
using multiple discriminant analysis MDA. The article demonstrates that by using DEA efficiency results it is possible to make inferences about the optimal size and structure of the
English and Welsh police forces. In terms of individual force efficiency, the DEA results suggest that the Surrey police force appears to be 38 less efficient than its efficient reference set and that
only three police forces Cleveland, Dorset, and Leicestershire are consistently efficient. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
During the ThatcherMajor Conservative governments, state services were restructured so that they utilized business techniques in creating “value for money” see Her Majesty’s
Inspector of Constabulary, 1995. The reform of the police service instigated by the Con- servative government was in response to the steady increase in crime since 1979, the
disproportionate increase in the fear of crime, and the increasing cost of the police service in real terms, from over £1 billion in 1979 –1980 to nearly £7 billion in 1996 –1997 source:
Home Office. These factors led to an inspection and review of the police under the
Corresponding author. Tel.: 144-0-1509-222709; fax: 144-0-1509-2233910. E-mail addresses: L.M.Drakelboro.ac.uk L. Drake, R.Simperlboro.ac.uk R. Simper
International Review of Law and Economics 20 2000 53–73
0144-818800 – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 4 4 - 8 1 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 - 1
Conservative government, which included agencies such as Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary HMIC and the Audit Commission, and the introduction of various public
charters, including the Citizen’s Charter and the Victim’s Charter for a discussion, see Stephens, 1994; Sullivan, 1998.
This comprehensive review resulted in various publications concerned with efficiency in the service and included Audit Commission 1990, Home Office 1993, Police Research
Group 1993, and the report by Sheehy 1993, which led to recommendations included in The Police and Magistrates’ Courts’ Act of 1994. One of the main recommendations of the
Sheehy report was to change the nature of police management from a public to a business- oriented organization and to introduce efficiency targets that were coordinated with local
police authorities. Sullivan 1998 argues that the police reform of the 1990s led to the managerialism of the service. That is, “managerialism referred to the belief that all state
services do better when reconceived and restructured in terms of the business community’s values of efficiency and effectiveness” p. 307. The government’s concept of “value for
money” in the police service has led us to posit a socioeconomic model of the modern police force. That is, we introduce a methodology that is based on the reorganization of the police
force that was begun in the ThatcherMajor government’s reforms but that is set within the concept of the economics of the firm.
The new Labour government has carried on this agenda of ensuring efficiency in the police force Home Office Inspectorate of Constabulary, 1998. The report reiterated the
previous Conservative government’s efficiency drive in the police service with the HMIC arguing that, “police managers need to work harder to ensure that VFM [value for money]
is achieved, for competitive pressure has to be created internally. The costing of activity with subsequent measurement and comparison of performance provide the means by which such
encouragement is given” p. 8, paragraph 10.
This article utilizes data envelopment analysis DEA to estimate the relative efficiency of the English and Welsh police forces. To determine whether there are categorical size effects
in policing, we also utilize multiple discriminant analysis MDA. To the authors’ knowl- edge, this is the first article to examine the relative efficiency of the English and Welsh police
forces. The article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we discuss the methodology utilized in our DEA analysis of police forces and provide details on the variables and data sources.
Section 3 presents the results of the DEA efficiency rankings together with a discussion of how certain forces have fared over the 1992–1993 to 1996 –1997 sample period. In Section
4, we undertake MDA tests to discover whether there are categorical size effects that can discriminate between police forces in the sense that one size of force is likely to be more
efficient than another. We conclude the article with Section 5.
2. Methodology and data
