At our third annual Impact Conference, Police Now participants and colleagues from across the policing sector heard from and interacted with a variety of speakers on our topic of Breaking Boundaries: Transforming Communities. The event was chaired by Mark Easton, the BBC’s Home News Editor.
The day started with an energised presentation from Professor Eddie Obeng, a professor at the School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Henley Business School. A leading business theorist, innovator and educator, Eddie shared his experience of transformational change, gained from working with some of the most well-known organisations.
Helen Bevan, Chief Transformation Officer from NHS Horizons, then shared her personal reflections on leading change programmes in the NHS. Helen spoke about the ability of all employees to be change agents regardless of rank, highlighting that those individuals who are highly connected have twice as much power to influence change as people with hierarchical power.
Police Now’s CEO and co-founder, David Spencer, reinforced the message that every single person in policing is contributing to transforming communities and congratulated the officers who were graduating from the Police Now programme after their 2 years in neighbourhood policing. Delegates then heard two minute ‘lightning talks’ from Police Now participants, who spoke openly about the challenges they had faced in their roles and reminded delegates that the job was ‘unlike any other’.
Deputy Commissioner of the MPS, Sir Stephen House, then provided his personal reflections and thoughts on his time in policing, sharing insights with delegates on how he had helped merge Scotland’s eight regional forces into Police Scotland, and the challenges and boundaries he faced in managing the change.
The morning culminated in a panel discussion, facilitated by Mark Easton. The panel comprised of Accenture UK’s Managing Director of Health and Public Service, Shaheen Sayed , Mike Cunningham, CEO of the College of Policing, Lynne Owens, Director General of the National Crime Agency and Tunde Banjoko OBE, founder of ‘Making the Leap’. Each speaker shared their thoughts on enhancing workforce diversity, breaking boundaries and the cultural challenges they had faced driving change.
PC Oliver Rees from Hertfordshire Constabulary spoke about the personal challenges he had to overcome to fulfil his dream of becoming a police officer . PC Rees has Muscular Diplegia and is a passionate advocate of encouraging others like him to overcome personal boundaries and ‘follow their dreams’. Sandi Bogle, better known as a celebrity on ‘Gogglebox’ and ‘Famous and Fighting Crime’ addressed the delegates after dealing with fatal knife crime in her own family. She had spent time with a police force, telling delegates that it was everyone’s responsibility to take crime off the streets.
Throughout the day, delegates had raised questions about breaking boundaries on the official conference App. These questions featured in the afternoon’s Thinking Big Beyond Boundaries workshop: a rapid-fire, competitive problem-solving hour designed to bring together participants, serving officers and cross-sector partners to create innovative solutions. Delegates also had the opportunity to network with our cross-sector partners throughout the afternoon, along with viewing the posters and impact presentations of our current participants.
To close the day, we were incredibly proud to welcome friends and family of our 2017-2019 Cohort of participants, who successfully graduated from the Police Now Leadership Development programme. Congratulations to every single one of you and we look forwarding to hearing about your ongoing successes in your careers.
