MINISTER of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee yesterday convened a meeting at the Police Officers’ Training Complex, Camp and Young Streets, where he recapped the performance of the various agencies within the security sector. This meeting attracted a wide-cross section of stakeholders from the various police divisions, heads of government agencies and even members from the diplomatic community.

Strategic Management Department
Giving an update of the Security Sector Strategic Plan 2013-2017, the Minister said that since the establishment of the Strategic Management Department in May 2013 with the employment of 10 professionals to oversee the implementation of the Guyana Police Force’s Strategic Plan, notable progress has been achieved.
However, three of the 10 persons have since submitted their resignation for reasons that were not directly related to their task of implementing their aspect of the plan.
“Those departures have not seriously affected the progress of implementation of the Plan as the remaining staff members were engaged in multi-tasking to fill the temporary gaps that were created as a result of those resignations,” the minister explained.
This strategic department has been involved in laying the foundation for the full implementation of the strategic plan.
To date its accomplishments include: the completion of a SWOT analysis to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; development of a change management strategy which is intended to catalyse the transformation process; development of a communications strategy so as to ensure that knowledge and awareness of the modernisation process facilitate concomitant changes in behaviour in the GPF; the design of a monitoring and evaluation framework that is expected to improve organisational performance; and the development of vehicle acquisition, deployment and maintenance strategies so that the Force could acquire the appropriate types of vehicles to suit its needs and which are maintained as per schedule.

Capita Symonds Final Report
The British Capita Symonds consulting firm has completed its work, and its final report has been received by the Home Affairs Ministry. As such, the ministry will now be moving towards the stage of working with Capita Symonds to finalise the details of each project so that work could commence early in the first Quarter of 2014.
The firm’s work focused mainly on four areas: administration, succession planning, the introduction of a code of conduct and the development of a specialist office of professional responsibility, and the establishment of a modern public relations and communications department.

Data Entry Clerks
In a bid to have a civilian aspect to the mutually agreed positions within the GPF, the Home Affairs Ministry employed 60 persons who are working as data entry clerks at five divisional traffic registries, 48 police stations and the Georgetown Prison, Camp Street.
Their main responsibilities are to enter crime occurrences to populate the Integrated Crime Information System (ICIS) to support electronic data capture, and analysis of crime trends and patterns leading to evidence-based decision making by the GPF and the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Additionally, the ministry has approached and received Cabinet’s approval for the employment of an additional 25 data entry clerks who will bolster the data collection efforts of the Force with support from the ministry.

Policy Analyst
To aid the process of analysis, a qualified civilian/professional has been recruited and is based at Force headquarters. Minister Rohee said that this has been instrumental in assisting the GPF in developing strategies and action plans targeted at combating crime and interpersonal violence.
Some of the outputs of the policy analyst include: analysing trends (spatial and temporal), disaggregating results by police stations and divisions (by type of crime, by nature of victim and by nature of perpetrator) and recommending strategies to combat crimes.

Name Change
Minister Rohee said that the GPF must be seen as service oriented, given the fact that its mission is to serve and protect. To this end, the ministry requested a name change from the “Guyana Police Force” to that of the “Guyana Police Service”.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall has been requested to re-table the Bill in Parliament, to effect this name change. It was previously thrown out by the Parliamentary Opposition simply because they refuse to cooperate with the subject Minister.

Delinking E and F Division
According to the Minister, E and F divisions were delinked in an effort to enhance management within the GPF. Division ‘E’ is headquartered at Linden, while Division ‘F’ is located at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary.