Question:

A regional police force has the following corporate objectives:

? to reduce crime and disorder;
? to promote community safety;
? to contribute to delivering justice and maintaining public confidence in law.
The force aims to achieve these objectives by continuously improving its resources management to meet the needs of stakeholders. It's only financial objective is to stay within its funding limits.

The force is mainly public funded and it has some commercial operations, for example policing matches when the football clubs pay a fee to the police force for its officers working overtime. The police force uses this money to supplement the funding it receives from the government. The national government is proposing to privatise (that is, to sell off) these commercial operations and has already been in preliminary discussions with an international security company. This company's stated financial objectives are:

? to increase earnings per share year on year by 5% per annum; and
? to achieve a 20% per annum return on its investment.

Arguments put forward by the government in favour of privatisation focus on conflict of objectives between the mainstream operations and commercial activities, and savings to the taxpayer. However, the proposals were strongly opposed by most of the force's stakeholders.

(a) State the reasons for the differences in the objectives of the two types of organisations above. Use the scenario details to assist your answer wherever possible.

(b) State the weaknesses of the financial objective of the police force.

(c) Discuss the influence the commercial operations might have on the police force's ability to meet its stated objectives.

(d) Discuss the possible effects the privatisation of the commercial operations will have on the various stakeholder groups.