Total Quality Management, 2016

Vol. 27, No. 12, 1396 –1412, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2015.1007861

TQM in public administration organisations: an application of data

envelopment analysis in the police service
∗
Nina Tomaževič, Janko Seljak and Aleksander Aristovnik

Faculty of Administration, University of Ljubljana, Gosarjeva ulica 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Performance measurement is an increasingly important and ever more frequently

monitored measure of excellence in public sector organisations. For this purpose,
public sector organisations employ excellence models such as the European
Foundation for Quality Management model, Common Assessment Framework
(CAF), Business Scorecard, etc. With the support of European Institute for Public
Administration and the national organisations responsible for the development of
quality/excellence, many European public administration organisations, including the
Slovenian Police Service, use the CAF model as a basis for developing and
improving both the enablers and results of their operations. In this respect, the main
purpose of the paper is to present and apply a non-parametric methodology for
measuring police performance results. The analysis shows that the data envelopment
analysis scores and the rankings vary significantly across the police stations. In
general, most police stations in the country could attain better results by fully
implementing the enablers suggested by the CAF model. Consequently, the
empirical results of the paper can serve as a guide for police management when
further investigating how to enhance the performance results of police stations.
Keywords: total quality management (TQM); common assessment framework; data
envelopment analysis; efficiency; public administration; police; Slovenia

1. Introduction
The police service is an important factor of a state’s stability on one hand and on the other,
an important budget user. It is therefore necessary that police management ensures that the
police force functions in an effective and efficient way while delivering the highest quality
services. It is impossible to: be effective, if the goals are not clear (planning); be efficient,
if the organisational systems and processes are not determined in order to implement the
strategies and tactics (in a rational way) through careful leadership; and offer excellent ser-
vices if their results are not measured and improved. As explained above, planning, organ-
ising, leading and controlling are the primary managerial functions (Schermerhorn, 1999).
They are considered in many quality management and excellence models in different ways
since such models include instructions and directions on how to improve the operations of
organisations in both the private and public sector.
In the European Union, the Lisbon Strategy is one of the key incentives, among other
things, striving to develop public administration (PA) operations on the basis of a focus on
customers and all other stakeholders. There is no prescribed tool for quality management
in European PA organisations, but the European Commission especially recommends self-
assessment and external benchmarks as well as improvements according to the Common
Assessment Framework (CAF) for organisations in the public sector in the context of

∗
Corresponding author. Email: aleksander.aristovnik@fu.uni-lj.si

# 2015 Taylor & Francis

 Total Quality Management 1397

overall reforms of PA. Slovenian PA managers employ different standards and models of
quality/excellence management, such as the ISO standards, the CAF and the European
Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model. The different organis-
ational units of the Slovenian police service (unfortunately not systematically and holisti-
cally across the whole police settlement) mainly use the CAF model under the influence of
managers who were more or less aware – which means that when there was no political
will and especially during the economic crisis of the last six years the focus was shifting
from long-term to short-term activities and from a wider to a narrower view, which is not
the idea of the CAF (Tomaževič, Seljak, & Aristovnik, 2014b). In the period from 2010 to
2012 the Slovenian police management engaged researchers from the Faculty of Admin-
istration to analyse the situation in the police force regarding employee satisfaction and
implementation of the CAF enablers, that is, the processes the organisation should
implement as effectively and efficiently as possible in order to achieve results. The
latter were collected from the police database and using the data envelopment analysis
(DEA) compared with the inputs, that is, CAF enablers.
The purpose of the paper is therefore to present a non-parametric approach to measur-
ing police performance results. The methodology is applied to CAF enablers as the inputs
and to selected CAF results as the outputs. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to
measure the relative efficiency of the police service with CAF enablers and CAF results
by using DEA methodology. The data on CAF enablers are collected on the basis of
police service employees’ assessments (soft data) acquired in a survey conducted in
spring 2012. The data for the selected CAF results are chosen from the police statistics
database (hard data). On the basis of CAF and DEA methodologies, DEA scores were cal-
culated for each police station. We investigated also whether there are any differences in
the efficiency of police organisations at a local level – police stations (first hypothesis),
regional level – police directorates (PDs) (second hypothesis) and groups of police
stations defined in terms of number of employees, share of posts occupied and location
of police station (third hypothesis).
The paper is therefore organised as follows. After short presentations of the CAF
model and the DEA methodology, the study on the Slovenian police service is presented.
The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and suggestions for improvements
regarding how police stations in Slovenia should be managed.

2. Literature review
Many quality management and business excellence tools/models are in use in private and
public organisations, with each bringing benefits but also having various weaknesses when
applied in practice (Dahlgaard, Chen, Jang, Banegas, & Dahlgaard-Park, 2013). Besides
the EFQM model and the Business Scorecard, the PA administrations in Europe mainly
use the CAF launched by the European Public Administration Network in May 2000 as
the first European quality management instrument specifically tailored to, and developed
by, the public sector itself as a general, simple, accessible and easy-to-use model for all
public sector organisations across Europe which deals with all aspects of organisational
excellence. It was designed on the basis of the EFQM model and after taking the criteria
of the Speyer award into account (EIPA, 2014). The model has been revised three times –
in 2002, 2006 and with CAF 2013 being revised in September 2012 (EIPA, 2014).
Since the CAF was launched in 2000, its implementation and use have evolved con-
siderably – from a self-assessment tool to an improvement cycle and the implementation
of modern management instruments in the different areas covered by various CAF model
1398 N. Tomaževič et al.

criteria which have helped organisations become more efficient and effective (Thijs &
Staes, 2010). But there are also opportunities for improvements such as external feedback
(Staes, Thijs, Stoffels, & Geldof, 2011; Thijs & Staes, 2010) as well as questions con-
nected with use of the model in practice, for example, the financial resources, training
and time needed for self-assessment, management support, etc. (Radej, 2011). When an
organisation decides to introduce the model, it is of course also very important to use
the model through the proper implementation process (Kanji, 1996).
In the Slovenian PA different standards and models are used to develop quality man-
agement, mainly the ISO standards, the EFQM excellence model within the framework of
annual national awards for business excellence and the CAF model (Kovač & Tomaževič,
2008). From 2002 till 2007, approximately 80 Slovenian administrative organisations
carried out a self-assessment with the CAF model; in this way, they became part of the
group of 800 CAF model users from all over Europe (Engel, 2003; Staes & Thijs,
2005). However, since 2008 use of the CAF model in the Slovenian PA has declined
because no systematic approach to its introduction and implementation has been
applied due to political changes and the lack of strategic directions in the quality
movement.
In 2011, more than 2380 European organisations were using the model and it had been
translated into 20 languages. The model is applied across a wide range of sectors, like:
local administration (municipality, province); education and research; customs, tax and
finance; police and security; health; social services and social security; criminal, justice
and law and less in other sectors, such as: home affairs; the economy, agriculture, fisheries
and trade; the environment; culture, etc. (Staes et al., 2011).
The CAF model consists of nine criteria. The first five criteria deal with managerial
practices, that is, enablers, which determine what the organisation does and how it
approaches its tasks to achieve the desired results. Criteria six to nine include the
results achieved in the fields of citizens/customers, employees (people), social responsibil-
ity and key performance and measured by perception and performance measurement. Each
criterion is further broken down into sub-criteria – 28 in total. Integrating the conclusions
from the assessment of enablers and results criteria into managerial practices constitutes a
continuous innovation and learning cycle that accompanies organisations on their way
towards excellence (EIPA, 2014).
Many organisations have reported positive results after implementing the CAF model
as a self-assessment tool. The more often an organisation has completed a CAF self-
assessment, the happier it is with the results observed. This can be explained by increased
professionalism in implementation of the self-assessment as well as the allocation of
responsibilities, measures and time schedules for improvement actions (Austrian
Federal Chancellery, 2006). Like in many other excellence models, in the CAF model a
great deal of emphasis is given to the cause-effect relationship between the enablers
(causes) and the results (effects), that is, between the left and right sides of the model
(EIPA, 2014). Eskildsen and Dahlgaard (2000) and Tutuncu and Kucukusta (2010) per-
formed a similar investigation of the EFQM model. Since the CAF model was designed
on the basis of the EFQM model the same can be assumed for the CAF model. Dahl-
gaard-Park (2012) laid great stress upon the role of human resource management and lea-
dership (both enablers) in the time of the global and environmental crisis and the need for a
different paradigm when dealing with ethical aspects and core values in praxis. The basic
idea of the empirical part of the paper was therefore to examine the relative efficiency of
the police stations, taking CAF enablers as inputs and specific results of the police service
activities as the outputs, which followed the basic idea of excellence models.
 Total Quality Management 1399

3. Methodology
3.1. Data envelopment analysis
To examine the performance (based on the CAF model) of local police units in Slovenia,
we employ a non-parametric technique that has recently started to be commonly applied to
public sector efficiency analysis, that is, DEA. DEA is a non-parametric frontier esti-
mation methodology originally introduced by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1978) who
built on the work of Farrell (1957) and others. It is a linear programming-based method-
ology that has proved to be a successful tool for measuring relative efficiency. It computes
the comparative ratio of outputs to inputs for each unit, with a score between 0 and 100.
The decision-making units (DMUs) (in our case police stations) with a maximum score of
100 are efficient, and DMUs with a score less than 100 are inefficient. It is used to identify
best practices and is increasingly becoming a popular and practical management tool.
DEA was initially used to investigate the relative efficiency of private organisations,
but now its use has spread to municipalities, hospitals, schools and police among others
(see Afonso & Fernandes, 2008; Aristovnik and Obadić, 2014; Cherchye, De Witte,
Ooghe, & Nicaise, 2010; Obadić & Aristovnik, 2011).
To measure performance, DEA is the choice here because it does not require us to
specify the functional form or distributional forms for errors. In essence, it is more flexible
than the parametric approach. Further, DEA has been extensively used to measure public
sector efficiency in many countries by a host of researchers, like Ouellette and Vierstraete
(2004), Verma and Gavirneni (2006), Hauner (2007), Aristovnik, Seljak, and Mencinger
(2013) or Adam, Delis, and Kammas (2011) who point out that DEA is so popular because
it is easy to present in diagrams and easy to calculate. Apart from the above reasons, DEA
is employed here because it is more reliable for measuring technical efficiency since it can
be applied to multi-input and multi-output variables. As an example, consider a situation
that has F police stations, with each having M inputs and N outputs. Let Xif be the level of
input l at police station f and let Ykf be the level of output k at police station f. Without loss
of generality, it can be assumed that the inputs and outputs are defined in such a manner
that lower inputs and higher outputs are considered better. The relative efficiency of police
station f, denoted by wf, is computed by solving the following linear programme (Verma &
Gavirneni, 2006):


N
Maximise wf = bk Ykf
k=1

subject to


M
al Xlf = 1,
l=1


N 
M
bk Ykf − al Xlf ≤ 0 ∀ f = 1, 2, . . . , F,
k=1 l=1

ai , bK ≥ 0.
1400 N. Tomaževič et al.

The basic idea of this approach is that, through the use of weights a and b, the sets of
inputs and outputs are converted into a single ‘virtual input’ and a single ‘virtual output’.
The ratio of the virtual output to the virtual input determines the efficiency associated with
the police station. In addition, when the efficiency of a police station is being computed the
weights are determined in such a way that its virtual input is set equal to 100. The resulting
virtual output for that police station determines its relative efficiency. Due to the presence
of multiple measures of performance, each police station would like to choose weights that
put it in the best light and this linear programming formulation does just that. That is, when
solving for police station f, the weights chosen are those which result in that police station
receiving the highest efficiency possible. Any other set of weights would only result in the
police station having a lower efficiency rating. In order to complete the analysis, k linear
programmes (one each for a police station) need to be solved and the relative efficiencies
of the police stations can be tabulated. The technique is therefore an attempt to find the
‘best’ virtual unit (police station) for every real unit (police station). If the virtual unit
is better than the real one by either creating more output with the same input or similar
output with less input, then we say that the real unit is inefficient. Thus, analysing the effi-
ciency of N real units becomes an analysis of N linear programming problems.

3.2. Sample and the DMU homogeneity

One of the most important requirements in DEA is the homogeneity of DMUs (Tiemann &
Schreyögg, 2012). In our case, the DMUs are police stations. As of 1 January 2012, there
were 128 police stations in Slovenia and 76 were included in our sample, that is, those
which cover all core police activities (crime prevention, detection and investigation;
public order and overall safety of people and property; road safety). We excluded those
police stations which did not comply with this requirement: frontier, railway, aircraft
police stations, the stations of maritime police, organisational units of PDs, the stations
of police dogs handlers and horsemen, road police stations. In this way, the homogeneity
of the sample was increased.
As of 30 June 2012 the smallest unit had 18 employees and the biggest 139; the
average number of employees was 50.4. The chosen organisational units are comparable
regarding their activities since the areas they function in are identical (like in Drake &
Simper, 2005). In those organisations, altogether 3826 employees were employed as of
1 January 2012. In 2012, on average only 81.1% of systematised posts were occupied
in the Slovenian police, with a minimum of 61.7% for the Koper police station. Regarding
location of police station 78.9% were in rural areas and only 12.1% in urban areas. But
urban police stations were bigger – on average they had 78.9 employees while rural
areas had only 42.7 employees.
The data for the police stations were collected from two sources. The CAF enablers’
assessment was obtained on the basis of an online survey among police service employees.
The data on the police stations’ results were gathered on the basis of Police Service annual
reports (Ministry of the Interior, 2013).

3.3. Data – inputs

In the period of economic crisis and consequently strict austerity measures (Čok, Urban, &
Verbič, 2013; Stanovnik & Verbič, 2013), managers in the PA are faced with requirements
to achieve better results with the same (or a lower) amount of resources and/or number of
employees. Here, many aspects are interwoven in Slovenia:
 Total Quality Management 1401

. those responsible for the budget encounter requirements to cut costs (resources) and
reduce the number of employees in the public sector and thus in the police;
. the trade unions have a strong influence and are opposed to any cuts in employee
numbers and the lowering of wages; and
. there is a great difference between systematised job posts and job posts occupied. In
such circumstances, it is difficult to reduce employee numbers.

The existing circumstances maintain the ‘status quo’, making any serious interventions
in the number of employees or resources used in the Slovenian police impossible. In these
conditions, where an increase in employee numbers and material resources is not possible
due to the austerity measures and the trade unions do not approve of any related cuts in
them, the selection of inputs and the entire structure of the DEA model was appropriately
adapted. As inputs for the DEA model for police stations, we did not include the resources
defined in quantities (hard data – employees and material resources) but only the opinions
of employees about the situation in their organisations (soft data). In this way, we acquired
data about the situation in the organisation which not only depends on material resources
but also on how the employees assess such a situation (which is, of course, also a possible
consequence of the lack of material resources and employees). In those assessments,
numerous elements connected with work, satisfaction, the environment, commitment,
etc. are reflected which also have a strong impact on the organisation’s performance.
Based on that, we included as inputs for the DEA model the assessment of CAF enablers
made by employees. Clearly, it is the employees who have the best information about the
situation in their organisation and are able to assess the conditions in which they work.
The CAF framework enables external and internal assessments. In our case, we used
the internal assessment of the CAF model enablers made by the employees. Employees
involved in the CAF self-assessment process in data management and surveys are very
proud to be part of a group for improvement and make a strong contribution to the
success and diffusion of the initiative (Austrian Federal Chancellery, 2006). The data
for CAF enablers (DEA inputs) were collected with the questionnaire for employees in
the Slovenian Police Service. The survey ‘Study on employee satisfaction and trust in
the Slovenian Police’ was carried out in early spring 2012 (see Tomaževič, Seljak, & Aris-
tovnik, 2014a).
All employees of the Slovenian Police Service were invited by the authors of the study
as well as by the police management and police service trade unions to fill in the online
questionnaire. As of 1 January 2012 the Slovenian Police employed 8808 staff in 128
police stations: 1848 respondents (21.0%) answered at least one question, 3826 employees
were employed in 76 police stations that covered all police service activities and were
included in our analysis, while 758 employees filled in our questionnaire which represents
a 19.8% response rate. The share of males participating in the survey was 80.7%. Second-
ary school or a lower educational level had been completed by 44.8% of the participants.
The mean length of service in the police was 17.2 years.
Part of the questionnaire was dedicated to an evaluation of the enablers’ criteria within
the CAF model in which the employees had to assess 20 sub-criteria, where (1) meant ‘in
our organisation we are not concerned with this field, the field is poorly taken care of, we
are not active in this field’ and (5) meant ‘in our organisation this area is excellently taken
care of, all employees actively cooperate in activities in this field, we are continuously
improving the field’. The arithmetic mean was used to calculate five CAF enablers
from the 20 sub-criteria items. The best assessed enabler was CAF-Leadership (M ¼
3.04) and the worst CAF-People (M ¼ 2.63; Table 1).
 1402 N. Tomaževič et al.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the inputs and outputs and the correlation coefficient between variables.
Inputs Outputs
N Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
a
Inputs
CAF-leadership 76 3.04 0.43 1
CAF-strategy and planning 76 2.83 0.41 0.787b 1
CAF-people 76 2.63 0.42 0.774b 0.769b 1
CAF-partnerships and resources 76 2.83 0.40 0.640b 0.735b 0.727b 1
CAF-processes 76 2.79 0.43 0.678b 0.645b 0.695b 0.794b 1
Outputs
Share of solved criminal 76 0.51 0.12 0.298b 0.299b 0.382b 0.394b 0.421b 1
offences among all criminal
offences
Share of criminal offences 76 0.11 0.07 0.111 0.049 0.127 0.152 0.278c 0.543b 1
detected by the police among
recorded criminal offences
Use of specific instruments of 76 1.8 1.2 0.122 0.028 0.095 20.086 20.090 20.262c 20.102 1
restraint and warning shots per
employeed
Average response time of police 76 20.0 3.3 20.053 20.093 20.099 20.279c 20.258c 20.494b 20.346b 0.237c 1
patrols by the police stations
in minutesd
Road accidents – total number 76 430.7 114.6 20.037 20.052 20.170 20.102 20.204 0.049 0.028 20.012 20.181 1
of injured per 1000 road
accidentsd
Sources: Ministry of the Interior, 2013; Survey, 2012; calculations by the authors.
a
Ratings based on five-point Likert-style scale.
b
Correlations are significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).
c
Correlations are significant at the .05 level (two-tailed).
d
Negative contribution to performance.
 Total Quality Management 1403

The basic DEA arranges the inputs and outputs in a way that finds the best arrangement
for a specific unit’s efficiency assessment. A particular DMU can (theoretically) be
assessed as efficient although it is only excellent in one area. DMUs in a DEA can
become efficient by simply taking advantage of a particular input or output variable
(Ozcan, 2008). But the organisations should pay attention to, and develop, all CAF
enablers.
For the purpose of our study we expanded the basic DEA model. One of the most fre-
quently used methods for expanding DEA is to impose restrictions based on weights
(Cherchye et al., 2008; Cooper, Seiford, & Zhu, 2011; Osman, Berbary, Sidani, Al-
Ayoubi, & Emrouznejad, 2011; Ozcan, 2008). Weight restrictions allow the integration
of researcher preferences in terms of relative importance levels of various inputs and
outputs (Farzipoor Saen, 2011). Weight restrictions may be applied directly to the DEA
weights or to the product of these weights with the respective input or output level, referred
to as virtual input or virtual output (Farzipoor Saen, 2011).
We alter the basic DEA model using prior information regarding the inputs and applied
the restriction of weights directly to the DEA weights. The weights for CAF enablers were
defined according to the numbers of sub-criteria in each CAF enabler (EIPA, 2014): CAF-
Leadership – 4 sub-criteria (20%), CAF-Strategy and Planning – 4 sub-criteria (20%),
CAF-People – 3 sub-criteria (15%), CAF-Partnerships and resources – 6 sub-criteria
(30%) and CAF-Processes – 3 sub-criteria (15%). Weights indicate the levels of relative
importance of the specific inputs – CAF enablers in the DEA model. The method used
(taking the weightings into account) gives preference to those DMUs which equivalently
pay attention to, and develop, all CAF enablers. That is also an idea arising from the rec-
ommendations for how to use the CAF model.

3.4. DEA – outputs

There are many practices regarding police performance measurement in both theory and
praxis. Besides designing the measurement on the basis of theoretical models, many pro-
posals are based on the content of police work or on fields designed according to the
expected results of police work. When comparing the efficiency of Spanish municipal
police forces, Garcia-Sanchez (2009) used just two fields: public and road safety. Drake
and Simper (2005) made comparisons for English basic command units via a direct con-
nection of the number of crimes committed (inputs) and number of crimes cleared up
(outputs). In the Policing Performance Assessment Framework (Michelli & Neely,
2010), indicators are arranged in six fields: citizen focus, helping the public, reducing
crime, investigating crime, promoting public safety, and resource use.
Employees in an organisation are able to successfully assess the internal situation;
however, it is more sound to monitor the results of their operations using databases
from the police information system. On the lowest level of the hierarchy of police organ-
isational units (police stations), the availability of data that would realistically reveal the
dimensions and effectiveness of the operations is very low. We chose indicators from three
core police activities (crime, public safety and road safety):

. the share of solved criminal offences among all criminal offences – this indicator
should be as high as possible. Solved criminal offences as a % of recorded criminal
offences is a commonly used efficiency indicator of police service operations (see
Barros, 2006; Diez-Ticio & Mancebon, 2002; Drake & Simper, 2002);
1404 N. Tomaževič et al.

. the share of criminal offences detected by the police as a % of recorded criminal

offences – again, this indicator should be as high as possible;
. the use of specific instruments of restraint and warning shots per employee – this
indicator should be as low as possible. The police is one of the state authorities
that in specific circumstances has the right to use instruments of restraint. Their
use can result in injuries to citizens as well as police officers (Smith et al., 2010).
Therefore, the frequency and scope of these acts must be studied, along with the be-
haviour of both sides and the environment in which the events took place (Alpert &
Dunham, 2004). This indicator can consequently be used to reveal both the response
of the police (due to police officers’ reactions) and the public reputation of the police
given that the frequency of use of instruments of restraint is supposed to have a
strong influence on public opinion about the police;
. the average response time of police patrols by the police stations – this indicator
should be as low as possible. The average response time of police patrols was fre-
quently used in some previous studies (e.g. in Drake & Simper, 2002; Pritchard, Cul-
bertson, Malm, & Agrell, 2009); and
. road accidents – the total number of injured per 1000 road accidents – this indicator
should be as low as possible. In the area of traffic, reactions to a traffic situation are
monitored (number of recorded traffic accidents, number of traffic offences, etc.).
We took a step further and focused on the consequences of traffic accidents and/
or the weight of traffic accidents in an area. In road traffic, different indicators of
the consequences of traffic accidents are used to measure efficiency, including the
number of casualties or serious injuries (Pritchard et al., 2009). Similarly, when
measuring efficiency in the area of criminal offences, the number of murders and
the number of crimes committed have been considered (Gorman & Ruggiero, 2008).

All inputs were acquired with a survey among employees and assessed on the basis of a
five-point Likert scale. Many authors, for example, Cook and Zhu (2006), Manoharan,
Muralidharan, and Deshmukh (2009) and Noorizadeh, Mahdiloo, and Farzipoor Saen
(2013) utilised a five-point Likert scale to convert qualitative data into quantitative data
used to evaluate performance using DEA.
An important prerequisite for applying DEA is that inputs are statistically significantly
positively correlated with the output set (Tiemann & Schreyögg, 2012). In our selection of
outputs there are three whose values had to be inverted. The use of specific instruments of
restraint and warning shots per employee, the average response time of police patrols by
the police stations and the total number of injured per 1000 road accidents are negatively
linked to performance and, for this reason, the data were transformed. The purpose of this
transformation was to acquire positive values of the data since this is required by the soft-
ware used for the DEA analysis (Pastor & Ruiz, 2007). The indicators that were used as
outputs are also of a different magnitude. We therefore used a mean normalisation
method to transform the data to make it of a same or similar magnitude (Sarkis, 2007).
In the research we employ the CRS (constant returns of scale) output-oriented DEA
model. The output-oriented measures indicate what the increase in the outputs should
be if a unit aims to be efficient without changing the amount of inputs.

4. Results
Correlation between basic DEA scores and DEA with weighted scores is strong (Pearson
correlation ¼ .941, p , .001; Spearman Rank-Order Correlation ¼ .952, p , .001).
 Total Quality Management 1405

The number of efficient units when calculating the basic DEA was 18 (23.7%), meanwhile
the introduction of weights restriction decreased that number to 8 (10.5%). The average
value of the DEA score decreased from 85.4 to 77.8.
DMUs achieving a DEA score of 100 can be defined as efficient. The data in Table 2
show that eight (10.5%) of the 76 observed police stations achieved a DEA score of 100.
The other 68 police stations could improve their outputs in at least one area. Six DMUs did
not even achieve a DEA score of 60. The average DEA score was 77.76 (first hypothesis
confirmed).
Table 3 presents those police stations that achieved the lowest DEA scores. Both the
real value of outputs and potential for improvements are presented in the data overview for
the chosen police stations.
The police station Ljubljana Vič, which achieved a DEA score of 53.7, should strongly
improve the results in all areas, most significantly in the area of criminal offences detected
by the police (an increase of 225.7% to 0.21). In the police station Ljubljana Moste,
improvements are also necessary regarding increasing the share of criminal offences
detected by the police. The use of specific instruments of restraint and warning shots
per employee should also be strongly reduced.
The police force is indubitably a strongly centralised part of the PA. Related legal
regulations vary from country to country, but it is the hierarchical organisational model
that prevails in most countries. In Slovenia we can define police organisations at three
levels: local (police stations), regional (PDs), and national (Slovenian police). The auton-
omy of police stations at the local level is relatively low since the majority of resources
(financial, equipment and employees) are distributed/managed on higher levels. Therefore,
a review of potential improvements was also prepared for the PDs (regional level) (see
Table 4).
The majority of efficient police stations can be found in PD Celje and PD Novo Mesto
(two in each). The highest average DEA score was achieved by the police stations in PD
Nova Gorica. There were statistically significant differences noticed between the observed
PDs (F ¼ 2.9, p , .01) (second hypothesis confirmed). No efficient police station can be
found in PD Kranj and in PD Ljubljana.
The potential improvements are definitely worth pursuing in the PDs with the lowest
results. In PD Ljubljana, where the average DEA score was 68.3, the biggest improve-
ments should be made in the fields of the share of criminal offences detected by the
police and the use of specific instruments of restraint and warning shots. In PD Koper
(M ¼ 74.3), a focus should be given to increasing the share of criminal offences detected
by the police and to increasing the share of solved criminal offences among all criminal
offences.

Table 2. Efficiency score for the police stations (PS).

Efficiency score
60 or less 60.01–80.00 80.01–99.99 100 (efficient) Total
Number 6 40 22 8 76
Per cent 7.9 52.6 28.9 10.5 100.0
Mean 53.58 71.39 87.83 100.00 77.76
SD 3.97 5.25 5.81 .00 13.26
Source: Ministry of the Interior, 2013; calculations by the authors.
1406 N. Tomaževič et al.

Table 3. Data for the least efficient police stations (PS) and their peers.
PS Ljubljana Vič PS Ljubljana Moste
53.7 55.0
Efficiency score
Outputs and improvements
Potential Potential
improvements Target improvements Target
Output name Value (%) value Value (%) value
Share of solved criminal 0.40 86.2 0.75 0.38 83.8 0.70
offences among all
criminal offences
Share of criminal 0.06 225.7 0.21 0.04 204.1 0.11
offences detected by
the police among
recorded criminal
offences
Use of specific 1.57 246.3 0.84 4.01 271.1 1.16
instruments of restraint
and warning shots per
employee
Average response time of 30.63 246.3 16.45 26.42 245.0 14.52
police patrols by the
police stations – all
calls
Road accidents – total 358.89 246.3 192.72 479.24 245.0 263.49
number of injured per
1000 road accidents
Peers
PS Šempeter pri Gorici PS G. Petrovci
PS Sevnica PS Velenje
PS Cerknica
PS G. Petrovci
Source: Ministry of the Interior, 2013; calculations by the authors.

Tests were also conducted to find out whether the response rate, the number of employ-
ees, the share of occupied posts and the location of the police station influence the DEA
score of a specific police station. The data are presented in Table 5.
Among the groups of police stations, designed according to the response rate, the
differences in DEA scores did not prove to be statistically significant. However, the
DEA score is influenced by the number of employees in the police station and the share
of job posts occupied. The highest DEA score was calculated for police stations with
fewer than 25 employees and the lowest for police stations with more than 75 employees.
Differences also occurred when investigating the share of job posts occupied. The highest
DEA score was calculated for police stations where this share exceeded 90% and the
lowest DEA score was found in the group where the share was below 80%.
The location of a police station also impacts the DEA score. In police stations from
urban areas the DEA score was statistically significantly lower than in those from rural
areas (third hypothesis confirmed). The lowest DEA score was achieved in PDs where
the urbanisation level is highest (PD Ljubljana, PD Koper, PD Maribor) and where it is
also possible to find more complicated forms of criminal offences that are more difficult
to detect and solve. Undoubtedly, part of the lower results can be ascribed to that fact.
Table 4. Areas with the greatest potential for improvements by PDs.
Potential improvements (%)
Share of solved Share of criminal Use of specific Average response
criminal offences detected instruments of time of police Road accidents –
Number of Number of Share of Average offences among by the police restraint and patrols by the total number of
assessed efficient efficient DEA all criminal among recorded warning shots per police stations – injured per 1000
PDs PSs PSs PSs (%) score offences criminal offences employee all calls road accidents
PD Celje 13 2 15.4 83.5 31.0 44.4 227.8 219.6 224.0
PD Koper 7 1 14.3 74.3 81.4 124.5 240.0 225.4 229.0
PD Kranj 7 0 0.0 81.2 54.1 122.8 229.8 221.1 221.6
PD 18 0 0.0 68.3 58.7 196.0 244.0 231.5 232.2
Ljubljana
PD Maribor 11 1 9.1 76.5 40.4 56.0 228.5 222.3 224.6
PD Murska 5 1 20.0 79.3 20.7 90.2 223.6 220.6 216.3
Sobota
PD Nova 6 1 16.7 88.3 42.5 94.3 219.7 214.4 214.7

Total Quality Management 1407

Gorica
PD Novo 9 2 22.2 81.9 28.5 27.9 225.8 220.6 221.4
mesto
Total 76 8 10.5 77.8 45.6 101.6 231.9 223.3 224.7
F-test 2.9 3.4 3.1 1.8 1.8 2.0
Sig. 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.09 0.10 0.06
Source: Ministry of the Interior, 2013; calculations by the authors.
1408 N. Tomaževič et al.

Table 5. Differences in DEA scores of specific groups of police stations (PS).

DEA score
n % Mean SD t, F-testa Sig.
Response rate
less than 10.01% 14 18.4 79.06 11.37 0.195 0.899
10.01–20.00% 26 34.2 76.31 13.18
20.01–30.00% 18 23.7 78.99 14.86
above 30% 18 23.7 77.58 13.92
Number of employees
1–25 19 25.00 83.44 12.76 6.6 0.002
26 –75 39 51.30 78.98 13.03
76 and more 18 23.70 69.11 10.22
Share of job posts occupied posts
Below 80% 35 46.10 73.59 12.55 3.51 0.035
80.00–89.99% 32 42.10 80.83 12.91
90% and above 9 11.80 83.02 13.70
Location of the police station
Urban 16 21.10 71.29 14.65 22.25 0.027
Rural 60 78.90 79.48 12.43
Source: Ministry of the Interior, 2013; calculations by the authors.
a
An independent t-test was used to test the differences between the two sub-groups. A one-way ANOVA (F ) test
was used for the difference between three or more sub-groups.

The major limitation of the research was we did not have enough data to assess the
performance of a specific police station. Yet the majority of researchers also encounter
this problem when assessing the performance in the public sector. The police databases
are not primarily intended for performance measurement. It is therefore difficult to
acquire the appropriate indicators. However, we tried to choose the indicators in such a
way that there are possibilities to improve them at least in the medium term and that
they do not come from the external environment over which the leaders and employees
of a specific police station have no influence.
The data for the CAF enablers were collected via a survey among all police employees.
The self-assessment method is basically meant for an assessment made by a smaller number
of employees from inside an organisation. Usually a special group of employees is trained to
be qualified to make such an assessment. Our survey sought to involve all employees who
were willing to cooperate. No training on the CAF methodology was offered for this purpose
and the employees assessed the enablers solely on the basis of short descriptions of specific
CAF enablers given in the questionnaire. They had to indicate the situation in the organis-
ation and it is the employees who are the most familiar with it.

5. Conclusions
Analysis of the performance of police service organisations with the DEA methodology is
relatively common (see Barros, 2006; Diez-Ticio & Mancebon, 2002; Drake & Simper,
2002). The key novelty of our research is its use of the CAF model to define inputs for
the DEA model and its use of hard data when assessing the performance of police stations
(outputs). The CAF model was employed due to the relatively frequent use of the CAF
model in PA organisations, including police service organisations (Engel, 2003; Kovač
& Tomaževič, 2008; Staes & Thijs, 2005; Staes et al., 2011). We decided to use soft
and hard data simply because of the advantages of both methods. It is the employees
 Total Quality Management 1409

who have the best insight into the situation in their organisation itself and can assess it rela-
tively adequately (soft data). This can be useful in the PA and in relatively small organ-
isations (the largest police station had 136 employees). Concerning the outputs, we used
hard data from the police databases since the employees usually overestimate the
results of their work when making self-evaluations.
The managers of police stations have very little impact on the employee numbers and
material conditions of operations. Therefore, these indicators were not directly included in
the analysis. However, each manager must ask himself how and why other police stations
achieve better results with the same work factors within the CAF model. Our purpose was
to find out which results they achieve – on the basis of equally assessed CAF enablers by
the employees – which means then we ‘only’ had the employees’ assessments and it is
thus not necessarily true that the CAF enablers are in fact equal. A manager’s task is to
look for ways to transfer the assessed CAF enablers into the actual results of their
police station’s operations.
The austerity measures faced by the public sector in most EU countries require public
sector managers to develop and use managerial approaches that take the reality of the
public sector into account. The situation is to be expected to continue many years into
the future and we therefore regard the findings of our survey as very useful both in Slove-
nia and abroad. The public sector largely offers services where the human factor is essen-
tial. Managers have to handle the situation with what is available regarding finances and
equipment and try to find efficient ways to motivate their employees.
Our DEA model is directed at the maximisation of outputs. Each police station
manager can see which of the five outputs is assessed worst and requires the greatest
amount of improvements. The indicators clearly vary with regard to the possibility of
influencing them. Yet each area can be influenced by suitable measures taken as part of
the better organisation of a specific police station.
The lowest DEA scores were attained by police stations from urban areas with a higher
number of employees. The level of urbanisation definitely impacts the complexity of crim-
inal offences and the traffic density in those areas, which could partly account for those
scores. Lower DEA scores were also attained by police stations where the share of job
posts occupied compared to the systematised ones was the lowest. This is definitely a
signal to those responsible at the PDs and ministries/government level to adequately fill
the systematised posts regardless of the austerity measures – at least in those police
stations where the actual occupation of systematised posts is below 80%.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
Financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency and the Ministry of the Interior of the Repub-
lic of Slovenia [Grant No. V5–1037] is gratefully acknowledged.

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