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Modernizing Police Leadership Competencies Project Report

May 14, 2020

In the fall of 2019, CPKN began work on a project to update senior policing leadership competencies found in the Competency-Based Management Framework (CBMF) with project partners, Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and Canadian Police College (CPC). This project is partially funded by Public Safety Canada with additional contributions from the project partners.  The project team engaged the services of the Community Safety Knowledge Alliance (CSKA) to undertake research and develop a project report. The final report has been complete and is available to download.

The Modernizing Police Leadership Competencies project has proven to be a valuable initiative to the benefit of Canadian Policing. As you will see in the report, there were three significant outcomes:

  1. Creation of an updated Competency Profile for Police Executive Leadership (Appendix A of the report). This was based on information, discussions and analysis resulting from the literature review, community survey and facilitated workshop that formed the foundation of this project.
  2. Definition of a series of next steps to complete the updating of the Police Leadership Model taking into consideration factors such as Character-based Leadership and other issues not contemplated in the original Competency Based Management Framework (CBMF). These issues are clearly laid out in the final report and represent the next phase in updating the overall CBMF.
  3. Broad engagement of the policing sector at both the leadership and practitioner level. Leaders from Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, Canadian Police Association and Canadian Association of Police Governance (CAPG) along with large and small police services (including the RCMP, Toronto Police Service, OPP and Montreal Police and Sûreté du Québec) were all actively engaged in this initiative and want to be part of the next phase.

Similarly, HR practitioners from right across the country and the sector are now part of the newly created Competency Based Management Community of Practice (CBM-COP) that was developed through this project. This new service allows these experts easy access to updated competencies as well as all existing Police Sector Council material. The existing Sector Council website will be decommissioned. The COP will also allow easy flow of material and information between and among the participants.

A detailed report that bundles together all background materials and supporting documentation is also available for those who are interested. If interested, please reach out to CPKN at info@cpkn.ca for a copy. The next steps will be undertaken by CPKN’s National Advisory Committee’s Competencies Sub-Committee and overseen by a Steering Committee of leaders from the sector including representations from CACP, CPA and CAPG.

Download the summary report here.