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This article discusses the qualities of leadership and contrasts the role of a leader with that of a manger. It analyses the impact of the New Public Management (NPM) regime's performance management strand on leadership in the public sector. The achievement of targets is seen as a measure of political success and analysis is made of the manner in which this is reinforced throughout public organisations. The effects of ‘robust’ performance management techniques are examined and examples given of the negative impacts of quantitative targets. It is argued that the function of the leader is reduced to that of managing the attainment of these centrally set goals. As a result risk‐taking and innovation are constrained to that which is required for the achievement of these goals. This is seen as an explanation for the current prevalence of ‘gaming’ ploys and is linked to a drop‐in integrity in the pursuit of outputs. It is further argued that the target regime sees the ‘Sovietisation’ of the public sector and a return to the Taylorian values of an industrial past. A brief case study of social service provision illustrates the potential for negative outcomes that may result. This article concludes that when a ‘tick in the box’ is allowed to suffice the qualities of public sector leadership are inevitably reduced and confined to the panopticon of centralised targets.

This article discusses the implications contained in the White Paper, Building Communities, Beating Crime (CM 6360:2004) for the accountability of crime and disorder reduction partnerships and police forces. More coherent mechanisms are proposed where basic command units and partnerships share the same boundaries.

This article is drawn from a talk by the author given to a local forum in which he comments upon the experience of working within and alongside crime and disorder partnerships. It discusses issues in which research and evaluation have been essential to project implementation ‐ closed circuit television surveillance and late night transport. It argues that whilst partnership working has been successful, the short‐term nature of research funding militates against successful strategy formulation.

This article considers the impact of the Crime And Disorder Act (1998) on the issue of ‘homophobic crime’ in England and Wales. It considers research and survey work conducted by local authorities into ‘hidden crime’, specifically the problem of homophobic crime. The article identifies and analyses a number of local authority reports, crime audits and crime strategies. It speculates as to why greater salience is accorded to certain ‘types’ of hidden crime particularly that of domestic violence and racist crime rather than homophobic crime. Finally it looks at the police response to ‘homophobic crime’ and recent initiatives in this field undertaken by some police forces.

The aim of this paper is to examine the significance and the implications of efforts to institute workforce modernization within the police service in England and Wales.

The approach taken uses an analysis of the modernization proposals advanced by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary as its starting point.

The development of workforce modernization in the police service would appear to have eroded the hitherto “reform‐resistant” nature of policing, however political factors continue to impede reform.

Although more evidence concerning the scale and the outcomes of the reform process would be desirable, the main implication of this paper is that workforce modernization in the police is viable, but constrained by political factors.

Empirically, the paper focuses on developments in a sector – the police service – that has been neglected by the existing literature on workforce modernization; theoretically, it demonstrates the important influence often exercised by political contingencies over public sector workforce reform.