ESTEVAN — For perhaps the first time in its history, the Estevan Police Service has compiled and released a business plan that will govern how it operates.
The plan can be found on the EPS website, and has three goals: a safe community, a healthy organization and efficient service. Each of those objectives includes various measures and barometres for success.
Chief Rich Lowen said when he was first hired, one of the goals was to establish a business plan for the EPS.
“It’s a tool that we use in policing to identify a direction for the service,” said Lowen. “We got combined input from the board of police commissioners, who gets an input from the community to see what they would like their police service to be doing.”
It’s a way to communicate with the public, and show transparency and accountability in how they’re working.
“They can see the results of the work that we’re doing throughout the year,” said Lowen.
The EPS also drew from a community survey that was completed in 2019 to see what people wanted from the police.
“As we move forward throughout the years, we’re going to increase our public consultations, so that we have direct input from the public as well, and that will go through the police board back to the service as well.”
The public consultation could include meetings, another community survey or something else.
Lowen noted other police agencies have similar documents through business and/or strategic plans.
The police chief said this will be a “living, breathing document” that he hopes will be part of the service for as long as it’s in Estevan. It will be reviewed regularly, and changes would occur based on community needs.
“We’re going to report back quarterly. We’ll release that information to the public and … at that point, they’ll see what will be the numbers that we’ll be reporting on.”
The plan is the direction for the EPS and the quarterly reports will be the results, he said.
Lowen noted the primary goal of having a safe community should be the top objective for any policing agency. It has calls for action on traffic safety, illicit drugs and intelligence-led crime response.
He cited the example of traffic enforcement. They have always carried out traffic enforcement, but the public doesn’t know how much they do or where the focus is. They always carry out drug investigations, but the public might not know the number of arrests or charges.
“People need to see the work that we do behind the scenes to support our members, and show some of the initiatives that we brought in during the past year. Some of those initiatives will be starting in the new year, and we’ll work together with our members to see how they want to move forward on those things.”
The second goal of a healthy organization is to ensure members work efficiently and have a healthy place to work while looking after the community, with objectives on enhanced training and professionalism and improved workplace wellness.
As for the efficient service, it’s a way to report to the public on how to look at budget numbers or how to try to stretch policing dollars as far as possible. Objectives will include budget accountability and to reduce the demand for emergency services in mental health calls.
A business plan was among the calls for action from the Saskatchewan Police Commission when results from its inquiry into the Estevan Police Service were released earlier in October. Lowen said this report would have happened regardless of the commission’s recommendations, as he believes a business plan is a necessity for any policing agency in today’s environment.
“We started working on it as soon as I started here back in September of 2021, to start putting it together and establishing what it would look like,” said Lowen.
It will be included in a follow-up audit that the police commission is to conduct next year.
