CMI Leadership & Management Qualifications
Context
Northumbria Police is one of the largest of the United Kingdom’s 45 ‘territorial’ police forces, serving a population of more than 1.5 million people and covering an area of over 2,000 square miles. Across six area commands, each with its own Chief Superintendent, nearly 4,000 staff (including over 2,200 police officers) provide a comprehensive policing service to the people of North East England.
As a force, Northumbria Police seeks to deliver six strategic priorities, with the vision and strategic plans to do so underpinned by five core values.
| Strategic Priorities | Values |
|---|---|
| Protect the Vulnerable | Proud |
| Effective Justice | Dynamic |
| Prevent Crime and Disorder | Supportive |
| Outstanding Organisation | Passionate |
| Intelligent Policing | Determined |
| Engaged Communities |
As an organisation, Northumbria Police considers leadership to be absolutely critical to their success, specifically the embedding of a leadership approach that is built around ‘Leading People’, ‘Leading Change’ and ‘Leading the Service’ with personal qualities and values at the forefront.
- Leading People: building high performing teams and developing people to their full potential.
- Leading Change: ensuring that all efforts are linked to organisational plans/values and that leaders promote a mindset of service improvement and organisational learning, continuously seeking better ways of serving the public.
- Leading the Service: leaders engage with stakeholders to set and articulate a positive, ambitious and realistic strategy, supporting by a clearly defined vision and underpinned by the Code of Ethics.
Requirement
Towards the end of 2022, Northumbria Police (NP) issued a requirement for bespoke, accredited senior leadership development programme which would support a small cohort of learners to achieve a Level 7 qualification in Leadership & Management. This would form the core of a talent development programme aimed at superintendent/chief superintendent officers (and staff equivalents). They also required a follow-up programme, supporting a cohort of ‘high potential’ learners to achieve a CMI Certificate at Level 5.
It was crucial to NP that the programme would:
- Be ready to start as quickly as possible
- Contain learning content adapted to meet the specific needs of their organisation (i.e. a uniformed, rank-structured, ‘bluelight’ service).
- Have the potential for additional ‘add-on’ units to meet identified skills gaps
- Include face-to-face delivery as well as learning support (e.g. via resource bank, online portal, tutor support, etc.)
- Focus on transferring learning into practice in order to give long-term sustainability to the ‘best practice’ at the centre of any leadership & management qualification
Solution
Level 7 – Senior Leaders
As an Approved Centre with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, Eliesha was well placed to provide an efficient and engaging accredited learning solution for NP’s managers. Our proposed approach and highly relevant experience resulted in our selection as the preferred supplier through a competitive and transparent procurement exercise.
Having attended multiple scoping meetings with the project team and collaborated on the selection of units that would most closely meet their requirements, we scheduled and delivered a timetable of blended leadership development that supported learners to achieve the CMI Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Management and Leadership Practice via completion of Units 701 (Strategic Leadership) and 704 (Developing Organisational Strategy).
Primary learning delivery took place in one-day face-to-face workshops hosted at our training centre in Newcastle upon Tyne – allowing learners to separate themselves from their high pressure operational environment and be fully present in the learning one. For each unit, learning content was covered in two workshops, of which the second was partly given over to the running of an Action Learning Set.
Action Learning is an impactful approach to knowledge transfer, where groups of learners help each other work through challenges (via questioning and reflection) and then commit publicly to actions they will take in response. For this programme, Action Learning was used to bring the ‘fixed’ learning content of an accredited programme (i.e. the outcomes and subject areas specified by the awarding body) to life in the form of real workplace challenges and priorities. In this way, learners were already applying their new knowledge and tools to their real day-to-day workplace and collaborating on an approach to problem solving and decision making that becomes the ‘Northumbria Police way’ – a level of senior leadership consistency and alignment that was one of the programme’s primary aims.
As well as the two workshops, each unit was supported by a half-day online Guided Learning event, explaining assessment requirements and ensuring all learners had a suitable plan and approach for completing the relevant work. Further support around the completion and submission of assessments was provided by Eliesha’s Accredited Centre Team (ACT).
Further to these workshops, and at the request of NP stakeholders to fill skills gaps, we delivered ‘Developing a Growth Mindset’, ‘Leading Strategic Change’ and ‘Understanding Impostor Syndrome’ as additional non-accredited learning.
Level 5 – High Potentials
During the delivery of the Level 7 Certificate and having been highly satisfied with support and delivery to date (as well as pleased with learner feedback and progress), Eliesha and NP planned the delivery of CMI’s Level 5 Certificate in Management & Leadership to their follow-up cohort of ‘high potential’ learners.
Mirroring the successful approach taken with the senior managers, it was agreed that these learners would complete Unit 501 (Principles of Management & Leadership in an Organisational Context) and 502 (Principles of Developing, Managing and Leading Individuals and Teams to Achieve Success) via face-to-face workshops at Eliesha’s training centre (including Action Learning) and Guided Learning sessions, as well as access to comprehensive ACT support.
Similarly, they would also complete non-accredited learning workshops to fill identified skills gaps: ‘Leading Strategic Change’, ‘Understanding Organisational Culture’ and ‘Developing Strategic Thinking’.
Results
Delivery was highly successful – learners on both programmes brought positive mindsets and enthusiastic approaches to their workshops, allowing Eliesha’s trainer to create a learning environment that was interactive, engaging and – perhaps most importantly – safe and trusting.
For each workshop, learners completed evaluation forms in which they were asked to assess their subject knowledge before and after the learning, as well as score the effectiveness of the trainer. Results were extremely positive across both levels:
Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Management and Leadership Practice
Results averaged across all evaluation forms
| Pre-workshop knowledge assessment | Post-workshop knowledge assessment | Knowledge growth | Trainer effectiveness score | |
| Unit 701 Workshop 1 | 53% | 77% | +44% | 99% |
| Unit 701 Workshop 2 | 49% | 83% | +71% | 99% |
| Unit 704 Workshop 1 | 49% | 83% | +71% | 100% |
| Unit 704 Workshop 2 | 54% | 79% | +46% | 100% |
Level 5 Certificate in Management & Leadership
Results averaged across all evaluation forms
| Pre-workshop knowledge assessment | Post-workshop knowledge assessment | Knowledge growth | Trainer effectiveness score | |
| Unit 501 Workshop 1 | 62% | 86% | +38% | 97% |
| Unit 501 Workshop 2 | 82% | 87% | +6% | 100% |
| Unit 502 Workshop 1 | 55% | 86% | +55% | 94% |
| Unit 502 Workshop 2 | 63% | 90% | +43% | 100% |
With support from Eliesha’s ACT and with the exception of two learners withdrawn from the Level 7 programme by Northumbria Police, in connection with their workload, learners completed their assignments and assessed work diligently and proactively, leading to a 100% success rate across both units of each programme.
In total, six Northumbria Police managers achieved the Level 7 Certificate in Strategic Management and Leadership Practice and nine managers achieved the Level 5 Certificate in Management & Leadership.
Outcomes
In a separate procurement exercise, Northumbria Police chose Eliesha as the preferred supplier for further accredited qualifications in Leadership and Management at Levels 6 and 7, and we look forward to supporting and developing more of their staff and officers as part of this successful, ongoing learning partnership.
Comments/Quotes
As well as assessing knowledge uplift and trainer satisfaction, evaluation forms included areas for learners to provide reflections, some of which we are pleased to share below:
Which aspects/objectives of the course did you find most beneficial and enjoyable? (Re: Unit 501)
“Really enjoyed talking about ethics and the decision making and scenarios. Very enjoyable thanks.” (Re: Unit 501)
“The course fully explained the differences between culture, values and ethics. Discussion about culture model – I can relate to this from my previous job and see the differences between there and Northumbria.” (Re: Unit 501)
“I enjoyed the coaching and mentoring input and the theory around GROW as I can use this in my job frequently. Excellent trainer and session over last 6 months, thanks a lot!” (Re: Unit 502)
“Really good mix of front loading, discussion + group work. Allowing good discussions.” (Re: Unit 502)
