A Thematic Analysis of Executive Leadership and Perspectives on Continuous Improvement in the Emergency Services.

This paper reports initial findings from 15 interviews with executive leaders across the national police, fire and rescue and ambulance services in Scotland, UK. The interview themes are drawn from a systematic literature review of lean and six sigma practices in the public sector and the analysis is around five key themes all within the strategic context of significant organisational change following the respective police and fire services mergers in 2013. The initial results are reported to support organisational learning and identify a knowledge gap around CI Methodologies, an imbalance between CI and Radical change and a further need to embed CI through strategy, performance measurement and roadmaps, the findings also emphasise the importance of staff engagement and empowerment as part of CI Initiatives and identify future research in this area.