Police Culture, Outsourcing and Austerity: The Rise and Fall of the Lincolnshire Police-G4S Strategic Partnership

Abstract This article explores the rise and fall of the largest police outsourcing deal in UK history: the £229 million Lincolnshire Police-G4S Strategic Partnership, which ran from 2012 to 2022. Interpreting longitudinal interview data through a police culture lens, it illustrates how police leaders narrate the trajectory of the Strategic Partnership using three scripts: a ‘managerialism’ script, which promotes new public management solutions in the face of austerity measures; a ‘market scepticism’ script, which voices the dangers of applying commercial logic to the policing sphere; and a ‘rank hierarchy’ script, which articulates the importance of authority, control and professional experience. It advances our understanding of not only police outsourcing and backsourcing but also the market for policing under conditions of austerity.