Upskilling the Police Force

"I chose MBS for its reputation and also because of its association with Melbourne University."

Michael Phelan
Chief Police Officer
Australian Federal Police
Australian Capital Territory

After 24-years as a career police officer, Michael Phelan is now chief police officer for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

The ACT does not have its own state police force. Instead this role is contracted to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and as such, Phelan reports to both the ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services and the Commissioner of the AFP.

He is responsible for all police operations, plus the corporate support demanded by such a reporting arrangement to the minister's office.

His career has seen him move through all the ranks in the police force, including a stint as national secretary (CEO) for the Police Union for two years from 1998 to 2000, and a promotion after that to a senior liaison role in the Senior Executive Service (SES) in 2002, in Manilla.

He says, "The Manila SLO is the Australian Police's representative in the Philippines. Our role was to facilitate inquiries or information-needs for the AFP's international network out of the Philippines, and visa versa. For example, if the Philippines needed assistance with law enforcement matters that related to Australia, we helped with that exchange of information and capacity building as well."

Phelan is no stranger to managing human resources. He was responsible for about 100 people after his promotion to SES, and about 500 people when he became assistant commissioner in 2004. As assistant commissioner he was responsible for all of the AFP border operations, involving issues such as drugs, smuggling and trans-national sex offences, plus the AFP's international network. Now as chief police officer for ACT he has about 950 people reporting to him, including sworn police officers and un-sworn AFP members.

To prepare for this he's done a combination of on-the-job training plus external courses.

"I've done the Australian Institute Director's two-day course, the two-week boardroom course, some short-term strategic human resource management courses and the Australian Institute of Police Management Police Executive Leadership Program," he says.

Phelan chose to do the EMBA to broaden his horizons, to develop a business outlook and to learn from other people's experiences.

"I'm trying to translate modern management theory into practice in a modern police force," he says. "A lot of business that we do has parallels in other sectors of the community. For example, basic things such as supply chain management can be translated into how we take triple-O calls, from the time we take them to the time we send a patrol out to someone's house. There's always efficiencies and learnings to be gained, which can be translated into the public sector and particularly into the police force.

"I chose MBS for its reputation and also because of its association with Melbourne University. I chose the EMBA course because of its format. It's structured into completely self-contained modules, which means I can concentrate more effectively on learning the content. It's not an easy way to do it, but it's more efficient. Being immersed in the learning process better solidifies what I'm learning, rather than doing it part-time."

He says it also means you can dissect the learnings more easily and apply them immediately at work.

"During the lecture process, I run two parallel sets of notes-one for what I need to do for the course and the other for how I can apply this in real life when I get back into the workplace."

Phelan says his future plans involve consolidating his current position. "I see my career remaining with the AFP and law enforcement," he says.

Undergraduate degree: B.Comm, Deakin University, 1998, LLB (Hons.), Deakin University, 2000, EMBA Class of 2009