Theresa May spoke to the Superintendents today. She basically told them what they already know. It was PC David Copperfield who first broke the tradition of continually demanding more and more police officers. His view was that we have plenty of cops, they are simply not deployed correctly.
Here in Ruralshire we have literally hundreds of police officers, hidden away in offices, endlessly feeding the three ravenous beasts: crime reporting, case file management and performance management and analysis. Strangely enough, we also have hundreds of civilian staff doing the same thing.
Theresa May specifically asked Chief Constables not to substitute the now abolished government targets with local bureaucracies and local targets. This has been widely ignored. The Superintendents know this because it is they who design, implement and administer these local bureaucracies. They are the ones who depend upon the results of these silly targets to gain further promotion, bigger pensions and greater power.
Here in Ruraltown nick, we receive at least one email per day from the hapless Performance Inspector. His main mission is to achieve success as measured by the Policing Pledge ‘response time’ targets. He does not let two crucial facts get in the way of this:
1. There is no measure of the quality of what happens when we actually arrive, so long as we arrive in time.
2. The Policing Pledge was scrapped by Theresa May on 29th June this year in any case.
Achieving the Policing Pledge response time target is not actually about arriving at emergency calls any quicker; it’s about recording the fact that we have arrived quicker. Hence the email barrage of constant reminders to press certain buttons on our Airwaves sets, ring the Farce Control Room and explain that we set off earlier than they thought, re-grade the call downwards using local knowledge, or my own personal favourite, tell Control we have arrived before we have actually, well…. arrived.
That last one was from a Chief Inspector, I still have the email.
Here in Ruralshire, large numbers of office-based police officers are crapping themselves at the prospect of having to take to the mean streets of the Shire and fight crime. They need not be concerned. I have absolutely no faith what so ever that the SMT will do the right thing. How can they? If they abolished the bureaucracies they would not be able to provide the evidence they so badly need for their own advancement.
A Chief Superintendent once said to me “anyone can fight crime Inspector Gadget; I need someone who can deliver PERFORMANCE”.
Kep up the good work Gadge, they WILL have to listen eventually!
God, forgot!!
For all you saddos out there ‘First’
It’s not sad, you’re now a member of the First group, and you’ll get a badge – with stars on to show everyone how awesome you are.
Like they have in MacDonalds?
No, they will be even more awesome than that!
I await mine with anticipation then!
i.e. no longer a member of the last group.
I’ve been first THREE times in the past, where are my badges Metcountymounty?
I take it that the reason for the delay in my shiny badges is that you are cutting costs in the production department, and those factory staff are out there on the front line doing a proper job, or have I mistaken it for a police force?
Performance targets have gone…
Therefore it now officially matters not whether you are first on this blog or 100th.
It is the quality of your entry that counts (ooerr )
Bollocks, I managed to be first on one of the posts during the frenetic, halcyon days and evenings of the Raoul Moat-a-thon that was such a giggle. Haven’t received anything yet. Where’s my star?!?
Second?
Now I’ve got that off my chest – how about scrapping HPDS?
If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be top heavy with chiefs and no indians? (you can tell I wasn’t awake in my diversity training). I joined the job to be a PC – and I’d be quite happy to have finished my entire service as a PC.
Also, my force has been awash lately with restructuring ‘consultation’ seminars where shiny *rsed office dwellers tell us what will be best for us and don’t actually listen ( no change there then). However my suggestion is – any department with a three letter acronym could be abolished and policing would continue without anyone noticing.
My force is being restructured as well. By a MASSIVE team of senior officers……..
Well, what else are you going to do with them? God alone knows they’re no use on the streets.
This is not true. I am perfectly aware that HPDS and a lot of senior officers are perfectly useless on the streets.
Quick – someone tell them – there is no “I” in ‘team!
There’s also no ‘f’ in hope!
there is ME though….in team that is, which for that lot is what it’s all about!
No “I” in team…
but there is a “m” and an “e”
“TIEAM” fixed!
OK – Iteam – TeamI
Sponsored by Apple.. the iTeam.
That’s a start, but while we’re dreaming, answer me this:
Why do ‘senior’ ranks get paid more than a PC – or an Inspector – with the same length of service?
Seriously. Why? What’s the ‘business case’ for that?
They eat more!
totally agree IG the bosses are behaving like rude teenagers and bringing the service into disrepute. The home secretary needs to get a few of them on the carpet for a talking to, first up would be that south yorks chief who has been reported in police review saying that he will keep the police pledge even though he has been told to scrap it. They will be lining up with Bob Crow next and his civil disobedience tactics. Simply unacceptable.
2 world wars for this.
So, basically, they’re just ignoring the elected government? Isn’t that against the rules (or even better, the law)?
Or could it be that while the Con-Dems want to put policing back on a sensible level, they have to be aware that the upcoming savage budget cuts will likely lead to strikes etc, and they’ll need the senior police commanders on their side? God, I’m so cynical.
Fee – I think you’ll find that ACPO Policies trump The Law !
Dear Mrs May,
Please, please can you fix it for me to have enough colleagues on a weekend after 6pm.
This can be done by making everyone with a uniform and warrant card whom you pay good money to fight crime, leave their nice warm offices and push a panda for at least 1 weekend a month.
Yours Hopefully,
PC A Hunn aged 36 and 1/4.
PC A Hunn,
A Panda?? A PANDA!! Nah, let the office wallahs use their own two feet and walk. I’ve seen these efforts at getting them out, and about five of them were in one car, and did nothing for the entire shift. Oh, and they all arrived very late and left very early, because they weren’t based at our place.
Sounds familiar…..
The thing about the shiny arsed is that they get plenty of time to read up on regs…. and then they’re absolute sticklers for them.
When I was on response I had a ride along from some department ask me ‘so what time do we get our lunch break’
Oh how I laughed as we rolled up to our 15th job of the day!
Dear Mrs May’ll fix it,
In addition to PC Hunn’s request if you could have a word with Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health and ask him to make sure that there are enough Paramedics to deal with all the crap that 24hr drinking has brought, Or failling that enough serviceable vehicles to go around the paramedics we actually do have, I and every other paramedic/police/member of public would be very grateful.
Yours hopefully,
TaffyMedic, Forty…. er…. something…..
“”that enough serviceable vehicles to go around the paramedics we actually do have, “”
Same problems…
Do you have kebab wrappers and Mcrubbish in your door pockets too – and nobody booking the vehicle up – and hiding dents by backing the vehicles tight up against the wall..and some wag ripping up loads of paper into tiny pieces and wedging them above the sun visor to shower you when you pull it down?
or sticking the hole punched paper into the air vents with the fans tunred to full so when you turn the ignition you suddenly find yourself in a whiteout (this one actually makes me laugh).
Cheers – I’ll get my revenge with this one
Colleagues in my office ‘loaded up’ my smart black city umbrella with the contents of several hole punch contraptions. Habitually, I used to leave it hanging on a hook in the office unless it looked like it might rain. After several dry months I took my umbrella out with me to a job down the Walworth Road. It started to rain as I approached a busy bus stop. I walked out into the road to pass the crowd, simultaneously opening up my brolly and placing it above my head. I was showered in hole punch cuttings. After a momentary shock and realization that I hadn’t suffered a CBRN attack I exclaimed, ‘Buggers!’ and burst into laughter to the bemusement of all waiting on the bus.
Taffy stop being lazy and expecting to have a car and take a leaf out of Ben Fordes book and get on your mountainbike http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23878566-bicycle-paramedics-save-lives-and-a-lot-of-money-for-nhs.do
I know Ben and he is a good lad although he should have had a shave for this article scruffy git. And don’t say that you have a massive area to cover that is just defeatist! only joking but I bet your bosses are considering it.
Somebody somewhere in an office will be thinking ‘yes we have 100s of rural square miles to cover, very hilly as well; however, why dont we have PSCOs/PCs/paramedics/firemen(?) on bikes. Think of the money we will save on petrol!!’
Lies, damned lies and statistics – nothing changes.
I am sure many of us joined the police because we wanted a bit of excitement – a job that would get the adrenaline pumping. Also because we wanted to help people by sorting out the bullies and scum bags in society.
Why can’t they realise that quality is better than quantity. I am sure we’ve all seen those officers who could do more in a few hours than others do in an eight hour shift. It’s the doers that SMT need to keep, those who walk the walk and not just talk the talk.
For the sake of the rest of us, don’t give up because of all the sycopahantic buffoons in senior management. Keep on regardless.
Cut down on Police man power, how, just keep all the perps locked up for the full and MAX[imum] term. Stop releasing them, to be such darling little recidivists, they want to go back, do they not—- or why else keep on doing the same old. Stop these games on which Perp collects trips to the Palace of Justice , then gets a reward for being such a popular baddie.
Crime Pays because the Lawyers need the hand outs from Government and if every bad guy be kept in a 2×4 bunk , there4 would be no need for Lawyers.
Lawyers only needed for the innocent, why are allowed to con the JP’s.
Wrist Band has had it’s first outing this week. First person to ask what it was for was a Fed Rep. Following an explanation, Fed Rep left looking confused. Mind you, never seen that Fed Rep leave the station.
Bloody Hell – that is a depressing tale….
Guv,
The war has only just started!!
I’ve had mine on over a WEEK and no-one has even blinked at it.
*sigh*
Officers are now getting a bit confused at me looking at their wrists to see if they have a ‘Scrappy’ on. Or should it be a ‘ScraPolPled’??
Any other shorthand suggestions????? I was thinking of getting an Excel spreadsheet together to show the results…….. Wakes up from nightmare… SORRY
That’s the PolFed for you these days. Just listen to the language used by the chairman and his ‘SMT’ – they speak the same lingo as real ACPO SMT. Just like our political parties – there’s no real difference anymore.
Might have to get an ex-Cardinal to do the job, there’s a German geezder looking for a job having been sacked for telling the truth – which doesn’t seem right given the organisation he used to work for, then again, in view of the paedo-priest scandal maybe it does!
Modern life is so confusing.
Time for the lovely Theresa to start kicking some ACPO arse?
Am still waaaaaaaiting for mine…hurry up!!
The detections culture continues to grip my farce. At least two mangement meetings a day counting the same things, increasing attempts to disguise the number of officers involved in measuring the performance culture by changing the names of departments and forcing the perfomance measuring on apparntly front-line posts; and of course hiding the ‘abolished’ pledge’ in a new set of force’ standards’. the peldge ahs bee transferred word for word (‘cut and paste’) into these standards.
As one who has been forced to chase detections and double-check/ triple-check measurements already carried out by warranted colleagues and civvies in other departments, its all very depressing.
you must be Ruralshire
Erm, could be ,mine or the four bordering farces.
Must keep the brother in law, the printer wealthy.
The Computer was to cut down waste, not to generate more waste and waffle.
Our corrupt way to fiddle the figures for time to respond to emergency calls was simply to change from recording how long it took to arrive from the time when the member of the public rang in to now measuring how long it takes a unit to get there from being sent. So if you ring in to report burglars in your house and we don’t have anybody to send for 30 mins, and then take 14 mins to arrive when somebody is sent – 44 mins from your initial call – this is within target and all is good. This is simply ethically wrong and corrupt and makes me ashamed to be in the same organisation as these stupid bonehead supers.
The Party officials in China used to tell these sortof performance lies when it came to reporting fish catches.
Such progress was the only way to progress in The Party.
Then the UN proved that global fish stocks were lower than what was being reported as caught in China.
If only we had someone who could throw a bucket of cold reality over people to make them see that the Police (namely the superiors building their little empires) weren’t dealing with crime properly, but spending lots of money on shining arses on seats in offices to cook the books.
If only…
No never superiors, senior in rank but never superior. No one is superior to me except of course the wife!
I want promotion to sergeant cause I’m operationally sound and feel that I can now help newer officers to proactively police, investigate effectively and develop into better cops. Sadly, after a recent attempt at promotion, I haven’t get enough strategic awareness. Forgive me Chief Inspector street dodger (who rejected my application) but isn’t it the top brass like you who are out of touch with what the public want?
I’ve allowed police work to get in the way of my career. Meanwhile, it’s trainers, diversity advisors and council liaison officers who are able to ‘evidence’ competencies towards the next rank. Why aren’t the Federation shouting out from the rooftops? Oh, they’re street dodgers too!!!!
Sack spaghetti ranks – I had a disagreement with an indolent Inspector who gave himself the grand title of Area Commander (pause to vomit) in West Mercia Farce – at Kidderminster – in a Divisional meeting of staff and told him that the public wanted to see officers patrolling the streets.
His reply was, “Well the public need educating” !!!!!!
He’s the one that needs bloody educating.
Cheeky ba$t4rd.
Bloody hell. If you mean who i think you mean,I left the Division because of him and his square headed sidekick. Vermin of the highest order.
That’s very insulting for vermin!
Sadly they infect every farce.
Gary – yes and like alien invaders – they look like real people whilst sucking out lifebloods – and they’re taking over !
“We will require a strong, confident, properly trained and equipped police service ” said the head of the supers association.
I will remind my super of that when he says we cant have new cars any more because of cuts, and still have to use our 6 year old ragged out pieces of junk.
Hey, I just realized, isn’t OFFICE the place where a police OFFICEr is supposed to work?
Officer…. derived from Official?
But don’t be officious!
I dare not ask where a constable works then.
Just a quick question, has anyone pointed out that falsifying statistics is Fraud as per the Fraud Act 2006?
Has anyone considered that instead of simply resigning when they went to leave the force, arresting the superior who demands that the statistics are falsified instead (same result, more fun)?
I put on a previous log that when I joind West Mercia – they had 1,200 officers. Upon my reitirment they had 2,400 – PLUS C.S.Os. – PLUS an army of civilians who weren’t there when I joined.
We had full 24hr shifts at all of the stations on the Division with local Comms. rooms, cells at nearly all stations and it worked fairly well.
Now it’s been ‘fixed’ we have many rural stations with NO cover, freebie civilian counter staff (part time) and cities like Worcester who can only muster 5 pcs to cover night shifts for the WHOLE city at weekends (and that is not so rare!).
Shove that up your statistics ACPO ranks.
As a senior manager said to us recently: “If we don`t use measures how will we know if we`re doing a good job?”
What he meant was: “If we don`t reduce every aspect of what we do to a statistic, how can we prove we`re doing a good job?”
What he was thinking was: “If I can come up with some numbers that make it appear that my team is meeting some arbitrary targets it will reflect well on me and I can get promoted the hell out of here with a pay rise.”
I don`t need stats to tell me I`m doing a good job, and I certainly don`t need a manager to force me to collate stats on my ‘performance’ in place of delivering the work I`m employed to do.
There ain`t no more more money so the stats won`t be used as evidence for my pay rise, they won`t be used to determine if we need more staff, they have no purpose that benefits me.
Statistics and arbitrary targets are not the only way to improve performance. Simples.
As someone once said to me, “Statistics are like a lamp-post to a drunk man – more for leaning on than for illumination”.
Anyway, everybody knows 99.8% of all statistics are made up.
If you torture statistics for long enough they will confess to anything…
I remember when I was an Acting Inspector, watching a senior PC (now retired) having a row with a Sergeant who had attempted to explain the value of doing paragraphs of endless updates on Tasking system to ‘answer’ the patrol strategy in terms of which streets were patrolled and precisely when …..
The sergeant was losing badly and said that he would have hoped a PC of such seniority would remember that we were in a disciplined organisation. The PC said, … ok, the PC shouted:
“Sergeant, to be honest, you ARE going to have to discipline me because if you want to know whether I am patrolling the fucking High Street at 10 o’clock, you should stop counting things and shift your arse from behind your desk. If YOU patrolled the High Street for just 10 fucking minutes, you’d either see me there or you wouldn’t, then you can fill it in your fucking self.” ….. and then he went off to patrol the High Street.
Now he’s my hero too !
Respect…
Brilliant.
Class.
Good skills!
I work for the civil service. We are about to face cuts. It will make virtually no difference to the service we provide. When people where moaning about the cuts today I said this.
If I was to ask every employee to name five people who they think are dead wood I can guarantee that the vast majority of them would name the same five people.
Sadly they should have been binned years ago, but never were.
I am sure that most of you, if you admit it could do the same in each of the nicks you work in.
The first thing I would get rid of is PCSOs reassuring every complainant that phones in with a crime. That is old news, they can get a call from HQ making sure everything is alright and that will allow PCSOs to go and prevent future crimes.
Also, retrain a third of all PCSOs and make them into interview teams. Why have the most expensive officer in custody and the cheaper officer out on the street. The public want warranted officers out on the streets.
PCs should be out on the streets fighting crime, by dealing with the public, arresting offenders and then straight back out on the streets doing what they are best at. The rest can be done with civies; burglary investigators, auto crime investigators, statement takers, file preparers, custody process etc.
It’s not hard, just some common sense is required!!!!!!!!
Reagrding your ideas Steve.
1) Our PCSO’s hate walking (apparently they were issued with boots not suitable for walking).
2) Most ring the aggrieved to check they’re ok rather than visit.
3) If the community car is unavailable they simply cannot get to their designated patrol area by any other means. Despite free bus service, two feet, asking a colleague for a lift.
So as they are attached to the station they may as well do something useful within it.
*There are a couple who do thir job very well unfortunately it appears beyond most.
Can’t tar all with the same brush.
Mine are allocated, and good at, the following-
Field intel officer
Chis handler of community types
Crime prevention officer
ID everyone from 100ft away person
And all make fine tea.
I can only describe you as lucky lucky lucky
About time we cleared out HQ and all the other ivory towers of officers…
No need for senior officers to complete this task, I’ll do it for them, just give me a list of every officer, their role title and a big red crayon.
Reckon I can save a few mil and put a load back on the streets
Agreed … I still can’t work out why we’ve got uniformed inspectors at HQ, supervising precisely no-one, who are being paid £55,000 a year with their rent allowance in order to colour things in. Sergeants as well … I reckon there’s an HQ department I’m thinking about, where we’ve got £750,000 a year being paid out for I’m not sure what.
They’ll be the ones ‘promoted’ sideways ‘cos they’re sooooo useless that they can’t even fit in with their SMTs on Division!!!!
can we go back to when i joined in 1988 please,
All statements and files handwritten (apart from antecedents which had to be typed – on typewriters)
a shift for the borough
1 x Insp
5 Sgts
45 x PC’s
earlies lates and nights
uniformed crime squad of a sgt and 5 working plain clothes and with aspirations to become a D.
CID
the job got done no need for performance staff, rostering departments as all done by the sgts, as well as taking turns in custody
Now I have a sector response team of 9, (5 sectors on Borough, but loads of NPT’s ) very rarely get away from the computer or fulfilling some audit teams requests, and responding to the non compliance unit as to why i havent forwarded all the mileage sheets this week – cos I still have to attend specific incidents and deal with then fallout from theses incidents you 2 bob bunch of …….. oh and why it takes more than 20 mins to get to an immediate x amount of time, cos we have less staff, and vehicles simple, didn’t need an analyst to tell you that did it.
I think that was when we were a Force it all changed when we became a Service so in two words ‘NO CHANCE”
‘Good’ time saver in my force was to start the response time from when the relevant control room receives the callcard from the call takers and NOT when the MOP first rang in.
Just plain fiddling the figures.
The problem here, is that the Chief Constables are not properly held to account for their activity. I’ve sat in various PA meetings watching ACPO spin and peddle their wares, doing the Jedi mind trick on the hapless PA who are often just too impressed by ACPO to think dispassionately about the nonsense spouted.
I like this idea of the Star Chamber, where various Secretaries of State have to attend to convince the Chancellor and others of their plans. Maybe Chief Constables should be subjected to similar – not at liberty to cut frontline staff, without making it absolutely plain that they’ve cut everything else, including:
1. Superintendents’ car-leasing schemes.
2. One ACC
3. Several members of the Superintendents’ Association
4. Very many, many jobs which involve counting things.
I can’t help but think that smaller forces need to be abolished. Why is Warwickshire a police force with a population of 500,000, but Worcestershire is not when it has a similar population? … there’s a shit load of ACPO and Superintendents’ Association members to axe without really thinking hard. Just merge them with another Force, likewise Dorset, likewise Gloucestershire, likewise Cumbria, etc., etc..
I’ve been talking to a HR person about where the axe will fall. I predict the next 12 months will see the following;
All the joint funded PCSO’s being made redundant. A quarter of admin. staff losing their jobs. Anyone on the 30+ scheme being finished. Any Police Officer with 28+ years service being offered voluntary redundancy. All the fleet mechanics losing their jobs (car + service contacts from manufacturers). Air support / dogs / firearms / horses & traffic being merged between forces. Finally, our pensions being f**ked.
The following will not be affected; company cars for the SMT, HPDS idiots being promoted and the bonus culture for ACPO ranks.
Touch my pension and prepare for war.
I’d sooner give up my pint. And thats saying something.
count me in.
And me. Arses.
Look at this unbelieveable bullshit:
http://www.policeoracle.com/news/%E2%80%98Cut-ACPO-Numbers%E2%80%99-Say-Superintendents_26570.html
“The President suggested that having more Chief Superintendents instead of ACPO ranks would help save money and retain important front line capabilities.”
Who do these people think they’re kidding? YCMIU.
Deck chairs? Titanic?
I like ACPO. But I also like the Supt’s Association.
But which is best?
There’s only one way to find out…..
FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Surely they’d just sit there and try to talk each other to death?
On second thoughts… that’s still a win in my book
Only if there are two rules 1) no defending, pure aggression only 2) each combatant is armed with at least one implement with some form of sharp edge or spike.
I listened patiently to a training session today at work when a group of officers and PCSOs ‘brainstormed’ some ideas about how to solve an example of ASB/minor damage…
The ideas were diverse.
They ranged from: ‘cocoon watch’ to ‘tactical’… in all there were about 10.
The trainer then asked if there were any more… I raised my hand…
‘Yes PC Shijuro?’
‘I know it’s a radical idea, but… we could arrest the person doing the damage… we being the Police and all.’
Not one person had mentioned this option-including an inspector, a sarge and an A/ps…
Love it.
LOL,
You radical you.
Off to the re-education camp for you my friend!
cocon watch was mentioned in my little meeting today, what the ferk is it?
‘Cocoon watch’ is a term to describe what you and I would call ‘asking the neighbours to watch out for a vulnerable person’….
I think it was called living in a community that cares once upon a time…
I have heard it all now, what a load of bollox
I’m not sure that Cocoon is politically correct!
Did one of them say solve it through mediation or restorative justice? Please say they did. Love it when they over think an idea. Had one the other day with a probie and a two year PC, went to a domestic and on getting into the house they saw a bloke at the top of the stairs holding a knife. What they did was ask him to put the knife down, come outside and then one of them proceeded to talk to him as a WITNESS!!!!! FFS, I arrived on my tod in the van to find the 5 foot nothing probie female officer on her own with what was clearly the offender chatting away. This guy was 6’3″ and built like a professional body builder, i’m no shrinking violet but he was big. I quickly asked to see his hands and following clunk-click got him in the van. Spolke to the male PC after this and he said that his main concern was for the woman in the house and he thought the probie could handle the bloke!!!!!! No call for backup or anything else, just left her with him.
Oh yes… and making it a ‘critical incident…’
lol
Bell the cat Aesop;
we are not allowed to use the term ‘brainstorm’ in Ruralshire.
Quite right. Boardblasting it is…..
Black- boardblasting?
LOL ….
That’s because it would exclude so many supervisory staff!
I forgot… it’s upseting to people with Epilespsy…
I am not sure how, I could see how:
‘having an eppi’;
‘having/had a fit’;
‘mad as a fitting dog’; etc…
would upset… but …
why brainstorm is frowned upon… is a mystery to me…
Lol
This has really rung a bell for me today as I was summoned to a “meeting” at a nick. I was suprised by this as I dont generally get asked to such things as I swear and say things of an unsavoury nature. I am more than happy with this state of affairs as I did not join this job to go to bloody meetings.
I arrive at the nick and ask which office I need to go to as the office area is a strange land inhabited by strange beings (I know the location of custody tho). I then ask why I am required, “well front row, we have an emerging crime series and we need your team to assist” not a problem just tell me times and places and we will crack on.
Now the meeting, it had a chair, the local DI and fifteen other people including myself. Sixteen people in a room to discuss an emerging crime series only two of us in uniform, shift had 5 officers that day covering a very large patch. I will not bore you with the details of the hour and a half of meeting but it boiled down to this…
of the sixteen people in the room 14 being police officers only THREE including myself will actually be outside the nick trying to catch the criminals. I realise not all police work is out of the office stuff but FFS surely the pyramid is the wrong way up.
Of my contribution, I called the offenders “shits” asked for an overtime code for my team and had my scrap the pledge wristband on my PR. Hopefully I have done enough that they wont ask me back and just request a duty rosta for patrols
frh
I reckon your contribution sounds spot on.
One of the happiest days of my working life was when I was sent a member of our SMT to shadow me on a “back to the floor day”. Obviously it was purely coincidental that all the appointments I had that day were were the most “challenging” punters…
One of my personal faves is attending a high level meeting (snr social serv, probation etc) and hearing my opposite number inform the meeting the nominal we were discussing had made thousands of telephone calls to his victim since his release from prison.
A DCI (yes a detective chief inspector) looked me straight in the face and asked:
‘DC Shijuro, do you think we have a power to seize his ‘phone?’
I laughed, as I honestly thought he was blagging me…
He looked angry, ‘It’s no laughing matter, Shijuro’
I adjusted attitude and said, ‘I should think so sir…’
Thats what you are up against…
Well there’s a certian C.I. at Worcester who when Inspector at another Division intervened on a message log concerning a bobby who’d been called to deal with a complaint of someone dumping rubbish in a hired skip.
The bobby and controller agreed that it was a civil matter and there were no criminal offences and this budding SMT member piped up on the log that there was indeed a criminal matter – being “Theft of space” !!!!
Waste of space also comes to mind!
Are you certain that dumping your rubbish in someone else’s hired skip is not a criminal offence?
http://www.mansfield.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3391
Agent ZigZag – Dumping waste in someone else’s builder’s skip is an offence under Section 33(6) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (As amended) – This sort of thing was highlighted in my 1980 issue of the Police Promotion Manual….it was then under Section 2(1)(B) of Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act 1978.
You’ll be glad to know that nowadays this sort of occurrence should be passed to your local authority to deal with – Blooming Chief Inspectors don’t know it all……theft of space indeed. Hasn’t he heard of the Interpretation of the Statutes Act?
I’ll bet you 10-1 that it’s the frontliners who will suffer in the end though.
The Chief Supt is very very wrong these days with the line ” “anyone can fight crime Inspector Gadget; I need someone who can deliver PERFORMANCE”.”
Anyone nowadays can produce graphs, charts and statistics to show they can deliver performance, very few are out there fighting crime”
Without a doubt we’ll end up over a barrel.
1. frontline to suffer the worst as ANY cut backs will have a huge impact. Shifts can hardly cope at the moment.
2. Overtime to go, meaning handovers galore and jobs piling up as no one left to do them.
3. Pensions to be buggered about with. And with the Home Secretary today warning that any reforms must include pay and conditions, then I’m getting a bit jittery about our pay. We’ll be salaried before we know it and kept at work till we drop.
And there is fupp all we can do about it.
I’m sick of hearing all this crap on the TV about how we do nothing, and what we do is wrong, and seeing the Daily Wail berate the Police as if we’re some kind of lazy good for nothing bullies.
Policing is not like any other job. It deserves better treatment than it’s going to get.
Society gets the Police Force it deserves. At this rate I will start thinking that society doesn’t deserve us, the majority of us, who with the best intentions in the world are struggling to provide a service we care about. I’m not alone in this job when i say that I’ve been assaulted, my family threatened because of what I do, worked god knows how many hours for nothing, had to cancel days out and family functions, all at short notice. Few other jobs accept this as part and parcel of everyday life. We do, and that’s why we’re different and deserve to be treated as such.
I’m just so pleased I’ve not got 35 years to go in this job.
Other than that everything’s fine !
I have got my ‘I’ve caught you speeding very very fast’ files (ie. much too fast for a fixed penalty notice) down to three sheets of paper: MG1 (which I also add the motorist’s address and driving licence number), my statement (which is always one page) and a blank sheet of paper upon which I type what I want someone from somewhere or other to put on the summons. It is not difficult. If anyone from the Home Office wants to have a look at them then please give me a call. Perhaps the concept could be used in lots of other cases for a defendants first appearance. Also, I don’t have any targets for this sort of thing as I’m not a traffic officer. I just take the speed gun out with me sometimes because I know that there are a few roads where children cycle to school, where people walk their dogs in the morning and where the people who get up late for work drive along too fast. No complaints in the first place, no priorities or tasking, no briefing, no risk assessments, no management invented statistical return to complete – just me realising what I have got to do and occasionally going out and doing it. My god . . . . police work really could be that simple
As for arriving at calls promptly. I do my best. But it has dawned on me that sometimes the time it takes to actually get the incident under control varies. I am sure that’s what the public wants. They don’t want us to measure when the first lone PC gets to the incident. They actually want the problem to be sorted out (eg. the pub fight to stop). Also, I think that the public’s clock starts when he/she dials 999. It is not: after they have told their story to a call taker, after the call taker has put the incident on the computer, after the dispatcher has read the incident log, after the dispatcher has found a unit who is free to send, after the unit has said they will go and after the dispatcher has then pressed a button to start ‘our clock’ to measure how long the unit takes to get there.
@EAC top post. Obviously far too full of common sense fir the powers that be to pay any attention.
I can remember a short golden period when we had a thick card file cover (this contained enough room on all four sides to put defendants details and brief summary for court etc. Inside victim statement and previous – nothing else. It was magic then along came the MG forms………….
“It comes after the Police Federation predicted it would be “Christmas for criminals” if 25% budget cuts go ahead, leading to the loss of up to 40,000 officers and making it “inevitable” that crime would rise.
But Mrs May dismissed the concerns as “pure speculation”, saying: “Lower budgets do not automatically have to mean lower police numbers.
“The front line should be the last place you should look to make savings, not the first.”
And she added that more officers will not lead to less crime if their time is spent on the “pointless tasks of form-filling and chasing targets”.
“As any experienced senior police officer will confirm, the effectiveness of a police force depends not primarily on the absolute number of police officers in the force but the way those officers are used,” she said.
“The key to success is good management and leadership.” ”
Any comments on the above ? (!)
we are not allowed Christmas in Ruralshire.
Yes – she also said to scrap the Pledge, but that didn’t happen either!
“As any experienced senior police officer will confirm, the effectiveness of a police force depends not primarily on the absolute number of police officers in the force but the way those officers are used” -
Any reader of Sun Tzu on this blog will recognise the above words, except just slightly modified to fit around a different subject. Fair play to Mrs May if she is a fan of Sun Tzu.
Hope this just not another Blair like statement “tough on crime, tough on the cause of crime”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312242/Theresa-May-tells-police-make-cuts-safely-riot-warning.html
A very confused member of the public here.
Okay, so there used to be goverment imposed targets for the police to meet. This generated statistics that the goverment could wave in front of the public to pretend that they were actually accomplishing something, and the senior police got nice pats on the heads from the goverment, and presumably whatever other incentives the goverment dangled in front of them to encourage them to meet their stupid quotas. These targets have now been abolished, to unbind the police from the shackles of bureaucracy so they can actually, you know, do their job. However, the senior police have replaced these with their own targets and quotas.
So, here is my question. Why? To what purpose? What possible benefit can be senior police get from these targets? They can’t get any kudos from the goverment, since their not supposed to be doing this in the first place. They wont get any respect from the public, because we’ve been onto to the detections racket for some time, and we’re not impressed. So what on Earth is the point? Are they just doing this out of habit? Have they somehow missed the whole ” targets are so last year” memo? And if the police can just so easily ignore goverment pronouncments, why did they buy adopt the target culture in the first place. Come to think of it, if the police can ignore the home office so easily, just what is the relationship between the home office and the police? I am suddenly not so sure I understand the power structure and realationship between police and goverment as I thought I did. Could someone enlighten me, becaused this seems like a blatantly insane situation.
Welcome to our world…
“So, here is my question. Why? To what purpose?”
The Police have the problem of disposing of a huge Socialist bureaucracy overnight. There are Superintendents, Chief Inspectors and the like in these bureaucracies who will have to be redeployed – and there are no jobs for them.
The performance culture extends to the Police Authorities who want “feedback” on police performance to “monitor” and “audit” things… Those in the performance monitoring systems can assist their promotion opportunities by continuing to pedal and “cascade” this performance crap.
A whole empire exists in every Police Force packed with batallions of trenchdodgers. Destroying these empires and redeploying troops to the frontline will only be achieved if the cash flow is severley cut.
we do not understand this either – it would have been a golden opportunity to get rid of central targets – I don’t understand how they can ignore the Home Secretary, especially since they told us we had to do everything the Home Sec said under Labour. This is why I produced the wristbands.
Today’s Police Farce is like one big Melting Pot.
Those at the bottom get burned and the dross gathers at the top!
Profound, hilarious and insightful … in equal measure. I’ll be stealing that one, if it’s OK with you?
Inspector – As I said once before – you are my hero and I’m honoured to provide you with any ammunition that I can !
Even though you take this p*ss because you claim I don’t go out enough?! LOL … thanks!
We recently had a meeting with the top brass, all response had to attend on duty, without exception, there was a register to make sure we did.
He then spoke for half an hour about how bad we were and how good and generally talked about nothing, there was an inspector on hand to press the power-point advance button for him, very important role.
It had been made very clear that there would be no questions and no interruptions for anything. many an eyebrow raised when he said things which were blatantly untrue and quite scary.
So, the reason performance targets persist is because the top brass have deluded themselves into believing that they generate actual, useful data on police performance, coupled with the fact that the people doing the recording don’t want to go out and do real work? Huh, that’s kinda depressing.
So, my next question; if or when Theresa May realizes that many police forces are completely ignoring her statements on targets, what can she do about it? Does the Home Office have actual hiring and firing power over police chiefs, or is she restricted to just wagging her finger at uncooperative forces while saying “stop that right now!”, Kinda like how the courts behave with repeat offenders.
Dear Sack Spaghetti, your post really hit a nerve with me. You are in exactly the same position as I am. I have a high arrest rate,excellent sick record and have trained lots of new probationers and specials.I have struggled to get the evidence for promotion as I dont give a toss about opening fetes and playing ping-pong down the local mosque.
I fear for the future when I see totally unsuitable Pc’s getting promoted over me,ones who have desk-hopped to get a full CV or been in the training unit far too long.
Unfortunately grumpy experienced officers like me are usually just patronised by youngsters with two years service who drive like lunatics to calls and then dont know what to do when they get there (apart from calling for assistance because they have wound up the scum with their attitude).
Excellent post as always Insp G
You have failed the lesson of success or how to get honors , repeat after me, “Yes Sir, Yes sire, YES Sir, Three bags* full, Madam/sir.
* effluent
Only those that slither in the party line gets the beemer.
For what it’s worth, this post alone – your insightful summary of the world around around – qualifies you for supervisory rank and you’d get it from me on the strength of this.
We have the same problem. I have a target to “sanction” x number of benefit cheats. It matters not if they are all made up of those who fail to tell us of a minor change which is picked up by data matching and results in an overpayment of a few hundred quid or someone who has been screwing the system for years to the tune of tens of thousands. As long as the powers that be continue to chase what are in essence meaningless targets nearly all of the public sector will remain paralysed with resources being concentrate on bollox targets and not on dealing with what the service is actually there to do.
Personally I would welcome the freedom to spend my time catching those that actually need time and effort and are abusing all of our taxes rather than embark on a box ticking exercise.
I am a firm believer we should be adhering to Peel’s 9 principles of Policing, and that alone; the most relevant currently is;
Principle #9: The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
I pointed out these to a local Super, who looked very confused. I also tend to mention them on ‘indoctrination’, sorry I meant ‘training’ days. Probably the reason training staff cry when I turn up.
We appear in our farce to have reverted to the detections culture, lot’s of panic as we are ‘below target’ on this that and the other. When asked my suggestion to address this apparently ‘nick villains’ is not the right answer!
“‘indoctrination’, sorry I meant ‘training’ ”
Do you not mean Brainwashing or regurgitation of officious cud.
Spending some time trying to recover the 60-billion or so lost by tax evasion or fraud may be a good idea.
OOpps.
Sorry.
Bad idea.
The time is spent, just not as wisely as it could be!
What is so ‘interesting’ about the future is the fact that certain ranks, above a certain rank, will fight tooth and nail to prevent the structures we have in place at the moment being swept away and something resembling a ‘public focused’ policing model (I swallowed a wank-speak dictionary) coming into being. If Ch Supt rank is heading for the shredder – only my own suggestion, and not just that rank either – you can bet they’re not going to go without a fight.
I get so ANGRY when I see the twisting, turning, posturing and selfish interpretation of ‘public service’ my senior officers. You can try to deliver a half decent service to the public, try and build the confidence of the public that not all cops are lazy, self-indulgent, on the take, work-shy, doughnut eaters that couldn’t give a monkeys whether you’ve had your house broken into or not, and then someone further up the food chain is more interested in the next glossy pamphlet TELLING everyone how good we are, rather than actually supporting the cops to DO a good job.
Something akin to Armageddon is required to get us back to what we should be doing – actually SERVING the public and not satisfying the ever hungry portfolio building process (although it will be like rats scrambling for the life boats soon given the slimmed down versions of Forces that might exist soon, and the lack of promoted posts higher up), or some pseudo-political dream that some senior individuals might hold.
I’m way of topic, but once I start on this reason seems to disappear. You read media reporting of the fact No 10 went ballistic at the recent outpourings from the Supts Association, and you just know that they will take us all down with them, rather than stand up and be counted alone.
This is F****ing disgusting!! and beyond words
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-11326047
And this surprises you, why? Why would we acknowledge the destruction of this mans working and personal life and provide accordingly? Yet, hey, what do you need to do to get council tax, housing, et al benefits? It really is a twisted sense of priorities.
I seem to remember a TA squaddie who got shot several times in Afghan, and won the MC, who can’t walk without a stick got a joke payment too.
These people are the defenders of our nation, and we should take appropriate care of them.
I’m not surprised just disgusted. I think we know the answer to the rest of your post!
Yes, it is disgusting.
Apparently it applies to all blind people at present. The DLA system is riddled with such travesties.
Fortunately after many years of campaigning, Pc David Rathband and all other blind people will finally be eligible for the higher rate of DLA mobility from April 2011.
In my public sector day job somebody on high has decided that as many persons do a particular type of training as possible.
However some box ticker forgot the following:
1. They will never ever put the training to practical use.
2. They will forget everything taught because they will never ever put the training to practical use.
3. They will fail the assessment. Then fail it again, and again, because they will never ever put the training to practical use.
4. It costs money to train somebody who will never ever put the training to practical use.
5. Myself and my colleagues are not full time trainers; we are volunteers who teach new students every now and again. Therefore it is a waste of resources.
6. The funding to train those who already have the basic level of skill to the higher level has been cut. So, whilst more people WILL HAVE BEEN TRAINED TO ATTAIN THE BASICS (note I say have been trained to and not actually attained), those that are already capable and want to ‘develop’ have to wait months before a place is available.
The people who decided on this utterly useless waste of time have never ever done a front line job and do nothing but produce statistics.
My god. Are you speaking at the Tory conference gadget? Sounds to me like Andy coulson wrote this piece. You will not be so enthusiastic when the Tories take away your pension. You’re naive. And no I don’t work in an office.
You don’t have to agree with George Osbourne’s plans for our pay and pensions to agree with Theresa May’s more sensible ideas about the senior brass and their wicked ways.
wow thanks for this post
Thanks Admin i like you 
That’s right – blame the cleaner!
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/8393744.Drunk_teen_found_in_police_station_locker_room/
JOBS FOR THE BOYS
As if we needed any more evidence that the ACPO ranks are a self perpetuating, self serving, self protecting bunch of autocrats whose sole purpose in life is to preserve their empires along comes this little gem . . .
http://www.npia.police.uk/en/16507.htm
So, Peter Neyroud, the Chief Constable, former CEO of the NPIA has landed on his feet (again!)
Mr Neyroud you may remember hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons earlier this year…..
LATEST TOP COP SAILING THE GRAVY BOAT OF LUXURY AT THE TAXPAYERS EXPENSE
http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.com/2010/01/national-police-improvement-agency-yet.html
Mr Neyroud was the £195,000 a year boss of the NPIA whose employment package included a Westminster apartment — in a block that has a gym, pool, sauna and valet parking — within walking distance of the agency offices. It cost the taxpayer £23,200 in 2008-09. (Despite living within commuting distance of the office).
As a perk of the job, the flat has an income tax demand of approximately £9,000 a year, which the NPIA confirmed it has paid for a number of years. Sources from Revenue & Customs described the situation as “unusual” and pointed out that if the NPIA was paying Mr Neyroud’s tax bill that amounted to another perk, which was also liable to tax.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the campaign group, the Taxpayers’ Alliance condemned the package saying “It is appalling that this quango is spending taxpayers’ money on swanky accommodation for their top brass while frontline policing struggles to get the job done on limited resources. The NPIA shouldn’t be handing out these generous benefits at all, and it certainly shouldn’t be trying to cover the cost of tax on them as well. Taxpayers and ordinary police officers are incredibly frustrated by this kind of waste.”
The NPIA spendt £19 million a year on consultants and employed an external contractor as its director of resources, paying him £296,000 — including accommodation costs — not a bad little number for seven months work.
The Agency senior managers faced criticism before. They shared £82,000 in bonuses in 2008-09 and earlier this year Peter Holland, its chairman, claimed £46,000 expenses in two years — including £2,800 on meals at the RAC Club in Pall Mall.
A few months after stories about his lavish perks, and a few months before the new government started to review the existence of his fiefdom, Neyroud conveniently announced his intention to step down as chief executive of the NPIA.
Within days of Neyroud announcing his departure from the NPIA, the Chairman, Peter Holland also announced that he would leave in September. All a bit convenient. At best, suspiciously coincidental to say the least, to lose two key figures from the top of an organisation in the immediate aftermath of a General Election bringing in a Government committed to slashing profligate Quangos.
SO, HAVING READ ALL OF THAT, CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS? …….
Chief Constable Peter Neyroud is to carry out a fundamental review into the delivery of police leadership and training functions at the request of Home Secretary Theresa May.
http://www.npia.police.uk/en/16507.htm
On Linked In Neyroud has posted the following, inviting assistance from contributors …..
“I have been asked by the Home Secretary to carry out a ‘fundamental review of the current approach to police leadership and training’ in order to align it with the Government’s vision for policing.
The review will also examine the proposals to put a ‘repositioned ACPO’ in charge of police leadership and training, frameworks for assessment, how to transition functions required from the NPIA to future structures and much more: I am interested in members thoughts but particularly supported by evidence rather than just opinion”.
Neyrouds NPIA website entry defines leadership in the police as:
“Improving operational performance and service delivery through effective leadership at all ranks and grades”
A major obstruction to the delivery of the more troops back to the streets are the ACPO ranks trying to protect the bureacratic, gravy train, performance culture empires they have spent years assembling. They have built a disproportionate top heavy rank structure that serves and protects themselves first. This was witnessed with the recent ACPO secret document with proposals to slash frontline pay, overrtime and pensions without consulting the rank and file representatives.
Neyrouds big idea is that all new police recuits should be qualified to degree standard. This will surely create even more despondency and further decimate frontline morale. Yet more over qualified starters who will not want to stay on the frontline, each striving for leadership roles.
This suggests they are looking to swell the ACPO and SMT ranks still further, rather than commit the resource to where it’s needed, at the coal face.
And now they’ve appointed the grand master of box ticking, the wizard of hair brained schemes, the man many would suggest is least qualified or deserving to conduct a review of police leadership to define the way forward.
Many people like what Theresa May says she wants to achieve, but true reform wont be achieved through impressive rhetoric. What she DOES must also be examined.
If she is behind this appointment, placing this bloke in a position of influence over police leadership, we must ask if the first cracks are beginning to appear in her choice of reform pioneers.
They just don’t get it yet do they?
Inspector Gadget, I believe you. But as a member of the public I have to tell you that the message of this, and other police blogs, is simply not getting through.
The mantras, ‘cuts mean less police on the streets’, and, ‘we don’t have enough police officers’, have been repeated so often and by so many that they are taken as truth. The politicians and your senior police officers have done a great job in getting this message across.
Where are the smoking guns that prove them wrong?
There must be thousands and thousands of working police officers who not only know this to be wrong (as you show) but have the PROOF. You keep bleakly mentioning you have stashed away incriminating e-mails as ‘protection’. I’m afraid the general public are simply never going to hear about this story – let alone listen and believe – until a whistleblower emerges.
It wasn’t the knowledge of the MPs expenses that brought them down, it was the brave individual who walked out with a memory stick full of the incriminating data.
When I tell people I know the things I read on your and other blogs they simply looked bemused. It doesn’t fit in with the narrative that the politicians and senior police officers have constructed.
I know no police officer wants to destroy their career by coming forward, but surely somebody on the verge of retirement, with a guaranteed pension, could do so. Or failing that couldn’t all be uploaded to some secure server somewhere like the Climate Gate data.
Just a thought.
In respnse to Stuck-Record,’s comments on whislteblowing. If scheme in the police is anything like it is in my current job with a local authority, I wouldn’t bother.
After 30 years in the police, I naively believed that when I made a complaint about a bullying line manager, that there might be some justice. However despite considerable tangible evidence, nothing happened to the guy (A man who was required to resign as a P.c. in an East Midlands Police Force)
He had put letters after his name to show he had a particular qualification that he wasn’t entitled to. Surprisingly – with Data Protection etc – when I contacted the institute that deal with the awards, they had no record of him passing the necessary exams. They even provided me with correspondence to prove this.
The local authority complaints officer verifed this information, but the senior managers did nothing to the wrong doer and he is still a line manager. The only good thing is the line manager concerned avoids me like the plague (Oh by the way, he claimes to have been a police trainer).
Could it be that the same occurs nowadays in the police; as they say the devil looks after his own.
Theresa May….on the other hand she may not realise the true ills in policing and the rest of the Criminal Justice System – and indeed the whole public sector. There’s just too much bureaucracy, red tape and political correctness in the world – much of it dreamt up by sycophantic self serving senior managers who bamboozle the politicians with Orwellian double talk.
Stuck Record – or anyone else who can assist – I will gladly tell it as it is if I can be pointed in the best and most effective direction. IG – I would happily fire any bullets backed up with accurate details wherever would be most effective.
I have never been shy at coming forward ever since being pushed into biting back many years ago and now having just begun retirement I am in the prvileged position to speak from a credible standpoint.
I welcome any suggestions and/or point of contact should someone wish me to liaise with them.
Hotfuzz – I too would love to assist serving officers in firing the bullets, as I am also in the prvilaged position of being a retired police officer.
In my current role with a local authority, I work with the local police on a regular basis and get to hear of their woes. One example is the appalling shift system, that has been imposed on them. I believe it means officers only have one week end of in five.
A more family friendly system had been proposed, but for some crazy reason the Police Federation insisted that there should be a 70% approval from their members before the better system was adopted. In the event they got 69% voting in favour, so the system wasn’t accepted, so the Chief Constable imposed the current less family friendly shift system. Why the Federation didn’t accept a 51% vote nobody knows.
During my service with HM Forces, before I joined the police, I learnt from senior officers that if they looked after their troops, the rank and file would, more often than not, put themselves out for their C.O. Why can’t senior police officers see that this system works?
Stuck-Record…..I have no faith in the Daily Wail. If my current employers piss me off any more, I might just go to my M.P.
Senior officers in the local authority are breaking the law by not complying with a statutory duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and they are talking of neglecting their duty under the Highways Act 1980.
Because of a lack of funds, they are plotting not to repair roads and allow pot holes to go unfilled. They are speaking of just accepting insurance claims if they are submitted by the public for damage to vehicles – bloody idiots; that could cost them even more in the long run and even then the holes will eventually need to be repaired. If you think you’ve got problems with senior police officers, you should see senior local authority officers – they are real ‘Midland Bankers’
Which area do you work in? I need a new set of tyres, it’d be nice if an LA paid for them…
Hugh Janus, two words: Daily Mail. They would LOVE that story.
I saw a couple of P.C.S.O.s the other week, when they encountered some of the local pond life. The yobs started shouting obscenities at the P.C.S.O.s calling them ‘Plastic Police’ etc. Then one of the toe rags, who was a as pissed as a parrot, got on his motor cycle and started to rev the engine. When I asked if they could call for a police officer, I was told there were only two available for the town and both of them were committed on other tasks. What is the country coming to?
Theresa May shouldn’t be cutting the numbers of frontline police officers, she should be reviewing the numbers of back room staff there are. She also needs to fulfil the promise to cut bureaucracy and to get the CPS to provide a better service.
Same everywhere – sadly we are not the only public sector maligned by this madness.
Oh, and also – First!