Why we are howling

The Times yesterday summed up what many police officers see as the real reason for the Winsor report.

"The police are outraged by these reform plans. Good."

The comment article then goes on to bewail thick, fat policemen and the shocking culture of being paid for hours that are worked.

Winsor 2 essentially purports to do two things:

• Save a chunk of money.
• "Professionalise" the police service.

Unfortunately, Winsor can't quite decide which of these two things is the priority, and is thus full of contradictions.  The entry requirements to the police will be raised to include the need for three A-level passes, and direct entry will be permitted to certain ranks.  Yet the starting salary for police officers will be cut.  Just what kind of smart, ambitious A-level students are going to be encouraged to apply for the police under the new salary regime?

Winsor also advocates yearly fitness tests up to Chief Constable rank, with money to be saved by cutting the salaries of those who fail tests.  Does Winsor think that the best talented business and management minds - supposedly attracted to direct entry at inspector and superintendent level - are the same kind of people to thrive on annual fitness tests?  

You can't blame Winsor for wanting senior ranking officers to be fighting fit though.  After all, leaders throughout history have required the highest standards of health and fitness to do their jobs.  I mean, imagine the thought of a high-up Naval officer who can't do press-ups, or somebody in a wheelchair presuming to the role of President!

Other reforms are flawed too: on paper, the plans to stop paying full pay to those on restricted duties is sensible. But in practice a high proportion of people (in my experience) on restricted duties are on them temporarily, due to short-term injury, and cutting their pay for that period may force them out of the job.  And I wonder just what proportion of restricted officers is made up of pregnant women.  Does Winsor think that in the Twenty-First Century, you can get away with cutting a woman's pay because she falls pregnant?  I look forwards to the legal challenges ahead.

So when you really dig down through Winsor's proud claims of savings and professionalism, you find a mishmash of contradictions and flawed arguments.  Is it any wonder that police officers are seeing this as a direct attack?

 

Why are you wasting your time with that?  Send that dog to university immediately.







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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The Truth About Privatisation

Blandshire Constabulary currently pays a private company to pay a person to travel between custody suites totting up how many on a spreadsheet of about 100 performance indicators have been met on a random selection of 15 custody records.  The indicators include, among other things, whether or not the sergeant has correctly entered the postcode for the place of arrest, whether they were offered the "diversity box", and whether their rights were given and carried out.  

Our performance against these indicators is collated and submitted to Headquarters, where it finds its way into the books of the HMIC.  Since introducing the role of custody auditor (among others), Blandshire has shot up the ranks of police forces and stands to do pretty well in the next ranking lists.

This is a world where the entering of a postcode is given the same weight and importance as allowing a detained person access to a solicitor.  On the shifts I have done in custody, I have borne the wrath of the custody auditor more than once, as I repeatedly refuse to comply with five or six of the most pointless indicators.  I don't do this to be difficult (although the fact that it is seen as difficult is a source of constant pleasure).  No, I do it because there is a queue of officers with prisoners waiting to book them in and get back on the streets, and by skipping some of the more unnecessary steps I can book them into custody in half the time it takes a more procedurally-compliant sergeant.

Both myself and the custody auditor are, indirectly, paid and supplied for the benefit of Blandshire Constabulary.  So why is it that I can at a whim discard something that is the auditor's sole purpose to enforce, without any fear of more than a severe frown from my inspector?

The fact is, the auditor exists to enforce these indicators, to ensure Blandshire Constabulary is rated for the highly professional conduct of our custody suites.  (And believe me, compared to years gone by, they are highly, highly professional.) If one indicator is missed off one record, the private company employing the auditor is in breach of contract.  The breach carries a fine, and either the company will have to pay the fine, or the custody auditor will.

As a police sergeant, when it comes to any showdown between me and the establishment, my priority is to show I have adhered to the law, to the Codes of Practice, but above all to what was morally right and made sense at the time. 

There are some motivated and sensible civilians working for companies that have contracts with the police.  But when the proverbial shove encounters push, the private company employee may not fall back on his or her morality or commonsense.  He has no scope to wiggle around the Home Office Counting Rules, or to duck that week's assault detection target.  He can only comply, and comply.

Which answers the question, really, why some Chief Constables are so keen to promote the idea of privatised police services, including some elements of patrol.  After all, if it wasn't for those pesky patrol offices, Blandmore's local top dog might have a chance of meeting some of his targets this month.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The Kill that Keeps on Killing

PC David Rathband has been found dead at his home in Northumberland.

In 2010, the hunt for murderer Raoul Moat turned farcical when a faction of the public began coming out in his support.  The only reason for his faux-hero status was the attempt murder and blinding of PC Rathband, who struggled on with his injuries and founded the Blue Lamp Foundation, in support of criminally injured emergency services personnel.

In Blandshire Constabulary now, if you are injured on duty and can no longer work as effectively, the force's HR department will work hard and fast to get you off the pay-roll as quickly as they can.  This is part of the new sickness policy designed to save money, and it is boasted about on training courses to line managers.

My next royalty cheque will go to David's Blue Lamp Foundation.  You can buy a few copies here, or just make a donation.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

Not the Very Model of a Modern Force

It should come as no surprise to the public to hear that Blandshire Constabulary's current IT capability looks like something out of the late 90s.  The most technologically advanced bit of kit I use is my Airwave radio, and even that insists on bleeping for no reason when I try to transmit, and dropping out of contact with the mast when I am just about to arrest someone.

The main reason for our useless technology is of course money.  If three people bid for the contract to supply a bit of software, Blandshire will, without hesitation, opt for the cheapest solution, even if it doesn't work.  Which is why we have a duties system no one can understand, a custody system that crashes regularly, an unwieldy crime recording system and an intelligence system whereby I can ring Area Intelligence and get a different answer than if I phone Force Intelligence with the same question.  The only system that works reliably is the Incident Control System, and that appears to be based on MS-DOS.

But it isn't just the money.  There is a general attitude that we should not rely on technology too much, just in case.  Hence Metpol's response to the new Street Violence website.  They are opposed to people using it to report street robbery because an urgent response might be needed.  Which suggests either an inability or unwillingness to utilise the speed of computers.  In the Twenty-First Century, is it really impossible for a police force to act swiftly on receipt of a crime reported online?  Have they not seen the speed at which people can communicate via BBM?  I attended an assault the other day in which the victim, whilst being attacked, had BBM'd her friend - who was in the shop outside of which the attack took place - to tell her to call the police.  The friend was outside within 10 seconds, pulling the attacker away, and had already BBM'd someone else to call us.

There is also a ludicrously backward attitude to the internet and its use in the workplace.  Blandshire Constabulary has a Facebook page, of course. I can't tell you what's on it because I'm not allowed to log into Facebook at work.  Which means when a victim calls and says they've seen their robber bragging about his crime on Facebook, I have to go round to their house to look at the page.

I do wonder how much time the senior management must have on their hands, if they imagine that my response team spend their shift surfing Facebook and Twitter.  And I also wonder what possible harm it could cause if they were.  If they are going to publish inadvisable content, they'll do it when they get home anyway.

I am pleased to say that Blandshire remains one of the forces that has NOT banned access to mine or Inspector Gadget's blogs.  Mainly because most of my managers read them, and frequently quote from them unwittingly, I might add.

Yet we are sadly still some years away from touch-pad statement-writing or streaming CCTV onto a secure online website for Criminal Justice workers.  Instead, we cling to our paper files and audio cassettes, in the vain belief that our data has greater security and continuity therein.  

Which may be true in a few years, as I doubt there'll be many people left who understand hand-writing or actually have tape players.

PS - just realised my last post had not published for some reason, it's there now.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The Pryce of Public Image

There was something satisfying in the news that both Vicky Pryce and ex-husband Chris Huhne have been charged with perverting the course of justice.

Not because I think we should be wasting our time or the tax-payer's money on speeding points issued over eight years ago.  But because Miss Pryce took great pleasure in leaking to the media that she would "swear on oath" that he asked her to accept speeding points for her.  Yet at no stage in any of the Daily Mail articles I am ashamed to admit reading, did anyone point out that- er, doesn't that make her also guilty of some sort of crime?

Aside from that, perhaps I'm alone in thinking the entire trial is a pointless exercise.  It's not that I think people should go around being allowed to accept points on someone's behalf, or that in general criminals should get away with something just because it happened a decade ago.  But the combination of a fairly trivial non-recordable offence with a lie told by a wife to protect her husband from a small increase in insurance premium and the threat of a short driving ban, AND that it happened nearly a decade ago... I mean, really?  

The only thing that really justifies any sort of prosecution is Miss Pryce's attempt to use it to discredit and humiliate her MP husband.  I think most of us were probably thinking, if after years of marriage THAT is the only thing she can think of to make him look bad, the man is a saint.

Oh, how I will laugh if she is found guilty and he walks free.

 
Has the Crown Prosecution Service over-looked this vital clue?  It WAS her driving!







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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The Elusive Bobby on the Beat

Why is it you never hear MPs extolling the virtues of "doctors on the wards" or "firemen in their engines"?  It is accepted that as well as being seen quickly when you turn up at hospital, and having water sprayed on your house as soon as it catches fire, other factors come into play.  For example it's helpful if the doctors that treat you are trained in the latest equipment and medical knowledge, are awake enough to perform your surgery, and can be on standby for the life-threatening emergency that might walk in behind you.  And for the fire crews to arrive with working hoses, well-oiled teamwork and an experienced chief.

But it's easy for a politician to harp on about bobbies on the beat, because of programmes over the years like Dixon of Dock Green and The Bill, that frequently show officers stumbling across live crimes every five minutes they are on the street. And the Tories have been scoring political points off the idea for the last fifteen years.

David Davis, in 2007, laid into the then Labour Government for the fact that only 14% of officers' time was being spent "on the beat".  And now Nick Herbert (Policing Minister) is using the same argument to belittle Chief Constable Tony Melville's announcement that his Gloucestershire force is "on a cliff edge".

Still fits into his old stabbie... good man.

(Although that jacket looks suspiciously clean.)

Only last week the Chair of Greater Manchester's Police Federation wrote about being "stretched beyond capacity" and being "barely able to function".

Now a Chief Constable is saying the same things.  When a Chief goes on record and sounds the death knell of his own career, you should be afraid.  The residents of Cheltenham and Stroud will be quaking in their beds tonight.  That isn't undermining public confidence, it's telling the truth.

Police Minister Nick Herbert has trotted out the old excuse that it must be the Chief's fault if the money he has isn't going far enough.  Will Tony Melville invite the Home Office in to do better?  Just what exactly would Nick Herbert cut, if he was given the same budget?

Well, Theresa May says that policing is about cutting crime, "no more, no less".  So the first thing to go would be our response to missing persons and those self-harming or threatening suicide.  No longer will we deal with traffic collisions or close roads while firemen evacuate buildings.  We'll stop sectioning people barking at their own reflection on street corners, and ignore the request from Social Services to check on three vulnerable children because the mother's threatened to knock them out if they go round again.  We won't help scared victims collect their personal belongings so they can leave their violent partner, nor make those night-time visits on behalf of a doctor or coroner, with our hats in our hands.

And that's just the stuff that doesn't relate to crime.  I can't wait for Nick Herbert to get his big red pen on Gloucestershire's criminal justice departments, to see him announce just which tape summariser, file admin support worker and witness liaison officer can be done away with, and who is going to get convictions at court without them.

But more importantly than any of the above, will he cut those back office staff whose role is simply to massage crime figures and generate slews of pie charts, reports and policies?  Will he make good on his own rhetoric, and extinguish paperwork relating to risk aversion and the fear of litigation?

My guess, is that were Nick Herbert in any Chief Constable's position, in any force in the country, not only would he find himself unable to do any of the above, he wouldn't have the guts to do what Tony Melville has done, and put his neck on the block to make it public.

When will the next member of ACPO follow suit?  And who will be first to join PC Nick Manning in front of a disciplinary panel for it?

 

How many Chiefs feel unable, or unwilling, to speak up?

It's all very well to harp on about the sacrosanct front-line, but before Chiefs can make the cuts in the right places, there has to be fundamental change to the infrastructure holding it all up: the Criminal Justice System, Health and Safety, and the law itself.  There's no point in telling someone to run their car with eco-fuel, if none of the filling stations around them provide it.

Of course, most Chief Constables aren't talking about any of this.  They're just piling more and more work onto fewer and fewer people, and blaming their own staff if they can't bear the load.  Come on, ACPO, let's hear a few more of you clamouring for a better deal.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

The Curious Incident of the Blog in the Night-time

The revelation of celebrity hacking at the News of the World has opened a plethora of worm-cans, one of which has ultimately lead to a report by Elizabeth Filkin warning against the 'cosy' relationship between the press and the police.

As both a police officer and a type of journalist - albeit an unregulated, unedited type - this latest move is of interest, and suggests an imminent tightening of the net in regards to police blogging.  But the general public view is unclear.  There's a juxtaposition going on: the same people who bemoan the lack of information given by the police are also asking for us not to have close relationships with journalists.  The same voices crying out against hacker-gate are also calling for more freedom of the press.

So are we supposed to be giving information to journalists or not?

If you were to ask Blandshire Constabulary's media officer, the answer would be about as clear as mud.  What's more she'd have to write to the Chief Constable's Management Team before using the word 'mud', and to ensure the font size was not discriminating against anyone.  In the world of Twenty-First Century policing, we're very confused about the media.

And, as can be seen in the case of the blogger Nightjack, the media are very confused about us.  When The Times set out to 'out' Nightjack, on the spurious grounds that 'he might not have been a police officer (but was)', they seemed confused between the concepts of a corrupt police officer, a vigilante member of the public, and an anonymous source.  As a whistle-blower into the inner workings of the police, he should have been the latter.  As an independent journalist requiring no editor, or payment, they went for him the former.  And interestingly enough, this article suggests they actually outed him by way of computer hacking.

Perhaps all of the above is an indication that relations between the police and the media are a complete mess, and that we do need some form of guide-lines.  But if the result is a greater breakdown in communications, not only will it further harm the public image of the police, but it may actually damage our ability to handle a massive investigation such as the Soham murders, or a Madeleine McCann on British soil.  When it comes to the crunch and a child is missing presumed-about-to-be-murdered, a strong pre-existing relationship with the media is vital to ensure the right information is released or withheld.

The above is an extreme example, but there are day-to-day concerns too, and Elizabeth Filkin's report talks largely about senior officers, rather than the likes of me.  No doubt the reaction of Blandshire Constabulary, to my regular conversations with journalists and editors, would be one of horror.  But why should good media relations be the remit only of the highly-ranked?  Is a senior officer's lunch with a journalist any more or less corrupt than the neighbourhood bobby's coffee with a councillor?  Or my phone-call with Radio Five Live?  If the police is to truly connect with the media, and the public, we need to start giving more information, from a wider range of sources.  The era of Twitter is not that of the carefully-worded press release, but the off-the-cuff witticism.  Done without prejudicing any investigation or trial, naturally...

Of course, there is one problem with the vision of openness and transparency, and it's a problem that means such a vision will never be realised.  If you embrace the concept of total transparency, it means you actually have to be carrying out your role with integrity and principle. Perhaps PC Nick Manning can raise this when he faces Professional Standards for his Tweets on Dorset's staffing levels. Is it his Tweeting that has undermined public confidence in his force, or is it his force's severe under-resourcing?  Or as I will respond in my pre-prepared statement: 'If you don't want it blogged about, don't do it.'   

Perhaps, one day, Blandshire Constabulary will have its own blog, that actually tells you the truth about Twenty-First Century Policing.  Until that day, some of us will have to have beer with journalists.  Or cappuccino, in my case.

 

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.