Accountability... sigh...

Once again we have been treated to the sight of a Tory with a posh accent talking a lot of sense. This time it was about making police authorities ACCOUNTABLE. As a police officer, I am probably the worst person to ask about the role of the police authority. I have no idea what it is, what it does or how it affects my job or the public. I am therefore extremely happy to hear that it is police authorities that are the problem and not people like me. I don't happen to agree with Cameron's solution, however.

Apparently, we all yearn for accountability. Even PC Copperfield. I heard him say so on television. The Labour Government has found all kinds of ways to make us accountable, some of which merely build on previous Conservative policies, some of which are new and imaginative ideas of their own. Here are some of them:

• Stop-and-Account.
• Risk Assessments.
• Policing strategies.
• Neighbourhood policing.
• Performance figures.

This is all marvellous and I have felt thoroughly accountable to the Department of Critical Emailing for the last year and a half. My only problem with the approach is that it does not go nearly far enough. We should see police officers filling out forms every time they think suspicious thoughts. How else can we stamp out racism? Police constables whose arrest and detection figures are lower than their colleagues should be Named and Shamed by The Sun. Moreover, Chief Officers responsible for areas where newspapers have printed disparaging stories about the police should be subjected to not just one, but several meetings with the Home Secretary to explain themselves. It's the only way we'll learn.

Cameron's approach is flawed, therefore. As far as I can tell, accountability is not about involving communities in shaping their local police forces, but it is about transferring everything onto bits of paper so that police officers don't have to talk to members of public at all. When our business can be conducted entirely by way of email, fax and meeting, THEN we will be truly Accountable.

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PS For those of you who thought that my last post was in some way disparaging of sergeants, please re-read it.
PPS It turns out my blog isn't broken after all.