Please Extend Me

As a PC, before going off-duty, I usually had a few bits of paperwork to tie up from the shift. As a shift sergeant, I have to do the following before the next shift come in to take over:

• Type up a list of incidents/action for the next shift to do.
• Include all significant incidents that happened during my shift in case the senior management team try to ask the next sergeant about them.
• Log into a database and list cars and people stopchecked by my team during the shift (this will involve phoning all my officers and ensuring they have done this).
  
• List what arrest attempts/arrests have been made during the shift.
• Log into a system and update all open incidents with reasons why we haven't dealt with them.
• Record the status of all missing person enquiries on a database (another login).
• Log into the duty system and record on/off-duty times for all officers. They also need to be booked on and off on another system.
• Log all car-keys back in.
• Read through all prisoner handovers to ensure they are in a suitable state for the next shift. If they're not, there's not much that can be done by then as it's the end of the shift, so I'll just update them with an apology.
• Pass onto the next team all witness summons/arrest and statement requests that have been faxed in from other forces/areas. Most of these have been farmed out to officers who never had a chance to do them, so I'll have to remember to collate them all again. Many will end up in panda cars, officers' lockers/dockets/trousers.
  
• Email the duty inspector with overtime requests for anyone still on duty.
• Email the duty inspector with information for THEIR handover about important incidents that have happened/are happening.
• I'm sure there's more that I'm not doing at the moment. I'll update you when I get the email from senior management.

I start thinking about the handing over process from the moment I receive the handover from the previous shift, and spend a good proportion of the day in and out of these databases, when I can remember my login. When I can't, I spend the day on the phone to IT services. This is, apparently, how the senior management team want shift sergeants to spend their time.

Things that will NOT get me an email from the senior management if I omit them are:

• Phoning all my officers individually to find out where they are, if they'll be off on time and if they need anything.
• Staying on late to tie up bits of paperwork for officers going on leave/rest days/overwhelmed with work.
• De-briefing officers involved in traumatic or significant incidents during the shift to check they're ok.
• Submitting safety reports about the low number of resources I had to work with that day.

These things, apparently, are not within the remit of the shift sergeant. Or anyone else.

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