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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
More Woes for Dr Reid
Just when the Home Office had stayed out of the headlines for 24 hours they announce that police numbers have fallen for the first time in seven years. If John Reid had any hair he'd be tearing it out...
It’s a shame I am obliged to earn a filthy squalid living for at home in the “nerve centre “ I have reams of material about the Police and their many failings . One of the first things David Cameron said that I liked was that the…” police are the last unreformed Social service”. We see this from their own Blogs , and my contact in the PCC often tells me horror stories of the massaging of statistics. The reason the Police are so badly failing is that they are close shop union . In Islington we have vastly more traffic wardens on the street than police and while sophisticates may scoff people are rightly confused as to why. The Police blame the legal frame work in and the very checks installed to stop their wastefulness but there is a limit to this . Low level crime is not prevented because there are not enough Police on the beat. The resources cannot be spared because the Police operate an artificial high wage structure and refuse to contemplate supply and demand in their reward pacakage. In other words too many chief and no Indians .Too many helicopters , not enough Plod The answer is partly local control and elements sub contracted especially security and motoring.
All in all they are the classic Labour failure . By refusing to reform and accommodating self interested pressure they have been obliged to install Bureaucratic controls which add disillusion to failure and politicised the Met in particular. Words and deeds have become confused .
For me this all goes back to the reverse take over of Nu Lab by Gordon Brown centring on the treatment of Frank Field. State micro management has been a disastrous failure and at a shooting a week we , Islington are well aware of the connection between low level delinquency and serious crime. When I have raised this at hustings I have been shouted down by Liberals “Support them in their difficult job..” etc.. I do NOT support the Police . I support the beleaguered denizens of Islington crime ridden estates who pay the real cost of bankrupt Brownite statism
In fact ..it makes me quite “mad” with indignation
Is this a decision of Chief Constables? Are they using their budget to employ more Community Support Officers and reduce trained staff? I have checked the allocated budget for the county where I live and their grant is well above inflation. There has been no reduction in police numbers - the opposite.z
I think that the constabularies are getting into major difficulties because of pension schemes. Too many people retired in the past on health grounds rather than being used at a desk?
Liz they also make merry on their PA scheme as I well remember . GMP( Greater Manchetser Police) have a PA schme that is legend for money churning in the market.
BTW My blog is still not linking or formatting in various ways .
The Chief Inspector of prisons has also said the system is in a "serious crisis".
You'll find it on the BBC politics page, hidden away in the side bar. Of course that nasty 'Boo Hiss' Tory who cheated on his wife and has won re-selection in his seat is a more newsworthy story...
Our son is a Police Officer in Surrey and I was formerly a Detective Inspector in the South West, way back in the ‘70s. My son is getting ready for retirement now, having been passed over for promotion to inspector to many times to mention. He is disillusioned, as I also was, with the dearth of graduate entrants who, to quote him, “couldn’t detect a wart on an elephants arse if you gave them a road map”. Thereby hangs the problem!
The introduction of the Bramshill Police College in the ‘70s was the end of respect within the force. The administration adventurers with accelerated promotion guarantees flooded the forces and began to tell officers with long service and a wealth of experience what to do. The idea that these “kids” (for that is what they are) with their perchant for over-administration, introduced regime on those within the force, spewing out paper instructions by the cartload and expecting twice as much flowing in the opposite direction. Most of them spent most of their time producing fancy graphs and charts to bolster their image before the Home Office whilst ignoring the real job of policing. People don’t react well to bosses that don’t understand how to do the job themselves and this “officer-class” reminded me very much of our armed forces in France during WW1, sending young soldiers over the top to certain death, whilst they considered plan B.
Whoever has heard of a job that you can enter as a graduate, be promoted automatically at the end of two years and again at the end of a further two years, whether you are good, or not. I can clearly remember a long serving and very good detective sergeant who had just been threatened with disciplinary action for filling a form incorrectly, who said, “What earthly use is a police officer who cannot catch criminals”.
In essence, that’s what it’s all about and we are failing our police officers and the public by continuing this charade.
The last unreformed public service? Their poor performance has nothing to do with being a 'closed shop union', they cannot strike and wouldn't strike (well at least while they still hold a crown office). As for wages - blame Ken Baker and Patrick Sheehy if only they hadn't been tasked to tinker with the Edmund Davies package in the mid-nineties. The Police Federation has no longer any power and has been rendered so especially by the plethora of staff association and representative bodies based on ethnic, gender, sexual orientation and religious lines - I may have missed a few categories off. The police service has a bunch of ambition led 'managers' at the helm, people like Ian Blair willing to take on anything thrown at them by the HO so they can get the next pip, crown or bit of scrambled egg. They've sold the service down the river, Lions led by donkeys - originally used in the context of the police service by Fred Broughton - the last 'proper' Federation leader. The police are politically (correctly) driven, traumatised by Lawrence, Macpherson, Ali Dizaei etc etc, by the HO, by the CPS (unrealistic and unnecesary bureacracy for ANY case at ANY stage), by the fear of litigation from within and without because of a host of reasons, mostly around race and Health & Safety, and by the necessity to recruit by quotas and so consequently reducing standards - the main avenue for this being the pointless and ineffective 'new police' or PCSO - community support officer. The need to satisfy stupid targets and unachievable objectives such as the National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) and the best efforts of many criminologists and politicians over the years means more officers are removed from high visibility patrol and deterrent roles into specialist squads. They fail, because of government policies to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour from the bottom up, allowing ever more offences to be deemed not serious and policed via fixed penalty notices. It isn't just the police it is the whole criminal justice System and it's now too late to do anything about it. Don't blame the Federation and the front line - they just can't take anymore.
I did ask. I dont agree with newmania but I'll listen. 1:45 PM 2:01 PM , If this is through all the forces then how can anything be done about it surly it should be made public
Tough on crime-fighting, tough on the causes of crime-fighting?
ReplyDeleteIt’s a shame I am obliged to earn a filthy squalid living for at home in the “nerve centre “ I have reams of material about the Police and their many failings .
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things David Cameron said that I liked was that the…” police are the last unreformed Social service”. We see this from their own Blogs , and my contact in the PCC often tells me horror stories of the massaging of statistics.
The reason the Police are so badly failing is that they are close shop union . In Islington we have vastly more traffic wardens on the street than police and while sophisticates may scoff people are rightly confused as to why. The Police blame the legal frame work in and the very checks installed to stop their wastefulness but there is a limit to this .
Low level crime is not prevented because there are not enough Police on the beat. The resources cannot be spared because the Police operate an artificial high wage structure and refuse to contemplate supply and demand in their reward pacakage. In other words too many chief and no Indians .Too many helicopters , not enough Plod
The answer is partly local control and elements sub contracted especially security and motoring.
All in all they are the classic Labour failure . By refusing to reform and accommodating self interested pressure they have been obliged to install Bureaucratic controls which add disillusion to failure and politicised the Met in particular. Words and deeds have become confused .
For me this all goes back to the reverse take over of Nu Lab by Gordon Brown centring on the treatment of Frank Field. State micro management has been a disastrous failure and at a shooting a week we , Islington are well aware of the connection between low level delinquency and serious crime.
When I have raised this at hustings I have been shouted down by Liberals “Support them in their difficult job..” etc.. I do NOT support the Police . I support the beleaguered denizens of Islington crime ridden estates who pay the real cost of bankrupt Brownite statism
In fact ..it makes me quite “mad” with indignation
his brain was spotted going missing
ReplyDeletehttp://bexleycf.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/john-reids-brain-update-explanation/
But surely this is because they are more 'efficient' and therefore one needs fewer to do the same amount of work, no ??
ReplyDeleteIs this a decision of Chief Constables? Are they using their budget to employ more Community Support Officers and reduce trained staff? I have checked the allocated budget for the county where I live and their grant is well above inflation. There has been no reduction in police numbers - the opposite.z
ReplyDeleteI think that the constabularies are getting into major difficulties because of pension schemes. Too many people retired in the past on health grounds rather than being used at a desk?
Liz they also make merry on their PA scheme as I well remember . GMP( Greater Manchetser Police) have a PA schme that is legend for money churning in the market.
ReplyDeleteBTW My blog is still not linking or formatting in various ways .
Yeeesh any ideas
Looking at the police blogs the lower ranks appear to be totaly pi;;ed off with the management ,mybe will let us know here?
ReplyDeleteThe Chief Inspector of prisons has also said the system is in a "serious crisis".
ReplyDeleteYou'll find it on the BBC politics page, hidden away in the side bar. Of course that nasty 'Boo Hiss' Tory who cheated on his wife and has won re-selection in his seat is a more newsworthy story...
Our son is a Police Officer in Surrey and I was formerly a Detective Inspector in the South West, way back in the ‘70s. My son is getting ready for retirement now, having been passed over for promotion to inspector to many times to mention. He is disillusioned, as I also was, with the dearth of graduate entrants who, to quote him, “couldn’t detect a wart on an elephants arse if you gave them a road map”. Thereby hangs the problem!
ReplyDeleteThe introduction of the Bramshill Police College in the ‘70s was the end of respect within the force. The administration adventurers with accelerated promotion guarantees flooded the forces and began to tell officers with long service and a wealth of experience what to do. The idea that these “kids” (for that is what they are) with their perchant for over-administration, introduced regime on those within the force, spewing out paper instructions by the cartload and expecting twice as much flowing in the opposite direction. Most of them spent most of their time producing fancy graphs and charts to bolster their image before the Home Office whilst ignoring the real job of policing. People don’t react well to bosses that don’t understand how to do the job themselves and this “officer-class” reminded me very much of our armed forces in France during WW1, sending young soldiers over the top to certain death, whilst they considered plan B.
Whoever has heard of a job that you can enter as a graduate, be promoted automatically at the end of two years and again at the end of a further two years, whether you are good, or not. I can clearly remember a long serving and very good detective sergeant who had just been threatened with disciplinary action for filling a form incorrectly, who said, “What earthly use is a police officer who cannot catch criminals”.
In essence, that’s what it’s all about and we are failing our police officers and the public by continuing this charade.
The last unreformed public service?
ReplyDeleteTheir poor performance has nothing to do with being a 'closed shop union', they cannot strike and wouldn't strike (well at least while they still hold a crown office).
As for wages - blame Ken Baker and Patrick Sheehy if only they hadn't been tasked to tinker with the Edmund Davies package in the mid-nineties.
The Police Federation has no longer any power and has been rendered so especially by the plethora of staff association and representative bodies based on ethnic, gender, sexual orientation and religious lines - I may have missed a few categories off.
The police service has a bunch of ambition led 'managers' at the helm, people like Ian Blair willing to take on anything thrown at them by the HO so they can get the next pip, crown or bit of scrambled egg.
They've sold the service down the river, Lions led by donkeys - originally used in the context of the police service by Fred Broughton - the last 'proper' Federation leader.
The police are politically (correctly) driven, traumatised by Lawrence, Macpherson, Ali Dizaei etc etc, by the HO, by the CPS (unrealistic and unnecesary bureacracy for ANY case at ANY stage), by the fear of litigation from within and without because of a host of reasons, mostly around race and Health & Safety, and by the necessity to recruit by quotas and so consequently reducing standards - the main avenue for this being the pointless and ineffective 'new police' or PCSO - community support officer.
The need to satisfy stupid targets and unachievable objectives such as the National Crime Recording Standards (NCRS) and the best efforts of many criminologists and politicians over the years means more officers are removed from high visibility patrol and deterrent roles into specialist squads.
They fail, because of government policies to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour from the bottom up, allowing ever more offences to be deemed not serious and policed via fixed penalty notices.
It isn't just the police it is the whole criminal justice System and it's now too late to do anything about it. Don't blame the Federation and the front line - they just can't take anymore.
I did ask.
ReplyDeleteI dont agree with newmania but I'll listen.
1:45 PM 2:01 PM , If this is through all the forces then how can anything be done about it surly it should be made public