Lord Stevens - Police morale is worryingly low
You may be aware that the Labour party commissioned a review of policing by Lord Stevens, (former Met Police Commissioner) Dr Tim Brain (former Chief Constable Gloucester) and Kathleen O'Toole (former Police Commissioner, Boston.) This claims to be a comprehensive review and the full report will not be produced until early in 2013.
Lord Stevens has been interviewed recently regarding his findings and has stated that he has found the morale of officers to be worryingly low. So much so that he believes this should be of serious public concern with major events such as the Jubilee and Olympics coming up.
If I was being cynical, and I am, I wonder if Lord Stevens would have reached such a conclusion or been so forthright were he still the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Labour, amongst others, are his paymasters for now and so perhaps it suits him to make an honest statement at this time. The Government will state that he is the piper and Labour are paying for the tune.
Police morale is the worst I have ever known it and it will continue to decline when cuts to pay, increased pension contributions and reduced numbers of officers come into effect. Will we ever hear a serving Chief Officer say this? The only one I ever remember speaking out was Sir Robert Mark, for which he never got his peerage.
"The beatings will continue until Morale improves!!!"
ReplyDelete(written on a wall somewhere in Iraq in 2005.)
We're living through the largest contraction in living standards in hundreds of years; all salaries are being cut -- public, private, police; jobs are being lost in all sectors; benefits are being lost in all sectors.
ReplyDeleteIn short: it's not "police morale" that is low, it is "morale" everywhere.
Suck it up.
Onus - I accept what you say but for the police this comes on top of already low morale.
ReplyDeleteWe work in a justice system that is wholly ineffective. The police deal with the same offenders day in and day out. We charge them and the rest of the justice system does nothing. The police are blamed for not dealing with these ongoing problems.
When you come into work and deal with the same crap day in and day out, senior officers berate you for missing targets, the public and press blame you for not permanently incarcerating the drunk/drugged/antisocial/violent good for nothing neighbour; you start to wonder why you bother.
When the pay cuts etc take effect more and more officers won't be bothered any longer and then see what happens. You had a taste of it in August.
For what its worth I will still bother but I don't think the future looks bright.
A quick response by John Stevens!
ReplyDeleteHe took three years and £9m to work out that Princess Diana had been killed in a road accident in Paris.