All Change for Targets?

North Korea Celebrate Winning the World Cup

Like other bloggers, I was pleased to hear Teresa May announce that the Policing Pledge and Public Confidence and Satisfaction targets were going and we would just be measured on crime levels.

I have said before that senior managers will fiddle the figures and focus resources to get quick results rather than work properly and ethically towards achieving real results. For example, in my quite small Force, we have 35 communications officers; and that is after we have just got rid of some following a review. Their job is to take every opportunity, internally and externally, to convince the public that crime is low and we are doing a good job. We also have 57 administrators in CID and another 35 working with the Neighbourhood Teams. Part of their job is to allocate tasks but a large part is to contact victims of crime and disorder and to convince them that we are doing our best to detect their crime, even if we do just detect 22% of them.

Why do we need 35 communications officers and 92 administrators? Because the ACPO team want to increase our levels of public confidence and satisfaction to meet targets and they have introduced a propaganda machine, that the North Koreans would be proud of, in order to achieve it, rather than do the job properly and invest in front line policing.

Our Chief Constable has announced to the Force that we are going to ignore Teresa May's wish to abandon the Policing Pledge and Public Confidence and Satisfaction targets. This is very worrying because, with the budget cuts coming, the next thing I can see the Chief doing is cutting police officers and keeping his propaganda machine. What we should be doing is cutting all these back room police staff roles that actually produce nothing tangible and in fact increase the bureaucracy that infests the police officers role, and concentrate on real policing.

I am all for being measured on levels of crime, but don't measure Forces own levels of recorded crime. We can think of a hundred and one ways to keep those down. Forces should be measured using the British Crime Survey, an independent survey they cannot influence other than by doing the job we should be doing, reducing crime and disorder in the short, medium and long term.

Happy New Year

In the warm, drinking tea again.

I would like to wish Jack Straw a Happy New Year, but I won’t. He gave an interview today during which he stated that the police aren’t really bogged down with paperwork. We just like hanging around in police stations where it is warm.

A number of recent Home Secretary’s have upset the police with their lack of understanding of policing issues. As a former Home Secretary and now the Secretary of State for Justice I expected better. The gaffs this Government have made with regard to the police have been beyond compare. Jacquie Smith did really well shafting us on our pay deal resulting in a protest march of over 20,000 off duty police officers.

We have had more Home Secretary’s over the last decade than I have had prisoners and a few hours in the warm. Most of them, including Mr Straw, departed because of their incompetence. I thought Mr Straw would have learnt his lesson and thought a little before putting his foot in it on the subject of police bureaucracy.

I wrote recently about one of the worst pieces of bureaucracy and its interpretation by the Surveillance Commissioners. This was the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. (RIPA.) One of a myriad of pieces of legislation that has been introduced in recent years and which keeps dozens of police officers skiving in the warm, filling out forms, ticking the right boxes, risk assessing everything. We love it! All this form filling stops us having to go out and do our job. Mr Straw introduced RIPA when he was Home Secretary, along with lots of other legislation that keeps us in the warm.

I see that Jack Straw’s father was banged up at Her Majesty’s pleasure during the Second World War because he was a conscientious objector. Did he prefer it in a nice warm prison rather than going to fight? I doubt it. I suspect there was more to it than that. I thought, Mr Straw, you might be a bit more understanding.

Happy New Year!

Bureaucracy

I have just finished reading Jan Berry’s long awaited report on reducing bureaucracy in policing; all 120 pages of it. The report starts off with a strategic view of what is required to engender a culture of change within Government and policing circles. It then gives a few examples of where bureaucracy can be reduced. It finishes with a long list of recommendations from previous authors of similar reports that have yet to be implemented.

The language of the report is, I fear, not strong enough. I don’t get the feeling that Jan has the confidence that she has the ear of the right people at the Home Office to actually get some of this implemented and make a difference. I hope she does or this report is destined to gather dust somewhere like its predecessors.

I thought I would mention one piece of bureaucratic nonsense that affects the police every day and prevents us from doing the job we wish to be doing. If you are ever suffering from insomnia have a look at the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. (RIPA) On reading it the legislation is actually quite sensible and makes the police accountable for things like surveillance and getting information from phones. It requires the police to write down and justify why they are following/watching someone or why they require data from phones etc. This needs to be signed off by a senior officer, usually a superintendent. In non emergency situations it takes about a week and 6 to 10 hours of work to get these forms completed and authorised!

The problem is that with the legislation came a Quango called the surveillance commissioners. The legislation clearly talks about directed surveillance and obtaining private information about individuals. Risk averse police managers started asking the commissioners if they required forms completed in all sorts of other situations totally outside of the legislation. Risk averse, empire building commissioners of course said yes.

Years ago I can remember my sergeant sending me out to a local street because milk was being stolen off the doorsteps. I was told to stand in a doorway and see if I could catch the thief. The first morning I was there I did. More recently at a public meeting a resident asked me why the local police officer couldn’t stand behind a fence and catch the yobs damaging it on a Friday night. Very recently one of the local villages was suffering with burglaries. We had no idea who the suspects were but I sent my officers out in plain clothes to patrol the village and see if we could identify the suspects.

In the case of milk thefts and damaged fences this now requires a RIPA. Remember that is 6 to 10 hours work and a week to get it authorised. But it won’t be authorised because the crime is regarded as too trivial and so it is not considered proportionate for the police to be hidden in a street watching for an offender. What on earth is wrong with a uniformed copper standing in some shadows watching for offenders? The public expect us to do this but the interpretation of the legislation is tying our hands. In the case of the burglary problem the plain clothes patrols came to the attention of senior managers who immediately ordered that they stop until a RIPA was done. Targeting an area with plain clothed officers is apparently directed surveillance even though we have no idea who we are looking for. So 8 hours work and a week later we continue our plain clothed patrols.

The legislators never meant for this to happen. If we are following or watching a named person I understand the accountability and checks need to be in place. Standing in a street waiting to see who might be committing offences or patrolling an area because of crime are basic policing and should never require this bureaucratic nonsense.

The problems I have highlighted above have been brought to the attention of everyone up to and including the Home Secretary. No one seems to have the balls or determination to sort this mess out and tell the commissioners to stop this nonsense