Civilianisation at its best

It's been a while and I have been meaning to post a few comments regarding some current issues. I may get around to it yet.

I have previously criticised police forces for the apparent ambition to attain a 50/50 balance of police officers and police staff. Some forces have exceeded 50% staff. The argument has always been that police staff are cheaper and therefore we get more for our buck.  My argument has been that whenever we replace officers with staff we always have to employ more staff than officers and so there are no savings. I also argue that police staff don't understand the business of policing and cause inefficiencies because of this. I wanted to relate a couple of stories, in a light hearted way, to emphasise some of the problems. These are true stories from my force.

A former police officer, who is now running his own business, was fed up with the milk being delivered to his office being stolen. He got up early one day and waited and caught the offender. He marched them round to the police station which was only 200 yards away. The civilian at the front desk has been trained that if anyone comes to the police station to report a crime they are to be told to go to the phone in the front office put there for this purpose. The phone is a direct line to the crime recording bureau who take the details and give the victim a crime number, offer them victim support etc. The victim in this case repeatedly made the point that he wasn't just reporting a crime, he had the offender in custody. He got nowhere with the person on the desk and eventually rang the crime recording bureau. An hour after he first arrived at the police station, a police staff manager eventually realised that perhaps this was an exceptional case and a police officer would have to be dispatched to deal with the offender. The trouble was that there wasn't one at the police station and the victim had to wait another 20 minutes for a police officer to arrive from another town.

The second story is about a motorist who rang the police (rightly or wrongly) to report a problem in the road.

Motorist. "Hello, I have found a large hole in the road. It is dangerous and might cause an accident."
Operator "Hold on caller. I will put you through to someone who can help you."
The phone is transferred and answered. "Hello, lost and found property. How can I help you?"

Has Civilianisation Gone Too Far?

Stop reducing police officer numbers now!

At the National Police Federation Conference in May the Federation produced figures showing how the additional investment in the police service made over the last 10 years has largely been in the form of police staff rather than officers.

Nationally, since 1999 there has been an average 16% increase in police officers. This compares with an average increase of 54% in police staff. Thousands of police staff have been introduced, not only to deal with additional legislative demands and bureaucracy, but also taking on roles that have been traditionally performed by police officers.

Some Forces have taken this change of staff mix to new levels. Surrey Police has been highlighted in this regard, as in 2007 they were the first police force to have more police staff than officers. They have since been followed by Northamptonshire and Wiltshire and others are catching up. In Surrey, since 2000, police officer numbers have decreased 260 from 2100 to 1840. Over the same period, police staff numbers have tripled from 760 to 2300.

These figures are quite astounding. We keep being told that police staff are being introduced as a cheaper alternative to expensive police officers. Like all Forces investment has been made in PCSO's. Surrey has about 240 PCSO's. If we take those away from the 1540 police staff increase that still leaves 1300 police staff replacing 260 police officers. There have been no savings here. Surrey could have increased by around 850 police officers instead of 1300 police staff.

Where are these 1300 additional police staff and what are they doing? I don't think anyone has the answer to that one. What I do know is that we have created whole departments and career paths for police staff. What benefits are they bringing to front line officers or are they simply putting more demands on officers to feed the self perpetuating bureaucratic machine that they belong to?

The Police Federation is advocating that there should be a broad review and evaluation of all these changes in workforce mix. There should be some standardisation of the roles that police staff and police officers perform. Why can one force ‘civilianise’ a role whereas another deems that it is only suitable for a police officer? What value are we getting from this huge increase in police staff? The public want more police officers on the streets.

Forces that have more police staff than officers have no resilience in their response and criminal investigation departments. At times of high demand within the Force or in order to provide mutual aid to other forces neither have the capacity or resilience to provide resources in the medium to long term. Even in the short term the gaps can only be covered by overtime, which the Government is demanding must be cut by 40% with no reduction in performance. Using proactive resources and/or neighbourhoods may be impossible as these officers are not being trained in the secondary skills to provide public order units, search teams etc.

Police officers generally join for a career in the Force. Their initial training is more expensive but that needs to be balanced against the costs of training police staff who have a much higher turnover and require some expensive bespoke training for their roles.

Crime has been falling in England and Wales since 1995, long before this huge increase in police staff. There are serious threats ahead for the police service. There are going to be budget cuts, potentially serious cuts; more unemployment, cuts in benefits and threats of civil unrest are likely over the next few years with rises in crime and disorder a reality combined with a reduction in staff/officers. A staff mix of more staff than officers may not be resilient enough to deal with these potential threats or indeed some other day to day threats and demands and the 2012 Olympics, whose estimated demand is 10 to 15,000 officers per day.

We need to review the current staff mix within those forces leading these changes to ensure that there is sufficient resilience to enable officers to be available for the demands we face. The so called value for money that police staff provide needs to be reassessed when it appears we are pouring money into new police staff posts and we have little idea what additional value they bring.

We need to ensure that we have the right number of sworn officers to enable us to be able to tackle the issues we may face supported by the right mix of police staff. We are at risk of becoming a police service run by police staff where the only contact police officers have with the public is dealing with confrontation.

Does Civilianisation Really Save Money?

Althea Loderick.........................Mark Rowley

Mark Rowley, Chief Constable of Surrey has recently taken over as the ACPO Lead for Futures. This appears to be fitting as Surrey like to believe they lead the way with regard to innovation and changing the way we police this country. Together with Althea Loderick of the National Police Improvement Agency a report has been produced suggesting that police Forces throughout the country should reduce the number of officers by around 28,000 and replace these officers with cheaper police staff. Mr Rowley believes that all forces should aim for a 50/50 balance of police officers and police staff. Surrey has more police staff than police officers!

At the same time the Home Office have announced that they want to see a £70 million reduction in the police overtime bill. The police may have to face cuts as the public spending axe starts swinging, but is this a sensible way to do it?

Mark Rowley joined Surrey Police in 2000. Referring to Police Authority reports, at this time Surrey had 2100 police officers and 760 police staff. Looking at the latest Police Authority report Surrey has 1845 police officers and 2335 police staff. So, over the last ten years Surrey has lost 255 police officers and gained 1575 police staff. Now, I don't have a Cambridge degree like Mr Rowley, but my 'O' level maths tells me that 1575 police staff cost an awful lot more than 255 police officers.

Mr Rowley would undoubtedly point out that Surrey has invested in new police staff such as PCSO's, Contact Centre staff etc. Being very generous this is still less than 500 staff. So even allowing for this 255 police officers have been replaced by over 1000 police staff. Police staff cost around two thirds of a police officer not a quarter and so Mr Rowley's argument does not hold up. If all Forces follow the Surrey model spending will increase.

In my own Force I have seen police staff replace police officers for the last 25 years. Initially this is on a one for one basis. Invariably though, I have then seen the police staff doubled or even whole departments spring up with supervisors and deputy supervisors etc. doing the job one or two police officers used to do. Why is this? My own view is that most of the 'desk jobs' were carried out by the longer serving officers. They knew the job and organisation inside out, knew how everything worked and were incredibly efficient. A member of police staff was brought in, they didn't know the organisation or how to get things done. Nor were they prepared to fore go breaks and work on if required. Invariably they went under with the workload and more staff had to be put in.

Another factor that seems to have escaped this report is that some long serving police officers have picked up injuries, disabilities or illnesses and are unable to undertake fully operational duties. Placing them in key roles that help the organisation function has been beneficial to the efficient running of the Force. Many Forces, including my own have 'civilianised' all these roles. The average Force has about 8% of officers who cannot perform fully operational duties. Forces are now at a loss as to what they are going to do with these officers. This is a tragic waste and is costing Forces dearly. They must either employ these officers effectively or ill health retire them, which will be very expensive.

Finally, if you pare your police officers to the bone you have no resilience in the force. When a number of unexpected murders occur or you have to police a number of critical incidents such as the flooding and foot and mouth outbreak in 2007, where do you draw in your extra police officers from? There will be none left.

Regarding overtime, I am sure that with prudence and budgeting some overtime spending can be cut. What people need to realise though is that most overtime is spent on proactive policing. Reductions in overtime spending will see a reduction in performance.

My message to Mark Rowley and Althea Loderick is this. Our job is policing. The focus should be on police officers. It cannot be right that we need one member of staff for every police officer. This is like saying the National Health Service needs a member of support staff for every doctor and nurse. Try reducing your police staff and increasing your police officer numbers back to 2100 Mr Rowley. That is how you will save money and get more policing done.