Police Privatisation

We are all now aware that West Midlands Police and Surrey Police have issued an EU wide invitation to companies to tender for policing services. If you look at the tender it covers everything from :

• Managing Performance
• Bringing Offenders to Justice
• Patrolling Neighbourhoods
• Dealing with incidents, major and minor
• Leading the Service
• Managing Public Engagements 
• Managing Resources
• Protecting the Public

It is quite clear that almost all policing services are up for grabs by the private sector. We are being told that not all of these areas of policing will be included in any contracts. The broad range of services is being advertised for tender so the expense of tendering does not have to be repeated should the need arise. Oh really!

One example would be that private companies would supply investigators working under a detective to attend and investigate crime. Some forces already work this model except that the team under the detective are permanent and employed by the police. Surrey already do this and they have one of the worst crime detection rates in the country. I can see where this is going. A poor detective will have a huge crime workload and each day an agency will provide different staff to turn up and carry out enquiries. No continuity. Little idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the investigators. The public will get a very poor service with a reduced chance of their crime being detected.

Another example would be patrolling neighbourhoods. Security staff would take over from PCSO's and some neighbourhood officers. These would be on minimum wage with no pension costs to the police. What kind of service would the public get from these staff? Where does the accountability lay? What happens when it all goes wrong?

The two architects of this scheme are Chris Sims Chief Constable of West Midlands and Mark Rowley former Chief Constable of Surrey and now Met Assistant Commissioner. This has been over a year in the planning and now the new Chief Constable of Surrey, Lynne Owens, has been handed the baby on behalf of Surrey. Chris and Mark are the sort of leaders Tom Winsor thinks we are lacking in the police. Chris is an Oxford graduate and Mark Cambridge. They have both shot through the ranks spreading their wisdom and ideas, never hanging around long enough to be held to account for the chaos they have left behind. They obviously have the vision and leadership that the police service needs.

Mark Rowley

Lynne Owens is a far more practical and pragmatic beast. She has no intention of following the agenda she has been left by Mark Rowley and is backing away from the project as fast as she can without openly criticising her predecessor.

Chris Sims

Chris Sims must have realised by now that he is on his own with this project. Good luck to West Midlands Police! Privatisation could however provide all sorts of management and consultancy opportunities for retiring ACPO officers, but I am sure Mr Sims will not fall into the trap of champagne dinners, health spas and free lunches from former ACPO colleagues Lord Condon at G4S and Lord Blair at Blue Light Global Solutions.

For years we have been cutting the fat out of the police service. There is nothing left. There is a permanent smell of ammonia as the muscle of the organisation is now being broken down. There is an assumption that privatisation will bring about savings and efficiencies with it's more effective management. In my experience, when you bring 'civilianisation' or privatisation into the police, the roles become more inefficient. By the time the company has taken it's profit cut from the budget there will simply be less to spend on the service and the public will suffer with lower levels of service and standards with less accountability.

TUC March - Who is Responsible?

Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens

Like many police officers, I felt angry and frustrated that a few hundred extremist idiots were allowed to run amok in London last Saturday almost with impunity. I live in hope that evidence gatherers will be able to identify at least some of these cretins and they may yet be brought to justice. That is of course justice as we now have it in this namby pamby, arty farty, airy fairy apology for a justice system. Remember the lad arrested following one of the student fees protests for throwing a petrol bomb? He got a 12 month referral order, a.k.a. a slap on the wrist and an occasional chat with a youth offending team worker. But, is it strategically acceptable to stand by and allow premises to be destroyed and people injured and then try and pick the offenders up later? I think not.

Having thought about the violence further, I thought surely the management could not have got it that wrong? The intelligence was there, the officers were there, we just didn't have the strategy and tactics in place to deal with a small minority of people intent on just causing trouble and injuring officers. Forget the latest offers from Theresa May about new policing powers. The powers are there. All these idiots could have been searched and photographed and even turned away from the area if that is what was needed. Forget also the talk about all the arrests made. The vast majority of arrests were made at Fortnum and Masons. The protesters there were pretty soft targets. Hardly any of the real violent thugs got arrested.

The person responsible for public order policing in the Met is Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens. Lynne is a high flyer and potentially the first female Met Commissioner. She is nobodies fool. So what was the plan that day? If Lynne is going to get that job then she cannot afford to mess up in a big way.

Was the plan to take a softly softly approach because of the criticisms over kettling and risk what took place? Or was the plan to let the extremists run riot and smash up business, banking premises etc. Perhaps that will wake a few people up to what will happen if the police are not there to protect them. Was Lynne thinking about our future pay and pensions?