Change in police numbers.

[Countdown]

mph1977 said:

Derek Smith said:

Central purchasing! One of the most stupid ideas ever. It will cost a fortune as it has elsewhere where it has been forced onto an unsuspecting state run department.

central purchasing works extremely well in the NHS, and seems to work well enough in other local authority services ... especially for consumable items .

Depends on the nature and volume of Goods/services being procured. It works well in the NHS because they buy very large volumes of the same products (and can tap into various discounts). It also helps from a Logistics point of view.

I would guess that Police Stations do not buy in sufficient volume to outweigh the costs of procurement/distribution. There ARE advantages to central procurement, it just depends what you are procuring.

[mph1977]

Countdown said:

mph1977 said:

Derek Smith said:

Central purchasing! One of the most stupid ideas ever. It will cost a fortune as it has elsewhere where it has been forced onto an unsuspecting state run department.

central purchasing works extremely well in the NHS, and seems to work well enough in other local authority services ... especially for consumable items .

Depends on the nature and volume of Goods/services being procured. It works well in the NHS because they buy very large volumes of the same products (and can tap into various discounts). It also helps from a Logistics point of view.

I would guess that Police Stations do not buy in sufficient volume to outweigh the costs of procurement/distribution. There ARE advantages to central procurement, it just depends what you are procuring.

seems to work reasonably well for Local Authorities as well and while the bulk numbers may not be the same as the NHS supply chain , the Pro5 (http://www.pro5.org/) group of buying consortia seem to be doing ok http://www.ypo.co.uk/index.jsp?t=pro5

[Derek Smith]

mph1977 said:

Derek Smith said:

Central purchasing! One of the most stupid ideas ever. It will cost a fortune as it has elsewhere where it has been forced onto an unsuspecting state run department.

central purchasing works extremely well in the NHS, and seems to work well enough in other local authority services ... especially for consumable items .

Central purchasing for the police will be contracted out to a private firm. The government will, as they have done in the past, claw back some of the police fund. Then the private contractor will take their cut. The price of things like vehicles will be greater than they pay at the moment for vehicles which do not suit the specific needs of the force concerned. Cumbria and Surrey have different requirements.

I can only speak for my old force but what they did was to wait until a specific time to replace cars, when prices were low, negotiate a low price and then buy what they wanted.
The force looked into buying cars and other large expensive purchases with other forces, the police have 'families' of forces with similar needs, but there were no savings as even similar forces required different cars to cope with specific needs.

The government tried to foist on forces a type of video film identification that cost a lot and gave poor quality. With help from a chap from Devon and Cornwall I set up one in force that was cheaper after the first year by something like two-thirds, was quicker - the videos had to be posted for the government method, taking days, while I once set one up took around two hours or less if pushed. And there were other benefits as well, not the least being control. My CC got a pull from the Home Office as they wanted us to throw money at them. This is what central purchasing will do for forces.

I once had to produce something like five videos. The cost was something less than twice the price of a single one. The state one would have been five times as much.

If anyone reads Private Eye they will know what a disaster the government is when it prescribes IT 'solutions' on state industries. ATC anyone, NHS anyone? Despite companies failing spectacularly in the past, they are picked time and again. It is almost as if the people in charge put money into the coffers of the party in power. Read up on the money that various governments have thrown away - your money and mine - on such central purchasing money saving ideas.

Forces nowadays have massive buying power with things like consumables. They put these things out to tender. Central purchasing will not give much in the way of savings for the extra quantity and then there's the price of the contract and the skimming off the top by the firm which buys the contract. That money has to come from somewhere.

[Countdown]

mph1977 said:

seems to work reasonably well for Local Authorities as well and while the bulk numbers may not be the same as the NHS supply chain , the Pro5 (http://www.pro5.org/) group of buying consortia seem to be doing ok http://www.ypo.co.uk/index.jsp?t=pro5

We may be talking at cross-purposes. Purchasing consortia and central procurement are not necessarily the same thing.

For example there are times when the Govt insist that you use a certain supplier because they have negotiated the Contract centrally and believe it offers the best value for money (PCs, vehicle leasing). The problem is that it will provide the best value only out of the firms that submitted a national tender. Joe Bloggs Computers down the road might offer better value but is ruled out because he can't service Truro and Inverness at the same time and therefore can't compete with Dell Plc. There is also much more flexibility in local contracts. For example there was a 3 year refresh cycle for all PCs, even when the PC was working perfectly fine. So the old PC was scrapped and replaced with a brand new one even when there was nothing wrong with it (this was built into the £250pa cost of leasing the PC). You could BUY an reasonable spec PC from Joe Bloggs for that amount. However the national contract meant that PCs had to be spec'd to a minimum level so we would end up paying for specifications which 60% of people didn't need.

Purchasing consortia OTOH are different. You can dip in and out of those as you see fit.

[Countdown]

Derek Smith said:

I can only speak for my old force but what they did was to wait until a specific time to replace cars, when prices were low, negotiate a low price and then buy what they wanted.
The force looked into buying cars and other large expensive purchases with other forces, the police have 'families' of forces with similar needs, but there were no savings as even similar forces required different cars to cope with specific needs.

Sounds familiar. If you think LAs are incompetent you really should see some of the rubbish that comes out of Central Government.

[Derek Smith]

Tallbut Buxomly said:

Yet the government runs around blatantly lying about how it isnt going to affect anything or anyone and that any problems are due to the staff in the prisons police military etc themselves.

When the crime rate goes up and detecteds fall the polcie will be blamed. The figures will show that there are indeed more police officers out on the beat, the totally independant and scrupulously honest Her Majesty's Inpectorate of Cosntabulary will prove that there are. The press will be fed stories by spin doctors and everybody will believe what is written in the Mail and police officer morale will drop.

Once the economy starts to pick up those seeking an exciting and rewarding career, which the police provided in my time, will ignore look elsewhere. When I was considerig joining the police I went to my local nick, Westcombe Park in Greenwhich, and spoke with the desk sergeant, this around 1969. I asked him for an application form.

He pulled out a drawer in his desk and removed a bundle of time cards, where officers put their time of in leieu of pay. No overtime then. He pointed to one chap who had figures in the hundreds. He then showed me a memo which in essence said that a line should be drawn at 30 hours and any time off owed above that should be discarded. He then said his first words to me: Don't join until someone in government gives a f**k about us.

I joined 6 years later when, oddly enough I suppose, conditions were worse but at least there was overtime.

When I joined I had a few GCEs, having left school at 15. I was considered rather special due to my high level of qualifications. I was told later that I could have avoided the entrance exam. Mind you, I'm glad I didn't because I got the highest score recorded on that style of exam - I don't know how long it had been running. When I gave in my hobbies writing and hsitory the board were so impressed.

That's what's going to happen now. The press, fed by the government, will criticise the police and so the service will be over the moon when someone mediocre, or perhaps fractionally above average, applies.

The corruption that was endemic in the Met and City forces in the 70s was not due to poor pay. It was down to poor conditions. And the service is losing all its improved conditions that came about during my 30 years. Senior officers will throw their weight around, force officers to come into work and there will be long hours.

When I got my first big pay rise, 1979 I think, my sergeant, an old stager, said something along the lines of: in five years they'll take it all back and more. The Miners' Strike put that on hold but we had ten years of good times. From the 90s onwards it was retrenchment, cuts and increased workload.

If i joined again I would recognise the service. 1969, or even before I suppose, all over again.

[Tallbut Buxomly]

Yup its all just horrifically depressing. What upsets me the most is the way the press paint the civils in these front line roles MOJ NHS MOD as the bad guys yet its so far from the truth as to be not even funny.

There were riots at a prison. The inspectorate thanked/congratulated the inmates on their calm and self control after it had died down. Did the staff get any gratitude or acknowledgment? Nope. They were criticized for letting it begin in the first place. The fact they didn't have enough staff to maintain control due to enforced staff cuts was apparently unimportant.

The government are simply utter scum in my book. Allowing staff to be injured on a near daily basis and soon enough killed for pr is just wrong.

Moral in the prison service is really low as well as in the mod etc.

[Derek Smith]

Tallbut Buxomly said:

There were riots at a prison. The inspectorate thanked/congratulated the inmates on their calm and self control after it had died down. Did the staff get any gratitude or acknowledgment? Nope. They were criticized for letting it begin in the first place. The fact they didn't have enough staff to maintain control due to enforced staff cuts was apparently unimportant.

If only it was unbelievable.

[Chicken Chaser]

I'm sure we'll probably have a death of an officer soon enough as a result of the cuts. I'll give you an example of a Bank Hol shift which I worked last month.

Overtime wasn't an option and staff didn't get their rest days cancelled as there is currently a "critical situation" in relation to lieu and carried over rest days in the force (this is before next financial years "no summer leave" comes in!).

So the whole force was running skeletal staff. Standard shifts, no back up and on a Christmas bank holiday.

Needless to say, the force cells were full by 1am, just ready for pubs to start kicking out. Domestics were happening all across the area and they were shouting for people to attend high priorities when there wasn't any staff to attend. Everyone was tied up, be it in custody waiting for the next cell space to come free or dealing with other incidents. Emergencies had to be queued. Units were being sent single crewed to violent incidents, and it was desperate hearing incident after incident being called and nobody being able to go.

I've said since my probation, that we carry out a job in which all we do (in terms of frontline) is keep the lid on. We saw it blow off over the summer and i'm sure it'll blow off soon enough again.

Derek has alluded to the fact that he was rather educated when he joined. There is quite a large proportion of us in the job which now have degrees/masters etc. I was a straight A's kid at school, and ended up with a 2:1 degree in a science subject. I had an ambition to join the job prior to uni because I thought it would be an excellent and varied career. Even in the short space of time i've been in, the previous roles which were available to warranted officer have now been civilianised and there are plans afoot to further civilianise other posts.

It's without doubt the worst time to start looking for other options but I'm looking about. I try to be positive and be grateful for having a job, but I'm thinking medium/long term about it before I get stuck in the so called "pension trap".

[Sparta VAG]

Chicken Chaser said:

It's without doubt the worst time to start looking for other options but I'm looking about. I try to be positive and be grateful for having a job, but I'm thinking medium/long term about it before I get stuck in the so called "pension trap".

Seconded. Only anecdotal evidence I know, but already a lot of cops I work with who have less than 10 years service are starting to look elsewhere. It's a terrible time to look for a new career so there won't be an enormous exodus but for younger cops who are not as well paid the workload, conditions and the stress just isn't worth it.

Only anecdotal again but I was on a course last summer with a few other detectives, most of whom had under 7 years service in. Met up with a few of them again last week and one has left, one is about to leave, one is retraining with an OU degree so he can leave in a few years, and one has got a job as a train driver for a lot more money and will leave in March.

I think people can handle the pay freeze, but the loss of increments and the post-cuts working conditions are awful and about to get worse. Morale is so low that people are increasingly just doing the bare necessities to get by. It will get worse before it gets better.

[Chicken Chaser]

Sparta VAG said:

Seconded. Only anecdotal evidence I know, but already a lot of cops I work with who have less than 10 years service are starting to look elsewhere. It's a terrible time to look for a new career so there won't be an enormous exodus but for younger cops who are not as well paid the workload, conditions and the stress just isn't worth it.

Only anecdotal again but I was on a course last summer with a few other detectives, most of whom had under 7 years service in. Met up with a few of them again last week and one has left, one is about to leave, one is retraining with an OU degree so he can leave in a few years, and one has got a job as a train driver for a lot more money and will leave in March.

I think people can handle the pay freeze, but the loss of increments and the post-cuts working conditions are awful and about to get worse. Morale is so low that people are increasingly just doing the bare necessities to get by. It will get worse before it gets better.

Exactly. Nail on head there. I can handle the pay freeze, we are all in the same boat. But when I have to expect the loss of increments while those who sit next to me on full scale pay dont suffer the same kind of cut it does rankle with me. How come they can still get housing allowance on the old deal yet on our old deal, we dont get the conditions which we signed up for? I'm handling stuff at OCG level yet get much less than the 10yr cop dealing with dog st and car parking complaints on the neighbourhood.

[Sparta VAG]

Chicken Chaser said:

Exactly. Nail on head there. I can handle the pay freeze, we are all in the same boat. But when I have to expect the loss of increments while those who sit next to me on full scale pay dont suffer the same kind of cut it does rankle with me. How come they can still get housing allowance on the old deal yet on our old deal, we dont get the conditions which we signed up for? I'm handling stuff at OCG level yet get much less than the 10yr cop dealing with dog st and car parking complaints on the neighbourhood.

Agreed. I'm in a small minority but I'm in favour of rewarding skills and qualifications rather than just years of service. It's a no-brainer in every other organisation and the cops need to catch up.

I suspect we might be in for an overtime buyout like the Inspectors have. We really would have to bend over and take it with both fists if that happens.

[Chicken Chaser]

Sparta VAG said:

Agreed. I'm in a small minority but I'm in favour of rewarding skills and qualifications rather than just years of service. It's a no-brainer in every other organisation and the cops need to catch up.

I suspect we might be in for an overtime buyout like the Inspectors have. We really would have to bend over and take it with both fists if that happens.

But then you will get roles where people will simply go for them because they pay more, and we will have a plethora of hard to fill roles.

Performance related pay will encourage PI culture where you will simply look for whatever pays the extra rather than dealing with a job which takes more time. If its based on arrests, shoplifting, D&Ds and S5s will go through the roof. Who wants to bother with a conspiracy and months of work with 1 charge? Unfortunately, I really can't see an alternative to the current incrementals. Cops would chase cash, whereas now they know they'll get the money whatever they do. Sure, we need to prevent laziness, but that is a matter for supervision to approve or deny someone an incremental rise based on their attitude and performance over the year.

Nice to see that another 1.5% coming out of the pot into the pension too which will make me £40 a month worse off.

[Derek Smith]

It’s like déjà vu all over again. There were two times in my career when it was a case of the quick, the quality officers who were short enough in service to go, and the dead, those of us whom the pension arrangements hit too hard.

It was in those days less about the money and more about conditions. The Sheehey report was a trigger for many to put in their cards, not because of a threat to pay but the fact that it treated the police as the enemy. The (binding one way) agreement on pay stabilisation, where it was checked against other jobs, was ignored by the then government and that was what caused most to complain. It was the injustice. What would wind police up more?

Sheehey was a hatchet job although most of it was so far off the beam that it was binned. But lots of offices went in those days.

The good ones, the promising young and keen ones and those with lots of skills, leave for pastures greener, and there were lots in those days. Times are tougher now but there still are jobs available, if not in this country then others. The chap next door to me has a son who was a Met DS. He's gone to Canada in the last 6 months.

Police officers in my day were seen as good employees, used to being messed around and not that bothered by H&S. They do what they are told, are generally honest and make little fuss with regards pay. Certainly credit card fraud units were targetting detectives in my day.

And so the police will be hit with a skills shortage. Those who stay will be those who left it too late, those whom no one wants and those who are dedicated. But the figures will show that there are lots more response officers on the streets, just walking about talking to shop keepers.

Once the 20%+ cuts have been implemented there will be a completely independent and trustworthy enquiry that will say everything in the garden is lovely and that the serivce is in the best condition it has ever been.

Whilst I feel sorry for the serving officers, I feel even more sorry for me and mine as there will be less officers to deal with crime, so the risk that we will be victims will increase.

[Sparta VAG]

Chicken Chaser said:

But then you will get roles where people will simply go for them because they pay more, and we will have a plethora of hard to fill roles.

Performance related pay will encourage PI culture where you will simply look for whatever pays the extra rather than dealing with a job which takes more time. If its based on arrests, shoplifting, D&Ds and S5s will go through the roof. Who wants to bother with a conspiracy and months of work with 1 charge? Unfortunately, I really can't see an alternative to the current incrementals. Cops would chase cash, whereas now they know they'll get the money whatever they do. Sure, we need to prevent laziness, but that is a matter for supervision to approve or deny someone an incremental rise based on their attitude and performance over the year.

Nice to see that another 1.5% coming out of the pot into the pension too which will make me £40 a month worse off.

I wasn't thinking of PIs, more of rewarding skills e.g. Level 1/2 PSU, PIP 2/3, Advanced driving, FLO, Firearms etc. While some roles are at the same rank, there can be a huge difference in terms of skills and responsibilities and I think Winsor pt 2 recognises that. E.g. A DC with 5 years service who carries OCG/serious sexual cases etc to Crown Court gets paid a lot less than someone with 20 years service who sits in a safety camera van all day, but the second cop will earn about £10k a year more purely because they've been coming to work for longer. It's bonkers. I realise most will disagree, but if you read Winsor pt 2 and the Neyroud report it's obvious that is where the job is going.

Derek you are correct as always. I suspect that the only reason we won't see an enormous rise in people leaving the cops is because there are very few jobs out there and if you've got kids/mortgage then retraining or emigrating is very hard. I do know of one lad who has taken a 5 year career break to retrain as a plumber to try and start working for himself with the option of coming back into the cops after 5 years if plumbing doesn't work out. Seems a sensible way to go.

[Chicken Chaser]

Sparta VAG said:

I wasn't thinking of PIs, more of rewarding skills e.g. Level 1/2 PSU, PIP 2/3, Advanced driving, FLO, Firearms etc. While some roles are at the same rank, there can be a huge difference in terms of skills and responsibilities and I think Winsor pt 2 recognises that. E.g. A DC with 5 years service who carries OCG/serious sexual cases etc to Crown Court gets paid a lot less than someone with 20 years service who sits in a safety camera van all day, but the second cop will earn about £10k a year more purely because they've been coming to work for longer. It's bonkers. I realise most will disagree, but if you read Winsor pt 2 and the Neyroud report it's obvious that is where the job is going.

Derek you are correct as always. I suspect that the only reason we won't see an enormous rise in people leaving the cops is because there are very few jobs out there and if you've got kids/mortgage then retraining or emigrating is very hard. I do know of one lad who has taken a 5 year career break to retrain as a plumber to try and start working for himself with the option of coming back into the cops after 5 years if plumbing doesn't work out. Seems a sensible way to go.

Do you know if the career break will mean him defaulting onto the newer police pension, or is he already on it?

[Elroy Blue]

The Sheehey report WAS a hatchet job. It's co-author ? A certain Mr David Cameron. He's never forgotten the kicking he got and he's certainly exacting his revenge.

The question of paying Officers based on sklills falls apart when you see that there are three criteria. Pip level 3 ( but only crime, not road death, which gets no recognition at all), public order and then....being part of a neighbourhood team. So work 9x5, go to meetings with old ladies talking about dog st and eating digestives and you get paid extra!!!!! SIO a multiple fatal or act as the FLO and you get zilch. Madness.

[Chicken Chaser]

Elroy Blue said:

The Sheehey report WAS a hatchet job. It's co-author ? A certain Mr David Cameron. He's never forgotten the kicking he got and he's certainly exacting his revenge.

The question of paying Officers based on sklills falls apart when you see that there are three criteria. Pip level 3 ( but only crime, not road death, which gets no recognition at all), public order and then....being part of a neighbourhood team. So work 9x5, go to meetings with old ladies talking about dog st and eating digestives and you get paid extra!!!!! SIO a multiple fatal or act as the FLO and you get zilch. Madness.

Too many variables involved to feasibly implement it fairly. Not that the job was ever fair, but at least there was some level of parity.

[Derek Smith]

Sparta VAG said:

I wasn't thinking of PIs, more of rewarding skills e.g. Level 1/2 PSU, PIP 2/3, Advanced driving, FLO, Firearms etc. While some roles are at the same rank, there can be a huge difference in terms of skills and responsibilities and I think Winsor pt 2 recognises that. E.g. A DC with 5 years service who carries OCG/serious sexual cases etc to Crown Court gets paid a lot less than someone with 20 years service who sits in a safety camera van all day, but the second cop will earn about £10k a year more purely because they've been coming to work for longer. It's bonkers. I realise most will disagree, but if you read Winsor pt 2 and the Neyroud report it's obvious that is where the job is going.

Derek you are correct as always. I suspect that the only reason we won't see an enormous rise in people leaving the cops is because there are very few jobs out there and if you've got kids/mortgage then retraining or emigrating is very hard. I do know of one lad who has taken a 5 year career break to retrain as a plumber to try and start working for himself with the option of coming back into the cops after 5 years if plumbing doesn't work out. Seems a sensible way to go.

The increments, like the fact that there was no pension fund, were seen as a way of keeping police officers. They were staged to take into consideration the length of service when officers handed in their tickets. I'm not sure it ever worked.

Pay for skills is a difficult policy to implement. Historically police officers have been willing to take on all the courses, do the difficult jobs, work under stressful situations as a norm. I was in my force's lead PSU team at the same time as being an armed response unit.

An option might be to put the money where there is reluctance to be. The PC on response would get a real bonus then. I don't know if it has changed but in my time after the first two years it was not so much a question of whether you wanted a speciality as which one.

I know things have changed. In my force it is difficult to get detectives yet fifteen years ago there was a queue. I don't know if anyone else agrees with me on this really off-the-wall-idea that if you work 9-5 at HQ your pay should relfect the fact that you've got it just about as cushy as it can be. Controversial I know but just consider it.

There are some posts I know I would not want to do, FLO being one of them. The question is whether an encouragement should be offered or not. Do we really want an FLO who is there because they want the extra few quid?

I took a decision when an inspector with 18 years that I did not want to go any further. There were chief inspectors who had the comfortable life, swanning around, and they there were those whose lives (and livers) were dominated by the job. Neither option - and there appeared to be only two - appealed. It's fair to say that more senior officers might well have come to the same conclusion about my career.

One SIO spent over a week sleeping at work on one big job and then, because he'd taken one big risk, he was posted to the nick which was used as the ultimate insult. When I heard what he had done, the Action getting the offender - now the longest serving prisoner without a statutory life sentence for murder - caught in the act of destroying evidence, I phoned him in awe just to congratulate him. He said: What's the worst they (the job) could do to me? Post me to Newhaven.

And that's what the b*stards did. I'm not sure I would have had the bottle to do what he did even without the risk of becoming persona non grata.

I have to say I have no idea of what would consitute fair pay. Every system has marks against it. Also how do you judge when officers are doing a good job? When I was in charge of the ID unit my super wanted me to record how many 'successful', i.e. positive, identification procedures we ran. I could not get over to him that this was no measure of how good the procedure was. If the person fails to identify the prisoner then that could be right.

Pay has a number of functions. It needs to be high enough initially to attract the right calibre of person. It should also reward those in the more difficult and anti-social parts of it. Promotion used to be seen as the reward for those who tried hard and had a positive influence on the job but this died with rapid promotion. So the pay must encourage officers to stay.

Edited by Derek Smith on Tuesday 31st January 14:46

[Chicken Chaser]

Derek Smith said:

I have to say I have no idea of what would consitute fair pay. Every system has marks against it. Also how do you judge when officers are doing a good job? When I was in charge of the ID unit my super wanted me to record how many 'successful', i.e. positive, identification procedures we ran. I could not get over to him that this was no measure of how good the procedure was. If the person fails to identify the prisoner then that could be right.

Exactly. Its a career which is totally non-quantifiable. Each job has to be taken on its own merit. Like it has been said, getting money for arrests is not the answer. Getting money for tickets is easy for traffic, but alienates the decent public. Getting detections would mean quick jobs being favoured over months of work taking place to secure a conviction for a good job. TSGs which might be used in a variety of ways wont get any results for recovering a load of property/evidence during a search for the CID/OCU and PPU 'tecs wont get anything for having to visit the beasts which they have deal with on a daily basis.

Does anyone know how any other similarly developed countries go about it? Surely they must have a different system if ours must seek reform.