(More) Budget Cuts and the (Proposed) 28 Day Bail Limit
Discussion
Yesterday I heard on the news about the latest round of budget cuts. The force I'm in already had to find about £40m of savings by 2016, on top of the previous round, before this latest round of cuts was announced. About £20m has been found. We've already lost about 600 officers and 700 police staff. Officers have gone through natural wastage while many police staff have been made redundant.
By pure chance, yesterday I spoke to a guy I know who used to be a probationer on my shift. He's now a Chief Inspector, has done several stints as an acting Superintendent and is currently on the HQ team trying to "design" the organisation for the future. I have a lot of time for him. He's a very capable police officer, first and foremost and can certainly "walk the walk", not just "talk the talk". He's hugely intelligent, but not afraid to listen to those on the shop floor and he accepts that he's not infallible. He recognises when he gets things wrong.
The "best case scenario" is that we will have to find an additional £55m. The shape of policing in England and Wales will change forever. There will be no proactive targetting capability. We will become an almost entirely reactive "fire brigade" organisation, reacting to events after they have happened. it is estimated that as an absolute minimum, we need about 1,000 officers just to provide 24/7 emergency response cover. There will be no neighbourhood policing, reduced public order and other specialist capability. There will be reactive investigators, but many fewer.
I'm currently a detective constable in CID. Currently I'm investigating two rapes, a public disorder involving seven suspects, two domestic assaults, an indecent images/child abuse enquiry, a blackmail, an unexplained death involving Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian witnesses and a robbery. Those are my CURRENT cases and don't include enquiries sent from CPS for trial preparation or witness/victim care. I recently spent a month attached to a murder enquiry. No one else progressed my jobs while I was away from my desk. I've worked 4 ten hour shifts this week. I've been in, working, at least half an hour before I'm due to start and there at least half an hour after I should have finished, just to try to get stuff done. Not to get ahead, just to slow the rate I'm sinking at. I haven't claimed any overtime, but even if I had, it wouldn't be authorised. The goodwill pot (mine at least) is rapidly approaching empty.
There should be nine DCs on my team (there are three teams in my office). We have six. The other teams are in a similar position. The 24 hour response teams are similarly denuded. Colleagues in Public Protection are on average carrying SEVENTEEN rapes/serious sexual assaults/child abuse/domestic violence investigations...
My pension, when I eventually get it, after having to work longer, will be worth less, yet cost me more. I personally find it unacceptable that the goalposts have been moved and the "contract" I signed when I joined has been broken. My lifestyle outside work is restricted (where I can live, who I can associate with and I can't be involved in politics). I have no industrial rights as an employee, yet my protections as an "employee" have been reduced.
Yes, I know, I chose to be a Police officer and there are those worse off than me. I'll trot it out before anyone else does "Look at those poor soldiers..." They similarly chose to join the army and knew what they were signing up for. We were in Afghanistan for the last ten years or so, so for anyone joining in the last 6 or 7 not to expect to get shot at somewhere dusty is a little naive. Yes, the pension may be better than what else is available to others, but it is no longer what it was when I agreed to it. And there is nothing to stop those with "rubbish" pensions joining the Police if it's so great...
So if you think the Police "don't do much" now, be prepared for us to do much, much less. I know officers are less willing to put themselves in harm's way, as it is now much easier to get rid of officers, but that aside, we'll not be dealing with neighbour disputes, Facebook abuse, minor RTAs. At all. You'll be trying to sort it out yourselves. And when you finally lose your rag and snot someone, we'll probably come and arrest YOU.
We wont be delivering babies, covering school crossing patrols, doing multi agency safeguarding, or taking people to hospital in lieu of an ambulance. I know of people seriously injured in RTAs having to wait over an hour for an ambulance. Our local ambulance trust recently declared an "emergency incident" as they had over TWO HUNDRED calls for service waiting for deployment in my county...
Then let's get on to Teresa May's brilliant 28 day bail limit. Its unworkable. I work shifts. I work some ten hour shifts, so effectively I'm at work for less than 20 of those 28 days. Let's say 18 days out of 28 as a rough guide.
It takes up to a month to get some phone data from the network providers.
Advice files to CPS for charging decisions take more than 9 weeks.
Forensic service providers are overwhelmed.
On top of live investigations, I'm expected to get witnesses to Court and look after them while they're there.
Its taken me over a month to get a statement (ONE STATEMENT) in relation to a rape, due to not being able to get hold of the witness, despite daily telephone calls, text messages and home visits. When I have made appointments, I've arrived to find no witness.
By the nature of the work I do, the enquiries are more complex and ts have to be crossed and is dotted.
I have 3 suspects on bail for child abuse images. They were arrested in October and bailed for the computers to be examined. The current Target date for the examination is March next year, by a department that's been cut, due to previous cuts (because it's not like every single job I deal with has a smartphone that needs looking at...)
Teresa May is, frankly, a fantasist if she thinks enquiries can physically be completed in 28 days.
If I could find work elsewhere for similar money, I'd leave tomorrow. The only thing keeping me there is the money. Not job satisfaction, not "helping" people, not seeing dangerous people put in prison. It's the money.
I'd like to be able to say its going to get worse before it gets better.
It's not. It's just going to get worse. Much, much worse.
By pure chance, yesterday I spoke to a guy I know who used to be a probationer on my shift. He's now a Chief Inspector, has done several stints as an acting Superintendent and is currently on the HQ team trying to "design" the organisation for the future. I have a lot of time for him. He's a very capable police officer, first and foremost and can certainly "walk the walk", not just "talk the talk". He's hugely intelligent, but not afraid to listen to those on the shop floor and he accepts that he's not infallible. He recognises when he gets things wrong.
The "best case scenario" is that we will have to find an additional £55m. The shape of policing in England and Wales will change forever. There will be no proactive targetting capability. We will become an almost entirely reactive "fire brigade" organisation, reacting to events after they have happened. it is estimated that as an absolute minimum, we need about 1,000 officers just to provide 24/7 emergency response cover. There will be no neighbourhood policing, reduced public order and other specialist capability. There will be reactive investigators, but many fewer.
I'm currently a detective constable in CID. Currently I'm investigating two rapes, a public disorder involving seven suspects, two domestic assaults, an indecent images/child abuse enquiry, a blackmail, an unexplained death involving Polish, Hungarian and Lithuanian witnesses and a robbery. Those are my CURRENT cases and don't include enquiries sent from CPS for trial preparation or witness/victim care. I recently spent a month attached to a murder enquiry. No one else progressed my jobs while I was away from my desk. I've worked 4 ten hour shifts this week. I've been in, working, at least half an hour before I'm due to start and there at least half an hour after I should have finished, just to try to get stuff done. Not to get ahead, just to slow the rate I'm sinking at. I haven't claimed any overtime, but even if I had, it wouldn't be authorised. The goodwill pot (mine at least) is rapidly approaching empty.
There should be nine DCs on my team (there are three teams in my office). We have six. The other teams are in a similar position. The 24 hour response teams are similarly denuded. Colleagues in Public Protection are on average carrying SEVENTEEN rapes/serious sexual assaults/child abuse/domestic violence investigations...
My pension, when I eventually get it, after having to work longer, will be worth less, yet cost me more. I personally find it unacceptable that the goalposts have been moved and the "contract" I signed when I joined has been broken. My lifestyle outside work is restricted (where I can live, who I can associate with and I can't be involved in politics). I have no industrial rights as an employee, yet my protections as an "employee" have been reduced.
Yes, I know, I chose to be a Police officer and there are those worse off than me. I'll trot it out before anyone else does "Look at those poor soldiers..." They similarly chose to join the army and knew what they were signing up for. We were in Afghanistan for the last ten years or so, so for anyone joining in the last 6 or 7 not to expect to get shot at somewhere dusty is a little naive. Yes, the pension may be better than what else is available to others, but it is no longer what it was when I agreed to it. And there is nothing to stop those with "rubbish" pensions joining the Police if it's so great...
So if you think the Police "don't do much" now, be prepared for us to do much, much less. I know officers are less willing to put themselves in harm's way, as it is now much easier to get rid of officers, but that aside, we'll not be dealing with neighbour disputes, Facebook abuse, minor RTAs. At all. You'll be trying to sort it out yourselves. And when you finally lose your rag and snot someone, we'll probably come and arrest YOU.
We wont be delivering babies, covering school crossing patrols, doing multi agency safeguarding, or taking people to hospital in lieu of an ambulance. I know of people seriously injured in RTAs having to wait over an hour for an ambulance. Our local ambulance trust recently declared an "emergency incident" as they had over TWO HUNDRED calls for service waiting for deployment in my county...
Then let's get on to Teresa May's brilliant 28 day bail limit. Its unworkable. I work shifts. I work some ten hour shifts, so effectively I'm at work for less than 20 of those 28 days. Let's say 18 days out of 28 as a rough guide.
It takes up to a month to get some phone data from the network providers.
Advice files to CPS for charging decisions take more than 9 weeks.
Forensic service providers are overwhelmed.
On top of live investigations, I'm expected to get witnesses to Court and look after them while they're there.
Its taken me over a month to get a statement (ONE STATEMENT) in relation to a rape, due to not being able to get hold of the witness, despite daily telephone calls, text messages and home visits. When I have made appointments, I've arrived to find no witness.
By the nature of the work I do, the enquiries are more complex and ts have to be crossed and is dotted.
I have 3 suspects on bail for child abuse images. They were arrested in October and bailed for the computers to be examined. The current Target date for the examination is March next year, by a department that's been cut, due to previous cuts (because it's not like every single job I deal with has a smartphone that needs looking at...)
Teresa May is, frankly, a fantasist if she thinks enquiries can physically be completed in 28 days.
If I could find work elsewhere for similar money, I'd leave tomorrow. The only thing keeping me there is the money. Not job satisfaction, not "helping" people, not seeing dangerous people put in prison. It's the money.
I'd like to be able to say its going to get worse before it gets better.
It's not. It's just going to get worse. Much, much worse.
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