Met Police, a rant

[VSKeith]

Well said:

I'm afraid the current tax take is nothing like sufficient to put pubic services back on their feet.

For example, we've made the dreadful mistake of skimping on capital expenditure to try to massage budgets from one year to the next. But that just defers spending that eventually has to happen. School buildings are falling to bits. Roads are falling to bits. At some point soon we've got to pour money into those things and that isn't going to improve services. It's just going to stop them collapsing.

We've now got loads of public services that are sufficiently undermanned that productivity falls off a cliff. You get the same pattern with organisations as you do with individuals. As you heap more work on people initially they can cope but it's like giving a juggler too many balls to juggle. When they get overloaded they don't just drop the most recent ball they've been thrown, they drop the lot.

Anotger problem in many services is that the most experienced staff have seen things go to st, their morale plummeted and so they've resigned and taken all their experience with them. This strips organisations of their capacity to bring new staff up to speed, making the damage even harder to repair.

If we want to see services improve we're going to have to invest a lot and then wait for quite some time to see much benefit from the investment. I hope the next government will have the balls to raise public spending substantially and then ride out the unpopularity for a few years until the spending starts to bear fruit towards the end of their term. If we want people to take financial risk and be entrepreneurial, they'll be encouraged to do so if they know their kids will get a decent education from the state and their families can rely on the NHS. That safety net lets people take risk. It therefore contributes to productivity.

[Ian Geary]

The thread has moved from the symptom, towards the cause.

But it was society endorsed this political move though, and the politicians (government) just gave us what we wanted (short term fixes, ignore the long term problems).

The desired wholesale change in political movement is utterly unachievable. Especially as their main campaign slogan would be "staggeringly high taxes guaranteed " but also our political system keeps competition out.

It would also take a number of years for any new tax revenue to turn into visible benefits (the backlog, training time etc)

And of course what also needs to change are processes - these also take time and money to change. Eg, the online map reporting solution was no doubt sold to the met by a private company promising endless benefits in terms of staff efficiencies. To improve it would need another boatload of cash going to fund some sales director's £50k weekend toy.


We have the highest tax take since records began already, but comparing spend to ww2 takes no account of the increased level of welfare services expected by the public, demographics (ie age), wealth and productivity and so on.

The 80s and early 90s - whilst seeming grim in hindsight were perhaps a sweet spot in terms of aging population not yet hit, and a last blip of wealth as we sold off our national industries.

I wonder if this is what it was like in Argentina 100 years ago? given they were one of the wealthiest countries in the world at that point.

skwdenyer said:

So sorry to hear this.

Given that it simply *has* to get fixed, how would one start? Is the issue that too much organisational knowledge has left? Or that there's simply such an impossibly-large backlog that the prospect of trying to move forward looks impossible?

We need a new political movement in this country (whether or not from or with one of the existing parties): one that recognises the problems the country has, and tells the population straight how it can be fixed and what will be required to get there. Not perfect, but honest, truth and reconciliation seems the only way forward right now.

[skwdenyer]

Ian Geary said:

The thread has moved from the symptom, towards the cause.

But it was society endorsed this political move though, and the politicians (government) just gave us what we wanted (short term fixes, ignore the long term problems).

The desired wholesale change in political movement is utterly unachievable. Especially as their main campaign slogan would be "staggeringly high taxes guaranteed " but also our political system keeps competition out.

It would also take a number of years for any new tax revenue to turn into visible benefits (the backlog, training time etc)

And of course what also needs to change are processes - these also take time and money to change. Eg, the online map reporting solution was no doubt sold to the met by a private company promising endless benefits in terms of staff efficiencies. To improve it would need another boatload of cash going to fund some sales director's £50k weekend toy.


We have the highest tax take since records began already, but comparing spend to ww2 takes no account of the increased level of welfare services expected by the public, demographics (ie age), wealth and productivity and so on.

The 80s and early 90s - whilst seeming grim in hindsight were perhaps a sweet spot in terms of aging population not yet hit, and a last blip of wealth as we sold off our national industries.

I wonder if this is what it was like in Argentina 100 years ago? given they were one of the wealthiest countries in the world at that point.

skwdenyer said:

So sorry to hear this.

Given that it simply *has* to get fixed, how would one start? Is the issue that too much organisational knowledge has left? Or that there's simply such an impossibly-large backlog that the prospect of trying to move forward looks impossible?

We need a new political movement in this country (whether or not from or with one of the existing parties): one that recognises the problems the country has, and tells the population straight how it can be fixed and what will be required to get there. Not perfect, but honest, truth and reconciliation seems the only way forward right now.

Well said.

I’ve pointed out here and elsewhere for years that our economy is fundamentally screwed & been shouted down all to regularly. Your Argentina comment is insightful.

[skwdenyer]

ATG said:

I'm afraid the current tax take is nothing like sufficient to put pubic services back on their feet.

For example, we've made the dreadful mistake of skimping on capital expenditure to try to massage budgets from one year to the next. But that just defers spending that eventually has to happen. School buildings are falling to bits. Roads are falling to bits. At some point soon we've got to pour money into those things and that isn't going to improve services. It's just going to stop them collapsing.

We've now got loads of public services that are sufficiently undermanned that productivity falls off a cliff. You get the same pattern with organisations as you do with individuals. As you heap more work on people initially they can cope but it's like giving a juggler too many balls to juggle. When they get overloaded they don't just drop the most recent ball they've been thrown, they drop the lot.

Anotger problem in many services is that the most experienced staff have seen things go to st, their morale plummeted and so they've resigned and taken all their experience with them. This strips organisations of their capacity to bring new staff up to speed, making the damage even harder to repair.

If we want to see services improve we're going to have to invest a lot and then wait for quite some time to see much benefit from the investment. I hope the next government will have the balls to raise public spending substantially and then ride out the unpopularity for a few years until the spending starts to bear fruit towards the end of their term. If we want people to take financial risk and be entrepreneurial, they'll be encouraged to do so if they know their kids will get a decent education from the state and their families can rely on the NHS. That safety net lets people take risk. It therefore contributes to productivity.

These threads are very funny sometimes. People come out of the woodwork agreeing with the analysis, yet many still appear to continue to vote for the opposite.

The evidence is that people overwhelmingly *do* want change, and aren't afraid to agree to pay for it. Brexit was (in large part) a protest vote. Corbyn very nearly won the 2017 election.

In fact, the only thing that does effect political change in this country these days is protest. Major lost because the country had turned against him. Brown likewise. Sunak will most likely suffer the same fate.

People don't seem to vote *for* anything much any more; they vote *against* something they've got fed up with.

Which is, of course, a charlatan's paradise - all you have to do is offer enough false hope to counter the current stshow and you stand a chance of power. But that's no way to operate a country.

We need root-and-branch reform in this country of the social contract between governed and governors. Everywhere we look, it is currently broken.

The key platform should be a "drain the swamp" approach (yes, I know, Trump gave that a bad rep). We need major commitments to mandate certain changes. We need a written constitution to enshrine basic rights. We need proper separation of powers. We need to break this cycle of citizens as subjects, with 'rights' removable by legislative whim.

In almost all functional senses, we need a revolution.

[turbobloke]

skwdenyer said:

ATG said:

I'm afraid the current tax take is nothing like sufficient to put pubic services back on their feet.

For example, we've made the dreadful mistake of skimping on capital expenditure to try to massage budgets from one year to the next. But that just defers spending that eventually has to happen. School buildings are falling to bits. Roads are falling to bits. At some point soon we've got to pour money into those things and that isn't going to improve services. It's just going to stop them collapsing.

We've now got loads of public services that are sufficiently undermanned that productivity falls off a cliff. You get the same pattern with organisations as you do with individuals. As you heap more work on people initially they can cope but it's like giving a juggler too many balls to juggle. When they get overloaded they don't just drop the most recent ball they've been thrown, they drop the lot.

Anotger problem in many services is that the most experienced staff have seen things go to st, their morale plummeted and so they've resigned and taken all their experience with them. This strips organisations of their capacity to bring new staff up to speed, making the damage even harder to repair.

If we want to see services improve we're going to have to invest a lot and then wait for quite some time to see much benefit from the investment. I hope the next government will have the balls to raise public spending substantially and then ride out the unpopularity for a few years until the spending starts to bear fruit towards the end of their term. If we want people to take financial risk and be entrepreneurial, they'll be encouraged to do so if they know their kids will get a decent education from the state and their families can rely on the NHS. That safety net lets people take risk. It therefore contributes to productivity.

These threads are very funny sometimes. People come out of the woodwork agreeing with the analysis, yet many still appear to continue to vote for the opposite.

The evidence is that people overwhelmingly *do* want change, and aren't afraid to agree to pay for it. Brexit was (in large part) a protest vote. Corbyn very nearly won the 2017 election.

In fact, the only thing that does effect political change in this country these days is protest. Major lost because the country had turned against him. Brown likewise. Sunak will most likely suffer the same fate.

People don't seem to vote *for* anything much any more; they vote *against* something they've got fed up with.

Which is, of course, a charlatan's paradise - all you have to do is offer enough false hope to counter the current stshow and you stand a chance of power. But that's no way to operate a country.

We need root-and-branch reform in this country of the social contract between governed and governors. Everywhere we look, it is currently broken.

The key platform should be a "drain the swamp" approach (yes, I know, Trump gave that a bad rep). We need major commitments to mandate certain changes. We need a written constitution to enshrine basic rights. We need proper separation of powers. We need to break this cycle of citizens as subjects, with 'rights' removable by legislative whim.

In almost all functional senses, we need a revolution.

Revolution you are McDonnell in a pinstripe AICMTP

A couple of points: the "people" you refer to as saying one thing and voting for another may not be quite so cavalier, they may well not be daft enough to vote for pouring lots more expensive taxwater into a set of buckets full of holes, and would like to see at least some of the holes fixed first via reform not largesse, because they too care about the broken buckets.

Secondly, on Corbyn ho ho ho and there's other equally sane analysis available.

Finally, when whoever gets around to enshrining rights, they could usefully enshrine some responsibilities first, and uphold both.

[turbobloke]

Meanwhile, the Met, what service!

[Miserablegit]

There’s also the wholesale squandering of the resources available.
I’m in Suffolk - this is the cost of the PCC which, IMHO, achieves sweet FA. I’d rather the money was spent on another 20 officers.

[skwdenyer]

turbobloke said:

skwdenyer said:

ATG said:

I'm afraid the current tax take is nothing like sufficient to put pubic services back on their feet.

For example, we've made the dreadful mistake of skimping on capital expenditure to try to massage budgets from one year to the next. But that just defers spending that eventually has to happen. School buildings are falling to bits. Roads are falling to bits. At some point soon we've got to pour money into those things and that isn't going to improve services. It's just going to stop them collapsing.

We've now got loads of public services that are sufficiently undermanned that productivity falls off a cliff. You get the same pattern with organisations as you do with individuals. As you heap more work on people initially they can cope but it's like giving a juggler too many balls to juggle. When they get overloaded they don't just drop the most recent ball they've been thrown, they drop the lot.

Anotger problem in many services is that the most experienced staff have seen things go to st, their morale plummeted and so they've resigned and taken all their experience with them. This strips organisations of their capacity to bring new staff up to speed, making the damage even harder to repair.

If we want to see services improve we're going to have to invest a lot and then wait for quite some time to see much benefit from the investment. I hope the next government will have the balls to raise public spending substantially and then ride out the unpopularity for a few years until the spending starts to bear fruit towards the end of their term. If we want people to take financial risk and be entrepreneurial, they'll be encouraged to do so if they know their kids will get a decent education from the state and their families can rely on the NHS. That safety net lets people take risk. It therefore contributes to productivity.

These threads are very funny sometimes. People come out of the woodwork agreeing with the analysis, yet many still appear to continue to vote for the opposite.

The evidence is that people overwhelmingly *do* want change, and aren't afraid to agree to pay for it. Brexit was (in large part) a protest vote. Corbyn very nearly won the 2017 election.

In fact, the only thing that does effect political change in this country these days is protest. Major lost because the country had turned against him. Brown likewise. Sunak will most likely suffer the same fate.

People don't seem to vote *for* anything much any more; they vote *against* something they've got fed up with.

Which is, of course, a charlatan's paradise - all you have to do is offer enough false hope to counter the current stshow and you stand a chance of power. But that's no way to operate a country.

We need root-and-branch reform in this country of the social contract between governed and governors. Everywhere we look, it is currently broken.

The key platform should be a "drain the swamp" approach (yes, I know, Trump gave that a bad rep). We need major commitments to mandate certain changes. We need a written constitution to enshrine basic rights. We need proper separation of powers. We need to break this cycle of citizens as subjects, with 'rights' removable by legislative whim.

In almost all functional senses, we need a revolution.

Revolution you are McDonnell in a pinstripe AICMTP

A couple of points: the "people" you refer to as saying one thing and voting for another may not be quite so cavalier, they may well not be daft enough to vote for pouring lots more expensive taxwater into a set of buckets full of holes, and would like to see at least some of the holes fixed first via reform not largesse, because they too care about the broken buckets.

Secondly, on Corbyn ho ho ho and there's other equally sane analysis available.

Finally, when whoever gets around to enshrining rights, they could usefully enshrine some responsibilities first, and uphold both.

I'm certainly not a revolutionary in the McDonnell sense! Revolution may usefully be defined as when sufficient of the people stand up and, with one voice, cry "never again, not in my name." That's the sort of revolution we need.

Re Corbyn, he won far more votes than Cameron had in 2015. That article you don't link to is hilarious for its immediate caveating of its own headline. 41.0%:43.4% is a pretty close election. My point, rather than getting dragged into that rabbit hole, is that a *lot* of people were prepared to vote for a pretty radical change.

Re taxwater, you keep going back to that. You are precisely the sort of political cynic who is so convinced nothing will change that they're unprepared to do anything to effect change.

We *know* public services are in many cases inefficient - in no small part to the cumulative effect of decades of incompetent Conservative dogma. But rather than joining with those who want actual change, you seem to want only to stand on the sidelines and say "the people aren't stupid enough to vote for change."

When I talk of rights, I mean rights of all parties - what the state has a right to expect, likewise the public. I don't think you grasp the Pavlovian problem we have now - people are so conditioned by the post-1979 world to expect nothing that they will take what they can get. Fixing that will require little short of - yes - a revolution.

But back on topic, the problems of the Police are *not* due to a "leaky bucket," but instead due to a deliberate policy of drought.

[VSKeith]

skwdenyer said:

These threads are very funny sometimes. People come out of the woodwork agreeing with the analysis, yet many still appear to continue to vote for the opposite.

The evidence is that people overwhelmingly *do* want change, and aren't afraid to agree to pay for it. Brexit was (in large part) a protest vote. Corbyn very nearly won the 2017 election.

In fact, the only thing that does effect political change in this country these days is protest. Major lost because the country had turned against him. Brown likewise. Sunak will most likely suffer the same fate.

People don't seem to vote *for* anything much any more; they vote *against* something they've got fed up with.

Which is, of course, a charlatan's paradise - all you have to do is offer enough false hope to counter the current stshow and you stand a chance of power. But that's no way to operate a country.

We need root-and-branch reform in this country of the social contract between governed and governors. Everywhere we look, it is currently broken.

The key platform should be a "drain the swamp" approach (yes, I know, Trump gave that a bad rep). We need major commitments to mandate certain changes. We need a written constitution to enshrine basic rights. We need proper separation of powers. We need to break this cycle of citizens as subjects, with 'rights' removable by legislative whim.

In almost all functional senses, we need a revolution.

Hear hear

[Southerner]

Miserablegit said:

There’s also the wholesale squandering of the resources available.
I’m in Suffolk - this is the cost of the PCC which, IMHO, achieves sweet FA. I’d rather the money was spent on another 20 officers.

How the eff does a PCC need £600k of staff?! Wtf?

[skwdenyer]

Southerner said:

Miserablegit said:

There’s also the wholesale squandering of the resources available.
I’m in Suffolk - this is the cost of the PCC which, IMHO, achieves sweet FA. I’d rather the money was spent on another 20 officers.

How the eff does a PCC need £600k of staff?! Wtf?

That's £640k of staff costs, which isn't the same as £640k of staff. 'Cost of ownership' of staff is (I think) about 25% or so in the public sector, so about £510k.

How would you like the Office of the PCC to function? There's a wide range of statutory functions the Commission is responsible for, which will obviously require a substantial staff to handle.

Notwithstanding the local variations in office structure, by law all PCCs must employ a Chief Executive / Monitoring Officer (CEO) and a Chief Finance Officer. These are known as the two statutory officers.

The role of the OPCC is to support the statutory functions of a PCC, with a key focus on supporting delivery against the local Police and Crime Plan.

All OPCCs are likely to have staff delivering against core functions including performance and oversight, commissioning, public engagement and communication, complaints handling, budget setting and finance, strategic planning, partnership working etc.

In addition, some PCCs will have additional functions within their teams depending on what additional functions and services they have taken on. For example:

• Whilst PCCs own all policing assets such as police buildings etc, some PCCs have taken on the direct management of Police estates functions, with these staff members sitting in their teams.
• For those PCCs who are delivering the model 3 complaints proves, they may have all of the complaints team based within their office.
• For those PCCs that have responsibility for the Violence Reduction unit, they may have some or all of the VRU staff in their Office.

A PCC can choose to set up their office structure according to their local and regional requirements. However, it is important to understand why a given staffing structure has developed and that is why it is considered impractical and to try to directly compare one OPCC structure with another.

Notes from here: https://www.apccs.police.uk/role-of-the-pcc/

TL;DR: the PCC is responsible for a great deal more than I think you think they are responsible for.

[Southerner]

skwdenyer said:

Southerner said:

How the eff does a PCC need £600k of staff?! Wtf?

That's £640k of staff costs, which isn't the same as £640k of staff. 'Cost of ownership' of staff is (I think) about 25% or so in the public sector, so about £510k.

How would you like the Office of the PCC to function? There's a wide range of statutory functions the Commission is responsible for, which will obviously require a substantial staff to handle.

Notwithstanding the local variations in office structure, by law all PCCs must employ a Chief Executive / Monitoring Officer (CEO) and a Chief Finance Officer. These are known as the two statutory officers.

The role of the OPCC is to support the statutory functions of a PCC, with a key focus on supporting delivery against the local Police and Crime Plan.

All OPCCs are likely to have staff delivering against core functions including performance and oversight, commissioning, public engagement and communication, complaints handling, budget setting and finance, strategic planning, partnership working etc.

In addition, some PCCs will have additional functions within their teams depending on what additional functions and services they have taken on. For example:

• Whilst PCCs own all policing assets such as police buildings etc, some PCCs have taken on the direct management of Police estates functions, with these staff members sitting in their teams.
• For those PCCs who are delivering the model 3 complaints proves, they may have all of the complaints team based within their office.
• For those PCCs that have responsibility for the Violence Reduction unit, they may have some or all of the VRU staff in their Office.

A PCC can choose to set up their office structure according to their local and regional requirements. However, it is important to understand why a given staffing structure has developed and that is why it is considered impractical and to try to directly compare one OPCC structure with another.

Notes from here: https://www.apccs.police.uk/role-of-the-pcc/

TL;DR: the PCC is responsible for a great deal more than I think you think they are responsible for.

Goodness! No wonder the police absolutely couldn’t function before they introduced them in 2012…

[Miserablegit]

It’s the classic public sector strategy- we’ve not got enough police so we’ll set up another body with
“… staff delivering against core functions including performance and oversight, commissioning, public engagement and communication, complaints handling, budget setting and finance, strategic planning, partnership working etc.”
Box ticking exercises which tells somebody somewhere they’re doing a great job meanwhile 999 calls are ignored and the only time I hear from the PCC is when they want me to pay more council tax to fund their existence. I always say I’m paying enough as it is and not getting the service I’m paying for- they increase it anyway and rinse and repeat.

[Peter3442]

We do seem to spend a lot of money on controlling expenditure. I'm not saying expenditure shouldn't be controlled, but sometimes the cost is largely bums on seats and if you need that number that's what it costs.

[iDrive]

Southerner said:

Goodness! No wonder the police absolutely couldn’t function before they introduced them in 2012…

I found myself responsible for the introduction of the PCC in our area on behalf of the County Council.

The Legislation was ill-thought-through, the idea not fully formed, it was delayed by 6months but should have been delayed 18months.

Most basic PCCs offices cost less to run than the previous Police Authorities, and accepting there have been a few clowns (ok, more than a few), they are generally more effective than most Police Authorities ever were.

You, idiots, vote for them. In very small numbers, but they are entirely your fault.

The breadth of the remit of PCCs is vastly greater than Police Authorities, which makes the relatively low costs almost impressive. Almost.

But no one seems to really understand what they do. Or why. Which is a shame, because in many areas they have evolved into something fit for purpose.

But they are up for election in May next year and it'll be fun to spot who voted in the clowns again, and which PCC doesn't actually know what a PCC does (first time around, that was most of them...).

Edited by iDrive on Friday 24th November 18:34

[Miserablegit]

Against this backdrop of 5.6% it’s clearly not working

“In the year ending March 2022, 5.6% of offences recorded in the year resulted in a charge and/or summons outcome, down from 7.1% in the previous year.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-out...

[skwdenyer]

Miserablegit said:

Against this backdrop of 5.6% it’s clearly not working

“In the year ending March 2022, 5.6% of offences recorded in the year resulted in a charge and/or summons outcome, down from 7.1% in the previous year.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-out...

I think we can all agree that it isn’t working, yes!

[jamesson]

Miserablegit said:

Against this backdrop of 5.6% it’s clearly not working

“In the year ending March 2022, 5.6% of offences recorded in the year resulted in a charge and/or summons outcome, down from 7.1% in the previous year.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-out...

That is abysmal.

[Random_Person]

I have direct experience of all the areas you speak of, and having a bit of time on my hands this morning I was going to go into some detail over it, however I am always conscious that whatever effort is made becomes lost in a cache of internet never to be looked at again, but I will let you in on some of the home truths.

br d said:

van and reg

You are not alone. Cloned plates have been a major issue in London for some years and are currently extremely prevalent. It will likely continue to increase year on year as it is very hard to police. ANPR is often cited as the tool to deal with it however the reality is the opposite. ANPR hits come through at a rate of around roughly 2 to 3 a minute, meaning roughly 180 an hour although it varies. Only a tiny fragment of those are responded to and circulated however the reality is that once they are digested, entered on the system, digital work done, sent to despatch and circulated, they are long gone. Meaning the only real way of intercepting is directly through pro-active policing, but that died long ago in the Met.

Even when stopped it is often not simple - proving the driver is responsible is tricky and even then its a low level offence. The policy that call handlers have access even says that the use of cloned plates is not an offence - I have never agreed with it (going equipped) but most call handlers are civilians and this is the script from which they are reading. Meaning most reports of clones get recorded, a PNC record created of the allegation, and then the victim told to deal with all the correspondance they receive.

br d said:

The Police next,
I ring 101 and ask for the Met. Obviousy, they don't answer. A message that says if it's an emergency ring 999 otherwise go on their website.
I try this. A hundred fking questions and a "Can you show on a map where the crime occured". The map doesn't work, I can hover the pin but then no other options and going back drops me straight back to google.

I ring again and wait. Lot's of bks about crimes on Trains which obviously doesn't apply but if you stick out all this telling you to go to the website ste you eventually get "Press 9 for an operator".
This I do and then to no surprise whatsoever I get "We are experiencing a high volume of calls go to the website blah blah blah".

Now firstly, this is a number for reporting crimes, not buying a fking mattress, if you don't have enough people to answer the phone to victims of crime then employ some more, it isn't a mystery.
And secondly your website doesn't even work properly ffs.

I waited 40 minutes listening to the same crap.

I'm not anti Police at all. They've got the st end of the stick all day long and I get that but fking hell.
I've been around long enough to just put up with this kind of st and pull through, it isn't poor me I'm concerned about.

But lets say you're an old person who comes home from shopping to find someone has tried to break into your house. You're worried and vulnerable so you ring the Police and this is what you get? How the fk can they deal with this? You can't speak to a human and the website will just confuse you, there are hundreds of thousands of people like this in London, what are they supposed to do?

I told you I was just venting but this really fking annoys me. This is the Capitals Police Force for Christ sake. You have to struggle to report a crime?

Before I go into the bad news I will say that around 99% of officers and staff have the best of intentions towards members of the public. But when you make contact you are dealing with a complex system of telephony, online portals and staff. Contact centres in London have always and will continue to survive on overtime alone. The current spend is around £11 million a year to staff the gaps. Demand is through the roof owing to the ever increasing population, staff levels are critical as recruitment and retention continue to be a major issues, and sickness is also woeful - around 50% currently. There are numerous reasons for all this, but ultimately the ask is too much, meaning training, system updates and infrastructure is all working over maximum capacity and crumbling at the seams at some points.

The real issue is the culture though. This area of policing is seen as a money pit, with many lower ranks and bands performing it in London earning into 6 figures thanks to a carefully orchestrated overtime schedule weaved into a 5 on 5 off pattern. There is no recognition of good work, no action taken for poor work, no performance culture, mass confusion over ever changing internal policy and practice, and constantly moving goalposts to suit the monthly theme set by the leadership team (who themselves never stay long and continue to change swiftly through promotion cycles).

The 101 system often has no queue as concerted efforts have been put in place this year to reduce pressure. However the efforts have had to be to reduce call demand and divert demand elsewhere, as more staff and centres are not an option owing to cost / training / space. So online reporting is encourages, as well as the automated phone system to offer alternative routes of reporting. But you can always opt to speak to someone. In London the queue should range between a few seconds to 20 mins, the latter being only during peak times or exceptional call volumes. A huge amount of calls police get are non police related and there have been new processes bought in this year to deal with this, the ceasing of dealing with welfare / medical calls being one. There is one more significant process coming in soon which should really improve the 101 handling times, basically calls will be met by an operator straight away who will determine the nature and either put a caller in the queue or bin the call there and then. So efforts are underway to improve it all.

The online system is national however I am aware there are issues with mapping and some of the boxes. That said, you should be able to bypass some of that stuff and if you submit something it will be looked at,. assessed and prioritized if appropriate. Some online reporting does get an emergency or within 1 hour response. Elderly, vulnerable and burglary victims will always get a visit as this is the policy so those in society who need a response do get a response. It is not uncommon for that scenario to get a 999 call - strictly speaking it isn't an emergency however in the circs it would be dealt with.

FWIW imagine what it is like working within this environment. It is so large and complex that internal communications are actually worse than what you have experienced. It is very difficult to identify and make contact with other departments, most of the time numbers go through to a logged off phone, emails are rarely answered, it really is poor.

[jamesson]

Fascinating and horrifying at the same time. Thank you for the input and explanation.