Met Police, a rant

[jm doc]

Random_Person said:

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.

Ditto for the NHS and particularly Primary Care. It's on it's knees and the cover up continues with regular press briefings on an almost daily basis blaming the clinical staff. (Yesterday's Sun on Sunday classic example). It's becoming harder and harder to access medical care, experienced clinical staff being replaced by people who have had one or two years training, NHS111, people are actually dying as a result, workloads rocketing, the most experienced staff all leaving. Locally there are no GP's of my generation left, all that huge experience left to drift away, no effort made to encourage them to stay. I hear the same from police officers, other emergency services and teachers and stress related illness is at epidemic proportions.

Bit of a rant but I could spend a day listing the problems and it wouldn't make a ha'porth of difference...

[VSKeith]

jm doc said:

Ditto for the NHS and particularly Primary Care. It's on it's knees and the cover up continues with regular press briefings on an almost daily basis blaming the clinical staff. (Yesterday's Sun on Sunday classic example). It's becoming harder and harder to access medical care, experienced clinical staff being replaced by people who have had one or two years training, NHS111, people are actually dying as a result, workloads rocketing, the most experienced staff all leaving. Locally there are no GP's of my generation left, all that huge experience left to drift away, no effort made to encourage them to stay. I hear the same from police officers, other emergency services and teachers and stress related illness is at epidemic proportions.

Bit of a rant but I could spend a day listing the problems and it wouldn't make a ha'porth of difference...

The disdain that these 'people' of a certain political shade have for the services that hold this country together really is frightening

[VSKeith]

Random_Person said:

Interesting things

A really great post full of insights, thanks for making the effort

[andyA700]

Derek Smith said:

I remember mustering with shifts of 18 or so for just one part of the town I worked in. Now they are lucky to get into double figures for all of it.

I remember when you could pass a tape to a civvy and have it transcribed ready for the CPS file.

I remember being able to nick a suspect and be out on patrol later that shift.

I remember probationers never supervising other probationers.

I remember a floor of civilian support staff who used to type out documents for operational officers.

I remember when not answering a telephone call within 10 minutes led to the inspector being questioned as to why by those in the command suite.

I remember the start of the running down of the service, way back, in the late 1990s. This despite the press being told of the investment in the service. I remember fewer officers, longer times for vacancies being filled, of corners having to be cut.

I don't remember, at least first hand, the attack on the service by Cameron and later May, with farcical figures being mentioned. I remember retired officers being asked to join enquiry units at basic pay plus a little to do jobs civilians used to do. I remember them being cut later, so the jobs remained undone.

I accept this is a rant, but so was the first post.

I don't think the police can nowadays suggest they are still being picked on as the same problems effect all forms of social service, the NHS and much of the other infrastructure everyone took for granted.

This country is in a parlous state, entirely of the government's making. But the government blames, for instance, social services when they fail to hit impossible targets. It along with others blame the police for lacking the staff required to service all the demands placed on it.

It's odd that I can remember, way back, at the turn of the century, suggesting that sooner or later, the police would not be able to cope with demands. And that was ten years before Cameron.

This is the reality of the situation and I don't see it improving any time soon. Is it any wonder that people take matters into their own hands?

[Gary C]

Set fire to it.

That will sort it.