Police detection targets and financial rewards
Discussion
This evening there was an interesting programme on Ch 4 about dealing with youth crime.
The core issue under discussion was whether it is more efficacious over time to charge youths formally with offences and arrest them, or to have a quiet, constructive word with them and their parents before commencing a criminal record.
A serving police officer (identified as being with an unnamed "metropolitan" force) who was interviewed said that at the end of each year police officers were potentially eligible for performance bonuses of £800-1200, and suggested that the primary criterion for receiving such a bonus was whether one had reached a certain target level of crime detections. He said that this incentive structure was being driven by central government.
As it related to the programme, the idea was that charging youths with offences was a relatively easy way for officers to build up their detection numbers, notwithstanding that in the long-term the youths might be less inclined to become serial offenders if, instead, they were not treated as offenders when they were young.
Would any of our resident professionals care to share with us whether such a financial reward system is used for traffic police? If so, does it encourage them to behave differently from how they might have done in an earlier era?
Cheers.
The core issue under discussion was whether it is more efficacious over time to charge youths formally with offences and arrest them, or to have a quiet, constructive word with them and their parents before commencing a criminal record.
A serving police officer (identified as being with an unnamed "metropolitan" force) who was interviewed said that at the end of each year police officers were potentially eligible for performance bonuses of £800-1200, and suggested that the primary criterion for receiving such a bonus was whether one had reached a certain target level of crime detections. He said that this incentive structure was being driven by central government.
As it related to the programme, the idea was that charging youths with offences was a relatively easy way for officers to build up their detection numbers, notwithstanding that in the long-term the youths might be less inclined to become serial offenders if, instead, they were not treated as offenders when they were young.
Would any of our resident professionals care to share with us whether such a financial reward system is used for traffic police? If so, does it encourage them to behave differently from how they might have done in an earlier era?
Cheers.
Slightly O/T, but a report last night that guards on South West Trains are being set financial targets for selling the most expensive tickets to and fining passengers penalty fares for not having a ticket. And before you go into paroxysms of indignation that, of course people should buy a ticket before boarding a train, SWT admit that queues at ticket offices are too long (15 minutes and more are not unknown, indeed often typical at a (non-terminus) station I occasionally use), that they don't have enough automatic ticket machines, and that those they do have are unreliable and can be a challenge to use (even for SWT staff, whom I have seen puzzling over how to get one to issue a specific ticket).
It's all about meeting arbitrary targets, and that's part of BLiar's legacy, that he and his cronies ruined the NHS, the police and many other respected organisations by target-setting. I'm surprised the army in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't been set targets for the number of Taliban and "insurgents" to shoot ... oh, silly me, of course they're set targets for the minimum number of bullets they use!
Streaky
It's all about meeting arbitrary targets, and that's part of BLiar's legacy, that he and his cronies ruined the NHS, the police and many other respected organisations by target-setting. I'm surprised the army in Afghanistan and Iraq haven't been set targets for the number of Taliban and "insurgents" to shoot ... oh, silly me, of course they're set targets for the minimum number of bullets they use!
Streaky
flemke said:
This evening there was an interesting programme on Ch 4 about dealing with youth crime.
The core issue under discussion was whether it is more efficacious over time to charge youths formally with offences and arrest them, or to have a quiet, constructive word with them and their parents before commencing a criminal record.
A serving police officer (identified as being with an unnamed "metropolitan" force) who was interviewed said that at the end of each year police officers were potentially eligible for performance bonuses of £800-1200, and suggested that the primary criterion for receiving such a bonus was whether one had reached a certain target level of crime detections. He said that this incentive structure was being driven by central government.
As it related to the programme, the idea was that charging youths with offences was a relatively easy way for officers to build up their detection numbers, notwithstanding that in the long-term the youths might be less inclined to become serial offenders if, instead, they were not treated as offenders when they were young.
Would any of our resident professionals care to share with us whether such a financial reward system is used for traffic police? If so, does it encourage them to behave differently from how they might have done in an earlier era?
Cheers.
Interesting soundbite, but b9ll9cks.The core issue under discussion was whether it is more efficacious over time to charge youths formally with offences and arrest them, or to have a quiet, constructive word with them and their parents before commencing a criminal record.
A serving police officer (identified as being with an unnamed "metropolitan" force) who was interviewed said that at the end of each year police officers were potentially eligible for performance bonuses of £800-1200, and suggested that the primary criterion for receiving such a bonus was whether one had reached a certain target level of crime detections. He said that this incentive structure was being driven by central government.
As it related to the programme, the idea was that charging youths with offences was a relatively easy way for officers to build up their detection numbers, notwithstanding that in the long-term the youths might be less inclined to become serial offenders if, instead, they were not treated as offenders when they were young.
Would any of our resident professionals care to share with us whether such a financial reward system is used for traffic police? If so, does it encourage them to behave differently from how they might have done in an earlier era?
Cheers.
He is talking about competency payments.
these are for long serving officers on the top scale for their rank- like me.
I get a sum of money each year as long as I remain 'competent'.
This is assessed by my line manager in my annual appraisal.
It is to encourage long serving officers not to become uniform carriers.
It has nothing to do with arrest/summons figures.
Mine is about £1000 pa.
Less tax,NI and whatever it is not much more than £2 a day.
Hardly a life changing sum of money.
Bonus payments are given to officers in unpopular jobs to try and fill vacancies eg Custody Officers, where conditions of work are rubbish.
they are even less and are about £200 pa.
There are bonus sums as gratuities available for such things as searching decomposed bodies but no-one I know has ever seen one. ( gratuity, not body)
Nevertheless, CP - with the greatest respect, I refer you to the following:
July 2005: North Wales police set points target to be met by arrests. Strong suggestions from rank-and-file officers that this is linked to performance bonus.
May 2007: Jan Berry (Chairman of the Police Federation) attacks "target-driven criminal justice culture" at annual conference. Before the conference, a Federation spokesperson said that, "Missing [the set] target can damage an officer's chances of a performance-related bonus."
And on a related point, in May this year, John Fassenfelt (Chairman of the Magistrates' Association's Youth Courts Committee) said that, "Police detection target are encouraging officers to ignore serious crime." I.e. picking off the "low-hanging fruit" can secure an officer's bonus faster and more easily than detecting more serious cimes.
Streaky
July 2005: North Wales police set points target to be met by arrests. Strong suggestions from rank-and-file officers that this is linked to performance bonus.
May 2007: Jan Berry (Chairman of the Police Federation) attacks "target-driven criminal justice culture" at annual conference. Before the conference, a Federation spokesperson said that, "Missing [the set] target can damage an officer's chances of a performance-related bonus."
And on a related point, in May this year, John Fassenfelt (Chairman of the Magistrates' Association's Youth Courts Committee) said that, "Police detection target are encouraging officers to ignore serious crime." I.e. picking off the "low-hanging fruit" can secure an officer's bonus faster and more easily than detecting more serious cimes.
Streaky
Chrispy Porker said:
Interesting soundbite, but b9ll9cks.
He is talking about competency payments.
these are for long serving officers on the top scale for their rank- like me.
I get a sum of money each year as long as I remain 'competent'.
This is assessed by my line manager in my annual appraisal.
It is to encourage long serving officers not to become uniform carriers.
It has nothing to do with arrest/summons figures.
Mine is about £1000 pa.
Less tax,NI and whatever it is not much more than £2 a day.
Hardly a life changing sum of money.
The comments from the officer were too long to be soundbites, so in this case the producers did not seem to be doing what they usually would do - which would be presenting out of context whatever suited their commercial or political agenda.He is talking about competency payments.
these are for long serving officers on the top scale for their rank- like me.
I get a sum of money each year as long as I remain 'competent'.
This is assessed by my line manager in my annual appraisal.
It is to encourage long serving officers not to become uniform carriers.
It has nothing to do with arrest/summons figures.
Mine is about £1000 pa.
Less tax,NI and whatever it is not much more than £2 a day.
Hardly a life changing sum of money.
The way that he characterised this structure did not suggest that it was only for long-serving officers. To the contrary, it seemed that this was a broad enough norm that it was having a marked effect on overall police behaviour.
Are no quantitative measures, such as arrest/summons figures, used to assess an individual's "performance?
We know that detection rates (if that's not the precise technical term, please forgive me) are closely monitored, as the government makes a big deal out of them whenever a new set is higher than the previous one. We also know that the government is target-happy.
It would be surprising if the way that the police work were different from the way that the rest of life works, and that none of the target culture filtered down to affect individual officers.
There are no performance related bonuses that I am aware of.
I have outlined the awards available.
If they WERE available then they are going to be a level where no-one is going to bust a gut to get them.
£2 a day after tax?
Nope.
People who want more money just do overtime.
In any case detections/arrests per officer prove nothing.
I haven't arrested anyone since 1998.
I have outlined the awards available.
If they WERE available then they are going to be a level where no-one is going to bust a gut to get them.
£2 a day after tax?
Nope.
People who want more money just do overtime.
In any case detections/arrests per officer prove nothing.
I haven't arrested anyone since 1998.
Chrispy Porker said:
In any case detections/arrests per officer prove nothing.
That may well be right, sir.If it were right, however, that would hardly prevent a know-it-all, top-down, control freak central government from creating and imposing myriad "metrics" on the Police.
They have done that in health care and in education, and we know how successful those programmes have been!
flemke said:
Chrispy Porker said:
In any case detections/arrests per officer prove nothing.
That may well be right, sir.If it were right, however, that would hardly prevent a know-it-all, top-down, control freak central government from creating and imposing myriad "metrics" on the Police.
They have done that in health care and in education, and we know how successful those programmes have been!
Our IT systems do not help.
Some forces record crime and detections more 'ethically' than others and so
figures are pretty meaningless in my opinion.
Ask people if they feel safer in their area than this time last year. That is the way to gauge whether the police are doing a good job.
Chrispy Porker said:
flemke said:
Chrispy Porker said:
In any case detections/arrests per officer prove nothing.
That may well be right, sir.If it were right, however, that would hardly prevent a know-it-all, top-down, control freak central government from creating and imposing myriad "metrics" on the Police.
They have done that in health care and in education, and we know how successful those programmes have been!
I think the programme you watched (I didn't see it myself, but I've seen and read plenty of other similar articles) highlights the dangers of any kind of performance indicators and league tables in Policing.
It starts (quite predictably) with the Government, who decided some years ago to grade Police Forces on their effectiveness and produce a table of the best and worst performing forces. Obviously, to measure forces' effectiveness, some element of performance indicator is required and Chief Officers' careers depend on not dropping into the levels of the lower performing forces.
So, as the saying goes, shit flows downhill. The Chief Officers put pressure on the divisional commanders and the divisional commanders put pressure on the local commanders and the local commanders put pressure on the Sergeants and, well, you can guess where all the shit ends up.
The problem is that this performance culture has arrived at the same time as two fairly new aspects of Police pay - the competency threshold payment and the special priority payment, both of which are worth about a grand a year before tax. As previously mentioned, the threshold payment is paid to officers who are a year or more beyond their top pay scale and assessed as "competent". The Priority payment is paid to Officers with less service as a lump sum every year. It is paid to Officers who work in particularly demanding roles - usually front-line 24/7 Officers, firearms Officers etc, but again, they have to be competent Officers.
The difficulty with the combination of these payment changes and the performance culture is that it leaves a the system open to abuse by poor managers, and open to mis-understanding by the press and the public.
There should, in reality, be no connection between whether an Officer receives these payments, and performance indicators. A good manager knows which Officers work hard and which ones don't, and should easily be able to justify them getting/not getting these payments based on their knowledge of them as all-round Police Officers. The poor managers, on the other hand, can take the lazy option and look just at the PIs when making that decision. I've been lucky so far and I've generally always had good managers (although I'm sure my PIs would stand up to scrutiny).
Changing the public/press opinion wouldn't be easy though. Ever since I joined, there have always been people who will taunt me with the old "how many tickets before you get a bonus" dig, and that's like water off a ducks back to me. The problem nowadays is that, on the face of it, the system actually looks like it works like that, even though the reality is quite different.
It starts (quite predictably) with the Government, who decided some years ago to grade Police Forces on their effectiveness and produce a table of the best and worst performing forces. Obviously, to measure forces' effectiveness, some element of performance indicator is required and Chief Officers' careers depend on not dropping into the levels of the lower performing forces.
So, as the saying goes, shit flows downhill. The Chief Officers put pressure on the divisional commanders and the divisional commanders put pressure on the local commanders and the local commanders put pressure on the Sergeants and, well, you can guess where all the shit ends up.
The problem is that this performance culture has arrived at the same time as two fairly new aspects of Police pay - the competency threshold payment and the special priority payment, both of which are worth about a grand a year before tax. As previously mentioned, the threshold payment is paid to officers who are a year or more beyond their top pay scale and assessed as "competent". The Priority payment is paid to Officers with less service as a lump sum every year. It is paid to Officers who work in particularly demanding roles - usually front-line 24/7 Officers, firearms Officers etc, but again, they have to be competent Officers.
The difficulty with the combination of these payment changes and the performance culture is that it leaves a the system open to abuse by poor managers, and open to mis-understanding by the press and the public.
There should, in reality, be no connection between whether an Officer receives these payments, and performance indicators. A good manager knows which Officers work hard and which ones don't, and should easily be able to justify them getting/not getting these payments based on their knowledge of them as all-round Police Officers. The poor managers, on the other hand, can take the lazy option and look just at the PIs when making that decision. I've been lucky so far and I've generally always had good managers (although I'm sure my PIs would stand up to scrutiny).
Changing the public/press opinion wouldn't be easy though. Ever since I joined, there have always been people who will taunt me with the old "how many tickets before you get a bonus" dig, and that's like water off a ducks back to me. The problem nowadays is that, on the face of it, the system actually looks like it works like that, even though the reality is quite different.
Edited by R_U_LOCAL on Saturday 23 June 20:52
Also Individual forces have different ideas about how SPP's are divied up.
No-one in my force has got anywhere near a grand. It is all small amounts spread widely, but not making anyone junp out of their seat and say 'blimey I really must become a custody officer'
Which defeats the object of the thing really.
The sums are too low to affect anyone.
You can make more doing one bank holiday !
No-one in my force has got anywhere near a grand. It is all small amounts spread widely, but not making anyone junp out of their seat and say 'blimey I really must become a custody officer'
Which defeats the object of the thing really.
The sums are too low to affect anyone.
You can make more doing one bank holiday !
Chrispy Porker said:
Also Individual forces have different ideas about how SPP's are divied up.
No-one in my force has got anywhere near a grand. It is all small amounts spread widely, but not making anyone junp out of their seat and say 'blimey I really must become a custody officer'
Which defeats the object of the thing really.
The sums are too low to affect anyone.
You can make more doing one bank holiday !
That's a shame, £1,200 (before tax) at Christmas is enough to make me consider staying on shifts - at least for another year, anyway.No-one in my force has got anywhere near a grand. It is all small amounts spread widely, but not making anyone junp out of their seat and say 'blimey I really must become a custody officer'
Which defeats the object of the thing really.
The sums are too low to affect anyone.
You can make more doing one bank holiday !
- S
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