Is it time to reorganise the Police?
Discussion
Last night a young man was beaten up quite badly in a village close to my home. The group involved were obviously under age and basically just a gang of chavs milling around taking drugs and causing trouble. The same gang results in police attendance every weekend and frequently an ambulance is called. Anyway last night it got out of hand and someone was seriously hurt.
What was the police response?
They closed the road. :rolleyes:
Then they start pulling cars up and interviewing motorists :clap: :clap:
Well done guys, just a suggestion, it might have been a better idea to run after the little scrotes and arrest them rather than cause a load of inconvenience to the adults.
Its time to reduce the salaries to what they are worth, however that would be less than the minimum wage so therfore illegal.
What was the police response?
They closed the road. :rolleyes:
Then they start pulling cars up and interviewing motorists :clap: :clap:
Well done guys, just a suggestion, it might have been a better idea to run after the little scrotes and arrest them rather than cause a load of inconvenience to the adults.
Its time to reduce the salaries to what they are worth, however that would be less than the minimum wage so therfore illegal.
2 days ago a police car closed the inside lane on a dual carriage way causing 2 mile tailback because of broken glass on the road following a minor shunt , no more than 5 or 6 pieces of glass on the lane.2 coppers sat inside the police car with no regard whatsoever for the suffering & misery behind them , I told my wife i should stop and have a word with them or at least pick up the broken glass myself off the road and put it in the boot of my car to help traffic moving again ,but she insisted I should mind my own business and not provoke them.
I thought traffic police carry a broom in the boot or at least they could ve made an effort to kick a few broken pieces of glass aside to allow traffic to flow.
where is the common sense in just sitting in the car?
I thought traffic police carry a broom in the boot or at least they could ve made an effort to kick a few broken pieces of glass aside to allow traffic to flow.
where is the common sense in just sitting in the car?
Lucky old us in the east are likely to end up with a "super force" for Beds, Cambs, Essex, Herts, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Or perhaps two super mini forces.
Coupled with closing all the small town police stations. Where will that leave local accountability.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/43
Or perhaps two super mini forces.
Coupled with closing all the small town police stations. Where will that leave local accountability.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/43
Who is this Police? Sorry I am confused I HONESTLY cannot remember the last time I saw a police car!
Anyhoo, 'round here in the east apart from a superforce (read job losses and closure of stations).
They cannot now attend a report from 3 miles down the road as they now have to attend from ipswich (about 30 miles away!!)
Anyhoo, 'round here in the east apart from a superforce (read job losses and closure of stations).
They cannot now attend a report from 3 miles down the road as they now have to attend from ipswich (about 30 miles away!!)
C C said:
Lucky old us in the east are likely to end up with a "super force" for Beds, Cambs, Essex, Herts, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Or perhaps two super mini forces.
Coupled with closing all the small town police stations. Where will that leave local accountability.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/43
Last year S Cambs police were voted 23rd out of 24 forces, the only thing 'super' about them is....ah...well nothing actually, they couldn't solve the Sun crossword between em
Super forces were inevitable from the moment they created basic command units with an all powerful local commander with delegated budgets, their own staffing budget and their own local police consultative group, then reduced the size of police authorities so less local councillors got a say.
In theory you now don't need forces at all, just 350 BCUs with an inspection and local accountability regime (which they have partially already). In fact the latest is that they are selecting constables to head up local teams of specials, community support officers and local authority staff: a sort of micro force.
Problem with the small forces is that they all replicate services (HR, welfare,recruiting,vehicle maintenance, procurement,training etc etc) and aren't big enough to make a decent job of it at a VFM price IMHO.
If the small forces want to survive they will have to show that they can share services without the need to merge them (it can be done: all the Midlands forces already jointly run the M5/M6/M42/M40 motorways as a single joint unit.
If you look at the performance tables small forces don't work unless you have a 'nice' area with few problems or else massage the figures.
Having said all that I suspect the tactic as usual is to paint a picture of wide spread change so that when it turns out only the sub 1000 officer forces (Beds, Cambs, Gwent, Wilts, Dorset, Durham, Warks, Norfolk, Cumbria) are merged with larger neighbours everyone thinks they have got away with it.
The basic problem I see is that they have yet to free up their front line officers from duties that are not about the primary job role. There ought to be a statutory limit on the time they spend off the street doing paper work, training (the health and safety and human rights lot have a lot to answer for) going to meetings (involving the police with the local authority who have a culture of meetings without placing constraints on it was a mistake) and generally talking to each other and pushing paper about. Can you imagine the private sector allowing their best sales staff to spend days in meetings and on training that didn't produce more sales?
In theory you now don't need forces at all, just 350 BCUs with an inspection and local accountability regime (which they have partially already). In fact the latest is that they are selecting constables to head up local teams of specials, community support officers and local authority staff: a sort of micro force.
Problem with the small forces is that they all replicate services (HR, welfare,recruiting,vehicle maintenance, procurement,training etc etc) and aren't big enough to make a decent job of it at a VFM price IMHO.
If the small forces want to survive they will have to show that they can share services without the need to merge them (it can be done: all the Midlands forces already jointly run the M5/M6/M42/M40 motorways as a single joint unit.
If you look at the performance tables small forces don't work unless you have a 'nice' area with few problems or else massage the figures.
Having said all that I suspect the tactic as usual is to paint a picture of wide spread change so that when it turns out only the sub 1000 officer forces (Beds, Cambs, Gwent, Wilts, Dorset, Durham, Warks, Norfolk, Cumbria) are merged with larger neighbours everyone thinks they have got away with it.
The basic problem I see is that they have yet to free up their front line officers from duties that are not about the primary job role. There ought to be a statutory limit on the time they spend off the street doing paper work, training (the health and safety and human rights lot have a lot to answer for) going to meetings (involving the police with the local authority who have a culture of meetings without placing constraints on it was a mistake) and generally talking to each other and pushing paper about. Can you imagine the private sector allowing their best sales staff to spend days in meetings and on training that didn't produce more sales?
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs. Then we would get more two-bob politicians into positions of influence.
Plus imagine an area has a particular problem (say, paedophiles) - Imagine the hysteria that an election campaign could whip up.
I'm all for reform of the police service - especially when it comes to reducing the amount of hoops they need to jump through to get the job done - but we need to ensure that senior police officers are doing the job for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.
Plus imagine an area has a particular problem (say, paedophiles) - Imagine the hysteria that an election campaign could whip up.
I'm all for reform of the police service - especially when it comes to reducing the amount of hoops they need to jump through to get the job done - but we need to ensure that senior police officers are doing the job for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.
pesty said:
Its time we voted for Police chiefs and judges IMHO but I know nothing
If we appoint them we get people steeped in the approved 'wisdom'; i.e. that Chav's are victims of society and shouldn't be punished and that the job of the criminal justice system is to harass the law abiding majority.
This will only stop when they are responsive to local needs by being directly elected.
volvos70t5 said:
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs. Then we would get more two-bob politicians into positions of influence.
It is needed because of the wide gulf between what the public need from a police service and what the police actually do.
We also need to free police from the mountains of paperwork they are buried under, partly for the cause of political correctness.
So there should be no more silly forms filled in when they stop and search someone.
Jaglover said:
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs. Then we would get more two-bob politicians into positions of influence.
It is needed because of the wide gulf between what the public need from a police service and what the police actually do.
We also need to free police from the mountains of paperwork they are buried under, partly for the cause of political correctness.
So there should be no more silly forms filled in when they stop and search someone.
In the past local control has meant corruption because of mutual backscratching.
leftie said:
Can you imagine the private sector allowing their best sales staff to spend days in meetings and on training that didn't produce more sales?
It happens all the time. When the balance of control scares the management, then they bring in consultants, explain the problem, and the cosultants prescribe a bigger dashboard with more dials on it. In English this means more paperwork and IT systems, often with the effect of reducing sales and reducing direct sales staff but with an increase in support staff and an overall increase in cost. Net effect is a reduction in profits. Its not just the public sector that waste energy, although they are the masters of it.
So once we have elected judges and Chief policepersons. How is this going to stop vast ammounts of useless activity, like closing roads when someone is beaten up?
We already have the United (useless) Nations the EU, our own central Govt., regional assemblies, county/unitary councils, local councils, parish councils, mayors, police consultative groups, various self appointed niche community groups, the statutory community safety partnerships and the Race Relations Act amendments saying the police have to consult on policies that might affect ethnic groups.
Like we need another layer of worthies who never venture out after 6pm unless it it in their car to a charity dinner???
Like we need another layer of worthies who never venture out after 6pm unless it it in their car to a charity dinner???
Jaglover said:
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs. Then we would get more two-bob politicians into positions of influence.
It is needed because of the wide gulf between what the public need from a police service and what the police actually do.
We also need to free police from the mountains of paperwork they are buried under, partly for the cause of political correctness.
So there should be no more silly forms filled in when they stop and search someone.
But the laws are made by Parliament not by the Chief Constable. A directly-elected CC wouldn't be able to rip up the requirement for paperwork - That is something that the Government must do.
406 said:
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs.
Nor am I, look at the mess the country is in because of the shower that were elected to power for the third time.
You have two choices when it comes to the control of local institutions;
unelected quangos, the good old boys (or in Labour's case often girls), identikit PC clones, who are far more interested in 'diversity' than efficiency, or to give power back to local people, and gave them a chance to direct elect the people who have so much control over their lives.
Jaglover said:
volvos70t5 said:
I'm not at all convinced by the call to elect Judges and/or Polic Chiefs.
Nor am I, look at the mess the country is in because of the shower that were elected to power for the third time.
You have two choices when it comes to the control of local institutions;
unelected quangos, the good old boys (or in Labour's case often girls), identikit PC clones, who are far more interested in 'diversity' than efficiency, or to give power back to local people, and gave them a chance to direct elect the people who have so much control over their lives.
I understand a constable's oath of office containts "without fear or favour" - Perhaps it should be changed to "without fear or favour (unless you voted for me)"
Personally, I think it is a ridiculous notion.
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