Theresa May speaking at the Plod federation conference

Theresa May speaking at the Plod federation conference

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carinaman

21,224 posts

171 months

Monday 13th April 2015
quotequote all
I just looked at her Twitter feed. I'm not sure how old that photo is. And she's still milking Miliband's bacon sarnie mishap.

Ah yes, I've learnt of a hashtag called May4PM.

brenflys777

2,678 posts

176 months

Monday 13th April 2015
quotequote all
carinaman said:
I just looked at her Twitter feed. I'm not sure how old that photo is. And she's still milking Miliband's bacon sarnie mishap.

Ah yes, I've learnt of a hashtag called May4PM.
In 2010 Cameron promised no frontline Police cuts would be allowed.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/03/17/2500...

The West Mids Police has already lost 1400+ officers. Now this.

davepoth

29,395 posts

198 months

Monday 13th April 2015
quotequote all
brenflys777 said:
carinaman said:
I just looked at her Twitter feed. I'm not sure how old that photo is. And she's still milking Miliband's bacon sarnie mishap.

Ah yes, I've learnt of a hashtag called May4PM.
In 2010 Cameron promised no frontline Police cuts would be allowed.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/03/17/2500...

The West Mids Police has already lost 1400+ officers. Now this.
Where does it say that a single officer would be lost? I don't see it there. Read it carefully.

carinaman

21,224 posts

171 months

Monday 13th April 2015
quotequote all
brenflys777 said:
In 2010 Cameron promised no frontline Police cuts would be allowed.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/03/17/2500...

The West Mids Police has already lost 1400+ officers. Now this.
'Less boots on the ground means less public engagement' said the article.

I wonder how much of that 'public engagement' is to be provided via Twitter instead?

brenflys777

2,678 posts

176 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
quotequote all
davepoth said:
brenflys777 said:
carinaman said:
I just looked at her Twitter feed. I'm not sure how old that photo is. And she's still milking Miliband's bacon sarnie mishap.

Ah yes, I've learnt of a hashtag called May4PM.
In 2010 Cameron promised no frontline Police cuts would be allowed.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2015/03/17/2500...

The West Mids Police has already lost 1400+ officers. Now this.
Where does it say that a single officer would be lost? I don't see it there. Read it carefully.
Read it carefully! I think you have deliberately misunderstood - I didn't mean officers would be lost as in temporarily unsure of their position!

I mean the number of Police officers would be lower after the cuts than before. How that's acheived and how many hasn't been confirmed and doubtless won't be until after the election.

In the West Midlands Poloce in the last 5 years they have lost 1400 officers and thousands more staff.

Sir Humphrey

387 posts

122 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
quotequote all
If she was the Conservative leader and Red Ed was the Labour leader I think I would probably vote Labour.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
quotequote all
There is insufficient money, partly because G.Brown was a profligate incompetent.

Obviously police think that their area is most important- so does everyone else about their particular special interest. Everyone wants the cuts to fall elsewhere.

Unless more money can magically be found, cuts are inevitable. It's that simple.


brenflys777

2,678 posts

176 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
quotequote all
Rovinghawk said:
There is insufficient money, partly because G.Brown was a profligate incompetent.

Obviously police think that their area is most important- so does everyone else about their particular special interest. Everyone wants the cuts to fall elsewhere.

Unless more money can magically be found, cuts are inevitable. It's that simple.
Absolutely agree. The scale and targeting of cuts is indicative of Govt priorities though. The Police budget cuts have been substantial. They are due to increase after the election looking at that and other reports for West Mercia Police.

I view the Police as an essential service and any cuts that are broad brush budget based rather than targeted at identified waste should happen after all non essentials like Foreign Aid profligacy have been cut. IMO.

Mr GrimNasty

8,172 posts

169 months

Tuesday 14th April 2015
quotequote all
Labour splurged wildly and pointlessly on more police numbers, performance did not improve accordingly - a well accepted fact i.e. just a massive waste.

So I don't know why people focus on the loss, rather than the number that is left, which was adequate a few years back, and should still be now, but providing better value.

Sir Humphrey

387 posts

122 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
brenflys777 said:
Absolutely agree. The scale and targeting of cuts is indicative of Govt priorities though. The Police budget cuts have been substantial. They are due to increase after the election looking at that and other reports for West Mercia Police.

I view the Police as an essential service and any cuts that are broad brush budget based rather than targeted at identified waste should happen after all non essentials like Foreign Aid profligacy have been cut. IMO.
We could save £10 billion a year if we reduced regulation on drugs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...

The economy would see a big improvement with lower crime and for those who dabble a massive reduction in cost of their chosen drug would have more money to spend on other things.

brenflys777

2,678 posts

176 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
Mr GrimNasty said:
Labour splurged wildly and pointlessly on more police numbers, performance did not improve accordingly - a well accepted fact i.e. just a massive waste.

So I don't know why people focus on the loss, rather than the number that is left, which was adequate a few years back, and should still be now, but providing better value.
Labour increased Police numbers but at the same time increased the pointless paperwork and reliance on targets to measure effective Policing. IMO if the increased numbers were not reflected in results this could be a significant factor. I do not agree that your opinion is a well accepted fact.

Population numbers in the UK have increased massively in the last 15 years. The number of Police can drop to 1970's levels, but that will leave us with fewer Police per person. In an age of the Police having to investigate every social media insult and write paperwork for every stop search this is nonsense. The loss of civilian staff will add to the frontline officers workload too.

These cuts were not targeted where govt have identified fat in the system and asked for it to be cut. These are huge cuts to frontline Police and support staff because govt have set a budget cut figure. They are not wielding a scalpel on a wound, they are amputating the bits we need as well as the damaged parts.

That foreign aid increases with few of the value measurements at the same time suggests to me that this is not efficiency but ideology driven.

brenflys777

2,678 posts

176 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
Sir Humphrey said:
We could save £10 billion a year if we reduced regulation on drugs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-ord...

The economy would see a big improvement with lower crime and for those who dabble a massive reduction in cost of their chosen drug would have more money to spend on other things.
I'd certainly be in favour of that. Unless the savings were then spent on foreign aid...

Derek Smith

45,514 posts

247 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
Mr GrimNasty said:
Labour splurged wildly and pointlessly on more police numbers, performance did not improve accordingly - a well accepted fact i.e. just a massive waste.

So I don't know why people focus on the loss, rather than the number that is left, which was adequate a few years back, and should still be now, but providing better value.
There was no labour ‘splurge’. They told lies. It is funny how people believe what they say on that but challenge everything else.

There were increases but far, far from massive. There was a keynote speech where the police were promised £n extra funding. When the details were examined it was discovered that every penny had already been promised and that we were unlikely to get all of that. It was said to sway the weak of mind.

What did increase massively under labour and during the labour government was demand.

On top of that there was the massive sink hole of IT systems for command and control. You would not believe the costs of a simple upgrade. For one basic system overhaul it cost more that one officer for a year.

There is waste in the service, but the biggest proportion of it is not under the control of the police.

'Adequate a few years back': that's hilarious. You cannot, I assume, remember the criticisms when it was pointed out that the police could not attend all burglaries.

Years ago I arrested a man for GBH, a serious offence, triable at Crown Court. I took him back to the station under arrest, interviewed/documented him and then released him all within an hour. The paperwork took me another hour or so then I was back on the streets.

It can take that long nowadays to get the person into the cell, and sometimes it takes longer. A GBH can take up days.

I arrested over a dozen prisoners one shift of 15 hours, that was on five or six different jobs. Can’t do that now. It is more or less one job, one day.

There is money around. The tories are promising a lot of it to those whose votes they've got anyway. They are quite happy to up the death duty threshold, lower taxes for the top 15% of earners, and fiddle with the pension laws so that the same lot will not have some of their income taxed, but will be able to access it in later life, tax free. There's lots of money around.

The police could not cope without overtime in the days when numbers were ‘adequate’ - there never was such a time of course. Do you want your burglary attended? Then tough, 'cause it won't be. Want the theft of your car investigated? Then hard luck. Want police patrols at night in order to stop burglaries? Ha, ha, wish on. Want poorly trained people to do police work? Now there's something we can supply.

The demands on the police have increased year on year in the main. The 999 calls to one of my forces doubled in, I think, 17 years.

There is no way the police could cope with public order problems to the level of the riots just a few years ago. The criticisms of the police then was that there were not enough of them. Well, it is much worse nowadays.

During the Miners Strike, there were 'critical levels' that forces worked out they needed in order to patrol effectively and respond to calls. Everyone else could face the picket lines. Even in my time, some 10 years ago now, these levels were regularly missed due to demands. There used to be two divisions in Brighton and one in Hove. Even before Cameron stuck the knife into the police, these had been amalgamated into one massive division in order to save money. A shift does not muster even the number of one of the three back in the days of pre unification.

My job was to show the Eastbourne, I think, Round Table around HQ one evening. I demonstrated those on call on their town, but first asked them how many officers and cars did they think were available to respond. I think the lowest number was half a dozen cars. The command and control system showed two cars and a couple of foot units. Both cars had jobs awaiting them once they'd cleared up the ones they were on.

I was heavily criticised for telling the truth as the RT boss contacted mine to say how shocked he was. And that was in your good old days.

They had no idea, but in that they are similar to so many of those who suggest that cutting police numbers by over 20% will in no way reduce the ability to respond. They were ignorant of the resources available to the police, but at least they listened and had their ignorance reduced.





sparkythecat

7,898 posts

254 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
Derek you conveniently overlook all the routine workload that has been taken away from police officers For example HATOs now routinely patrol the motorways and deal with a lot of incidents previously dealt with by officers and PCSOs now walk the beats previously patrolled by officers. These were all extra resources bought in Labour to lighten the load of front line officers.


Elroy Blue

8,686 posts

191 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
sparkythecat said:
Derek you conveniently overlook all the routine workload that has been taken away from police officers For example HATOs now routinely patrol the motorways and deal with a lot of incidents previously dealt with by officers and PCSOs now walk the beats previously patrolled by officers. These were all extra resources bought in Labour to lighten the load of front line officers.
Seriously?

Do you know what the HA do?. They will pick up debris and attend non-injury, minor RTCs. They also 'find' incidents that they then call Police for. One of the most common being 'a HGV is swerving in the lane, the driver must be drunk'. No it's a windy day and the driver is correcting, but the job is now on the system and we have to respond. The HA have also been severely cut in the last few years and much of their routine work now comes back to us. 'Nobody available' is a common response from them. I wish I had the option of saying we're not going because nobody is available.

PCOSs? They do good work. But it's work that involves tea and biscuits with old ladies. Like the HA, they will come across incidents and having no powers, call for an Officer. So the demand increases.

Crime is down? Well not according to the Office of National Statistics. If fraud and cyber crime is included (conveniently removed for crime figures), it's up 40%. What about the 75% of work that is not crime related. RTC's, severe weather, road closures, demonstrations, Mental health (a huge demand), death messages, missing persons.

As Derek mentioned. We used to have a custody block at every station. Now we just haven't got any stations. Journeys of 40 miles to custody are common. Followed by a two hour wait in a queue to book in.

I currently have Officers dealing with twelve Family Liaison jobs. Highly time, resource and personally intensive roles. Do we stop doing those? Every single domestic that is attended has a 16 page form to fill in. Every stop search (because we're nasty racists who only pick on ethnic minorities and children according to Ms May), soon every vehicle interaction (again, Ms May has decided we let off ethnic minorities, so we must be pulling them for no reason)

The latest Government pledge is the 'short, sharp shock'. Prolific offenders will spend one or two days in Police cell to 'teach them a lesson'. For somebody who has spent half their life in prison, that'll teach them. But who will staff the custody units and look after these people. As we now only have two custody blocks in my whole area, where will all the 'regular' day to day arrests go. More utterly crass, soundbite nonsense from a Government that excels in it.

Page 58 of the Tory Manifesto proudly proclaims that the 'proportion of frontline Officers has increased'. So we've got more Officers then? Of course not. It's Political crap. Otherwise known as being profoundly devious. You once had 20 Officers, with 15 on the front line. 75%. You now have 10 Officers with 8 on the frontline. Look, the frontline is now 80% of Officers. We've increased it. Aren't we marvellous. The sad fact is that people fall for this. Even sadder is people know it's a lie and promote it as a success.

My shift is exactly one third the size it was two years ago. The demand hasn't gone away. Cameron and May plan to cut another 40000 Officers, with a national target of 80000. (Oddly, they've removed this target from the internet). The only reason that the wheel doesn't fall off in a big way is that Officers bust a gut to stop it happening. They continue to do it despite years of being castigated and vilified by a Government and their allies.

Cameron and May have made one significant achievement though. We recently had a straw poll at work about voting. Every single person (bar one Lib Dem) put their hand up when asked if they voted Tory at the last election. For 2015 it's zero. And as long as the current 'team' are anywhere near the cabinet, that is unlikely to change.

The really sad fact is that a lot of us were long term Tory voters. We are now in a position where the only way to get rid of a Government that has totally abdicated it's responsibility for state functions (Police, Ambulance, Fire, Coastguard, border controls), the only viable option is a Labour party likely supported by the left wing Nationalists. Has Politics really sunk that low?

Derek Smith

45,514 posts

247 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
Elroy Blue said:
sparkythecat said:
Derek you conveniently overlook all the routine workload that has been taken away from police officers For example HATOs now routinely patrol the motorways and deal with a lot of incidents previously dealt with by officers and PCSOs now walk the beats previously patrolled by officers. These were all extra resources bought in Labour to lighten the load of front line officers.
Seriously?

Do you know what the HA do?. They will pick up debris and attend non-injury, minor RTCs. They also 'find' incidents that they then call Police for. One of the most common being 'a HGV is swerving in the lane, the driver must be drunk'. No it's a windy day and the driver is correcting, but the job is now on the system and we have to respond. The HA have also been severely cut in the last few years and much of their routine work now comes back to us. 'Nobody available' is a common response from them. I wish I had the option of saying we're not going because nobody is available.

PCOSs? They do good work. But it's work that involves tea and biscuits with old ladies. Like the HA, they will come across incidents and having no powers, call for an Officer. So the demand increases.

Crime is down? Well not according to the Office of National Statistics. If fraud and cyber crime is included (conveniently removed for crime figures), it's up 40%. What about the 75% of work that is not crime related. RTC's, severe weather, road closures, demonstrations, Mental health (a huge demand), death messages, missing persons.

As Derek mentioned. We used to have a custody block at every station. Now we just haven't got any stations. Journeys of 40 miles to custody are common. Followed by a two hour wait in a queue to book in.

I currently have Officers dealing with twelve Family Liaison jobs. Highly time, resource and personally intensive roles. Do we stop doing those? Every single domestic that is attended has a 16 page form to fill in. Every stop search (because we're nasty racists who only pick on ethnic minorities and children according to Ms May), soon every vehicle interaction (again, Ms May has decided we let off ethnic minorities, so we must be pulling them for no reason)

The latest Government pledge is the 'short, sharp shock'. Prolific offenders will spend one or two days in Police cell to 'teach them a lesson'. For somebody who has spent half their life in prison, that'll teach them. But who will staff the custody units and look after these people. As we now only have two custody blocks in my whole area, where will all the 'regular' day to day arrests go. More utterly crass, soundbite nonsense from a Government that excels in it.

Page 58 of the Tory Manifesto proudly proclaims that the 'proportion of frontline Officers has increased'. So we've got more Officers then? Of course not. It's Political crap. Otherwise known as being profoundly devious. You once had 20 Officers, with 15 on the front line. 75%. You now have 10 Officers with 8 on the frontline. Look, the frontline is now 80% of Officers. We've increased it. Aren't we marvellous. The sad fact is that people fall for this. Even sadder is people know it's a lie and promote it as a success.

My shift is exactly one third the size it was two years ago. The demand hasn't gone away. Cameron and May plan to cut another 40000 Officers, with a national target of 80000. (Oddly, they've removed this target from the internet). The only reason that the wheel doesn't fall off in a big way is that Officers bust a gut to stop it happening. They continue to do it despite years of being castigated and vilified by a Government and their allies.

Cameron and May have made one significant achievement though. We recently had a straw poll at work about voting. Every single person (bar one Lib Dem) put their hand up when asked if they voted Tory at the last election. For 2015 it's zero. And as long as the current 'team' are anywhere near the cabinet, that is unlikely to change.

The really sad fact is that a lot of us were long term Tory voters. We are now in a position where the only way to get rid of a Government that has totally abdicated it's responsibility for state functions (Police, Ambulance, Fire, Coastguard, border controls), the only viable option is a Labour party likely supported by the left wing Nationalists. Has Politics really sunk that low?
Like wot he said.

HATOs I know little about but PCSOs I do. We had a local one where I used to live and spoke with her quite often. As pointed out, in many ways they increase the workload of the regular force. That said, I fully support them and would support them more if they were used for the purposes they were heralded to do.

I was in control rooms for some years and this in the late 90s when there were millions of police officers on response, at lest according to the myths of funding excess. We would frequently send a controller down to the ground floor to try and find a police officer for an important job. If they were, for instance, with a witness, they might have turned their radio off. Before I got there they used to send a controller down to the canteen to turf out those on refs but breaks were long gone. Not to mention canteens as well. And that was in the 'good old days'.

The public has been fed lies about the number and financing of police for years. It doesn't take a lot of working out that if the vast majority, over 80% I believe, of your costs was manpower, slashing 20% from your budget means a reduction of far more than 20% in personnel.

Don't forget also that forces were obliged to go along the PFI route and the costs there will go on for years and cannot be reduced.

Take process. My old force were obliged to PFI case papers. The workload estimate was based on the current one at the time plus the year on year increase that had gone before. Come Cameron, the reduction in process has been massive. Some suggest as much as 30%, others suggest more, as police don't get out on the streets anymore, they merely go from job to job and even then they are told only to arrest in extremis.

Has the cost of the PFI reduced? Clue: the answer starts with an N.

So the 20% hits only the reduceable proportion, which doesn't include PFI, redundancy, pensions, costs charged by the Home Office, which also haven't been reduced, and so much more. Soon there will be central purchasing and then the costs of uniforms, vehicles, and even paper clips will increase.

You, Sparky, have no idea I'm afraid.


Sir Humphrey

387 posts

122 months

Wednesday 15th April 2015
quotequote all
brenflys777 said:
I'd certainly be in favour of that. Unless the savings were then spent on foreign aid...
I would rather foreign aid than drug prohibition. At least then the damage is being done to other countries rather than ours.

BlackLabel

13,251 posts

122 months

Wednesday 20th May 2015
quotequote all
May vs the Police Federation.

Stop scaremongering and prepare for further cuts, Theresa May tells police





Edited by BlackLabel on Wednesday 20th May 13:53

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 20th May 2015
quotequote all
I'm starting to like her, actually.

Mojocvh

16,837 posts

261 months

Wednesday 20th May 2015
quotequote all
BlackLabel said:
May vs the Police Federation.

Stop scaremongering and prepare for further cuts, Theresa May tells police





Edited by BlackLabel on Wednesday 20th May 13:53
Hmm nothing like an newly empowered politician telling people WHAT to believe then...