Flak for Brunstrom over points scheme

Welsh traffic police awarded points for arrests

By PH Staff / Thursday, 30 June 2005 / Loading comments

Phones mean points

North Wales police chief Richard Brunstrom is in the headlines again. He was has just launched a scheme that the Association of British Drivers (ABD) said would turn traffic police officers into 'bounty hunters' against motorists.

Brunstrom's traffic officers are now awarded points according to the number of motorists they nab, and the severity of the offence. Officers have a monthly points target of 200 which they can accumulate by arresting people. They get 25 points for catching drink-drivers and five for a speeding motorist, for example. Other offences that attract 'nab-miles' are dangerous driving, using a mobile telephones while driving, and failure to wear a seatbelt.

Brunstrom reckoned that the scheme was a fair way of monitoring individual police officers' performance. But a motoring lobby group said the chief constable should be "ashamed of himself''.

ABD spokesman Tony Vickers said, "It is outrageous to impose quotas on police officers to nab a certain number of drivers for road offences. Mr Brunstrom is turning his traffic police into bounty hunters. The offer of incentives to find fault with drivers will lead to trivial prosecutions and waste money and resources. A sensible officer who would normally issue a verbal warning for a minor incident will now be compelled to prosecute to earn Brownie points.''

The local MP came out against the scheme too. Elfwyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru MP for Conwy, said, "All the common sense and discretion successfully used by officers is going to go out of the window.''

Even the Police Federation condemned the scheme. A spokesman told the BBC, "We think it's a ludicrous way to run operational policing. What the general public want more than anything else is a good quality service. A good, local community bobby may spend eight hours in his village and that individual officer would be judged unsatisfactory under this criteria."

Another MP, Mark Tami for Alyn and Deeside, weighed into the debate, saying that that if targets were to be introduced they should be applied to community beat patrols instead.

A spokesman for North Wales Police said, "The objectives include casualty reduction, engaging criminality on the road, driving while using mobile phones, dangerous driving, failure to wear seatbelts, etc. However, the performance indicators will also be used to ensure that each officer is performing satisfactorily.

''It is not a league table and the standard that is expected should be easily achieved by officers. Performance will be measured on officers' productivity and they will not receive any bonus for exceeding the required standard.''

The scheme will run as a six-month trial from tomorrow and follows the instatement of a similar project by Thames Valley Police earlier this year.