The Mirror: Police officers ordered to do fifteen stop-searches each month or face disciplinary action
This article by Justin Penrose makes some good points. However despite Sir Bernard's claim that stop-search is driven by intelligence, my sergeant tells me each week:
“Get as many stop-searches as you can.”
And her favourite opinion is:
“I don't believe in stop-and-account. If you have grounds to talk to someone, then you have enough grounds to search them.”
I also enjoyed the MPS spokesman's assertion:
“The Metropolitan Police Service has no policy of setting individual targets for stop and search or for arrests.”
That might be true of the official policy, however most inspectors and sergeants relish imposing their own arbitrary targets – Targets not sanctioned by Sir Bernard or Theresa May.
Imagine I said to my inspector:
“Guv, I have no detections or arrests this month, but I'm working on a very complicated fraud that will take six months to bring to court. The victim is very happy with my work.”
His response would be:
“Why are you getting tied up with grief like that? You have failed to hit your targets. I'm putting you on a disciplinary.”
So it is in my best interest to deal with the easiest crimes first. Police officers, like all employees, are pressured by their bosses into hitting targets, but constables despise targets - we want to be free to catch the bad guys, but instead we're forced to jump through hoops.
Let's consider:
1. The Home Secretary removed targets two years ago, and made that order explicit at the Superintendents Association conference in 2013.
2. Sir Bernard has told officers to stop-search fewer people
Great! Our top bosses have realised that targets do not result in a better service to the public, so why are constables still threatened with disciplinary action if we don't bring in the figures? Two reasons:
(A)
The current generation of police managers knows only one management methodology – demanding performance figures from subordinates, then delivering those upwards to their managers. For example each inspector thinks:
“Thank goodness my sergeants have hit this month's targets. All the nasty emails I wrote have worked. I'll pass these figures up to the Chief Inspector. I'm safe for another month, and I've kept her safe too.”
(B)
Police culture has a deeply ingrained lack of trust:
“Keep a record of everything you do, just in case somebody asks you.”
That mantra is constantly reinforced. Every manager is scared of being asked to justify their role:
“What have you done this month?”
But this could be solved by developing a culture of greater trust - trusting and respecting subordinates - and this change in attitude would have to begin with the Commissioner then gradually percolate downwards.
I'm a police constable in the Met. Sigh... My new book 'The Accidental Copper' is an exposé of the police state within the police. Twitter @JusticeChaos. Thanks for stopping by x
Wednesday, 29 January 2014
Ten Minutes
The Local Policing Model: is it working?
After discussions with LPM colleagues I understand the following: the key to the LPM is that since Sir Bernard closed most of the front counters the officers have to go out to people's homes. People can't report at stations, but have to phone up and request an appointment. These are put into a daily diary - one slot per hour.
It's 9.30am and an old lady, who was burgled the day before, finally gets a visit. She's sobbing her heart out in front of the officer, who is trying to ignore the Control Room calling him:
"Are you aware of your ten o'clock appointment? Hello? Hello? Are you aware of your ten o'clock?"
The Control Room then calls the officer's sergeant, who asks the officer to explain why he ignored his radio. Within the hour allocated to each appointment, the officer must travel to the victim from the previous appointment, or police station, take details and give victim care. The regulations dictate that the officer must then record that crime asap, therefore she goes back to the station to create the crime report. The officer is not allowed to accumulate reports during the day to save travelling time. If the officer is late for any appointments he is threatened with disciplinary action, however - it is inevitable that appointments are late or missed. Strangely, even if the officer is early for an appointment that also counts as one missed
Taking into account travelling time, each person gets about ten minutes of the officer's time.
After discussions with LPM colleagues I understand the following: the key to the LPM is that since Sir Bernard closed most of the front counters the officers have to go out to people's homes. People can't report at stations, but have to phone up and request an appointment. These are put into a daily diary - one slot per hour.
It's 9.30am and an old lady, who was burgled the day before, finally gets a visit. She's sobbing her heart out in front of the officer, who is trying to ignore the Control Room calling him:
"Are you aware of your ten o'clock appointment? Hello? Hello? Are you aware of your ten o'clock?"
The Control Room then calls the officer's sergeant, who asks the officer to explain why he ignored his radio. Within the hour allocated to each appointment, the officer must travel to the victim from the previous appointment, or police station, take details and give victim care. The regulations dictate that the officer must then record that crime asap, therefore she goes back to the station to create the crime report. The officer is not allowed to accumulate reports during the day to save travelling time. If the officer is late for any appointments he is threatened with disciplinary action, however - it is inevitable that appointments are late or missed. Strangely, even if the officer is early for an appointment that also counts as one missed
Taking into account travelling time, each person gets about ten minutes of the officer's time.
Friday, 24 January 2014
Squandered Opportunity
The oath I swore to the Queen made mention of prosecuting offenders and preserving her Royal Highness' peace, but precious little about the Met's performance indicators.
So why is it that we, the police, still have targets?
Metropolitan Police Service senior officers like to push unfeasible targets on to the MPS rank-and-file to justify their next promotions – Cut crime by 20%!
What do such targets achieve? Police can only mop up after crime, not magically reduce it, so these targets can't possibly be met. Senior managers know this, but their bosses – the Commissioner, Assistant Commissioners on so forth – still expect them to be achieved. So the senior managers take the only action they can: they order everybody to cook the books, and this has continued for decades. So let's get rid of these pesky targets. They achieve nothing and turn caring coppers into headless chickens running around chasing arrests and detections.
This isn't as impossible as it sounds. Few people seem to realise that the Commissioner is about to squander a once-in-a-career opportunity. Let me explain.
In 2013 Theresa May bravely ordered police chiefs to scrap targets, however police chiefs have ignored her instruction. Quite rude of them I hope you'll agree. Similarly, Tom Winsor has made it clear in his reports that he has little time for targets, and Chief Superintendent Curtis, president of the Superintendents' Association of England & Wales has also expressed the same view.
She said “...targets lead to increased audit and compliance work and dysfunctional behaviour. There is an urgent need to develop a more trusting management culture in the service.”
So, can we start to sense a consistent signal?
Oddly, a Chief Inspector on my borough recently took it upon himself to impose his own arrest and detection targets. Perhaps, like many of the cooks in the kitchen he feels he knows better than the Home Secretary? More likely, he is simply ignorant of the views of the Great and the Good. Unfortunately, he is very typical of police managers.
I've thought long and hard about this, and it seems clear we will be eternally stuck with targets because the present generation of police chiefs have no experience of managing without them. They rely on them. It's been decades since there were any real leaders in the police - they no longer know how, and simply stick with what they know. The opportunity that coppers thought would never come – no longer being slaves to the figures – has been granted - but the bosses haven't even noticed.
From the point of view of a police manager the great thing about targets is that they allow one to avoid actually managing - creatively solving problems or making decisions. You can get away with simply passing your own targets on to the staff, or sub-managers, beneath you. This is what Mrs May meant when she told the Superintendents that targets are “...an excuse for lazy management.”
What neither the Home Secretary nor anybody else appears to have realised is that the target culture suits our C21st Metropolitan Police Service managers. They might lack the capacity for creative thinking and courage of real leaders, but these qualities are no longer needed: appropriately interpreted performance figures can easily 'prove' a manager's performance. She can then receive that pat on the head from her boss, and hope for her next promotion.
What this means is that we're stuck with targets unless the Home Secretary and Commissioner start forcing senior officers to eradicate them. And that can only happen if managers at all levels have the courage to make a leap of faith.
So come on managers - let's stop being scared, and embrace a new era of policing! Sigh...who am I kidding? This opportunity is going to sail on past, unnoticed, and the farce will continue.
I should probably include more humour in my blog posts, but it tends to be occluded by the sheer amount of fact to be communicated. With this in mind, perhaps all my points ultimately revolve around one theme – a view of our management expressed succinctly by one of my constable colleagues:
“No matter how hard you try, you can't polish a turd.”
So why is it that we, the police, still have targets?
Metropolitan Police Service senior officers like to push unfeasible targets on to the MPS rank-and-file to justify their next promotions – Cut crime by 20%!
What do such targets achieve? Police can only mop up after crime, not magically reduce it, so these targets can't possibly be met. Senior managers know this, but their bosses – the Commissioner, Assistant Commissioners on so forth – still expect them to be achieved. So the senior managers take the only action they can: they order everybody to cook the books, and this has continued for decades. So let's get rid of these pesky targets. They achieve nothing and turn caring coppers into headless chickens running around chasing arrests and detections.
This isn't as impossible as it sounds. Few people seem to realise that the Commissioner is about to squander a once-in-a-career opportunity. Let me explain.
In 2013 Theresa May bravely ordered police chiefs to scrap targets, however police chiefs have ignored her instruction. Quite rude of them I hope you'll agree. Similarly, Tom Winsor has made it clear in his reports that he has little time for targets, and Chief Superintendent Curtis, president of the Superintendents' Association of England & Wales has also expressed the same view.
She said “...targets lead to increased audit and compliance work and dysfunctional behaviour. There is an urgent need to develop a more trusting management culture in the service.”
So, can we start to sense a consistent signal?
Oddly, a Chief Inspector on my borough recently took it upon himself to impose his own arrest and detection targets. Perhaps, like many of the cooks in the kitchen he feels he knows better than the Home Secretary? More likely, he is simply ignorant of the views of the Great and the Good. Unfortunately, he is very typical of police managers.
I've thought long and hard about this, and it seems clear we will be eternally stuck with targets because the present generation of police chiefs have no experience of managing without them. They rely on them. It's been decades since there were any real leaders in the police - they no longer know how, and simply stick with what they know. The opportunity that coppers thought would never come – no longer being slaves to the figures – has been granted - but the bosses haven't even noticed.
From the point of view of a police manager the great thing about targets is that they allow one to avoid actually managing - creatively solving problems or making decisions. You can get away with simply passing your own targets on to the staff, or sub-managers, beneath you. This is what Mrs May meant when she told the Superintendents that targets are “...an excuse for lazy management.”
What neither the Home Secretary nor anybody else appears to have realised is that the target culture suits our C21st Metropolitan Police Service managers. They might lack the capacity for creative thinking and courage of real leaders, but these qualities are no longer needed: appropriately interpreted performance figures can easily 'prove' a manager's performance. She can then receive that pat on the head from her boss, and hope for her next promotion.
What this means is that we're stuck with targets unless the Home Secretary and Commissioner start forcing senior officers to eradicate them. And that can only happen if managers at all levels have the courage to make a leap of faith.
So come on managers - let's stop being scared, and embrace a new era of policing! Sigh...who am I kidding? This opportunity is going to sail on past, unnoticed, and the farce will continue.
I should probably include more humour in my blog posts, but it tends to be occluded by the sheer amount of fact to be communicated. With this in mind, perhaps all my points ultimately revolve around one theme – a view of our management expressed succinctly by one of my constable colleagues:
“No matter how hard you try, you can't polish a turd.”
Thursday, 23 January 2014
As if by Magic...It's Gone!!
BBC News: Crime stats - the truth is out there
BBC News: Crime in England and Wales down 10%
Interesting crime figures. Nowadays the majority of BBC journalism is disappointingly tendentious. Nevertheless, these articles give the figures for 2006-2012:
Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) - 17% fall in crime.
Police statistics - 33% fall.
Personally, I doubt crime has changed at all - up or down. Nevertheless, it's a rather suspicious divergence - presided over by Commissioners Blair, Stephenson and Hogan-Howe.
As for the lowest estimated crime since 1981, don't make me chuckle. It's all in the way they're (not) recorded. I am a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service and when I report a crime such as a burglary, for example, I often find the offence later changed without my intervention. A burglary mysteriously transmutes, as if by alchemy, into a theft and a criminal damage. A street robbery changes as if by magic into a 'snatch theft'. The logic behind this process: burglaries and robberies are graded as more serious than theft or criminal damage.
Sometimes a crime even turns into a 'crime-related incident' – a non-crime!
And there are other tricks:
If a victim decides they no longer support police action, the case will fold and it counts as an 'undetected crime'. To expunge this black mark on the books, constables are ordered to take a 'no-crime statement' from the victim. This amounts to saying, “I'm sorry I phoned the police. It was a false allegation.” The crime can then be taken off the system, as if it never happened.
One has to admire the creativity of the people who think up these schemes.
I must emphasize that constables find all this extremely distasteful but our hands are tied. We receive email instructions from MPS senior officers. For example:
“Robberies are too high. DO NOT create a robbery report without first liaising with the Robbery Squad DS.”
The principle here is that the Robbery Squad Detective Sergeant is expected to find creative ways to reduce her robbery figures. She is under pressure to persuade the victim that his robbery never happened. OR, click a button on the crime-reporting system to transform a crime into a non-crime.
Met constables are disgusted by these practices. Many of us have been telling everyone who will listen about this for decades - I'm fed up of banging my drum about it. So why has this only just come to light?
Tom Winsor and others are subtly hinting that the constables are responsible. Mr Winsor, please try to understand that police senior managers rule with iron fists and in the Met at least, they have it all sewn up. They cannot bear dissent, and absolutely cannot bear light being shone upon their venality and incompetence.
It's only the senior officers who are strongly motivated to do this. They have a lot to lose – acquiring more crowns and braid on their smoothly pumiced shoulders, and a better pension, depends on them showing that their teams have hit their targets. Those of us without stripes, pips or crown on our rather tired and rounded shoulders are simply trying to pay our mortgages and get through each day safely and without having to explain the lack of resources too many times to frustrated members of the public.
BBC News: Crime in England and Wales down 10%
Interesting crime figures. Nowadays the majority of BBC journalism is disappointingly tendentious. Nevertheless, these articles give the figures for 2006-2012:
Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) - 17% fall in crime.
Police statistics - 33% fall.
Personally, I doubt crime has changed at all - up or down. Nevertheless, it's a rather suspicious divergence - presided over by Commissioners Blair, Stephenson and Hogan-Howe.
As for the lowest estimated crime since 1981, don't make me chuckle. It's all in the way they're (not) recorded. I am a constable in the Metropolitan Police Service and when I report a crime such as a burglary, for example, I often find the offence later changed without my intervention. A burglary mysteriously transmutes, as if by alchemy, into a theft and a criminal damage. A street robbery changes as if by magic into a 'snatch theft'. The logic behind this process: burglaries and robberies are graded as more serious than theft or criminal damage.
Sometimes a crime even turns into a 'crime-related incident' – a non-crime!
And there are other tricks:
If a victim decides they no longer support police action, the case will fold and it counts as an 'undetected crime'. To expunge this black mark on the books, constables are ordered to take a 'no-crime statement' from the victim. This amounts to saying, “I'm sorry I phoned the police. It was a false allegation.” The crime can then be taken off the system, as if it never happened.
One has to admire the creativity of the people who think up these schemes.
I must emphasize that constables find all this extremely distasteful but our hands are tied. We receive email instructions from MPS senior officers. For example:
“Robberies are too high. DO NOT create a robbery report without first liaising with the Robbery Squad DS.”
The principle here is that the Robbery Squad Detective Sergeant is expected to find creative ways to reduce her robbery figures. She is under pressure to persuade the victim that his robbery never happened. OR, click a button on the crime-reporting system to transform a crime into a non-crime.
Met constables are disgusted by these practices. Many of us have been telling everyone who will listen about this for decades - I'm fed up of banging my drum about it. So why has this only just come to light?
Tom Winsor and others are subtly hinting that the constables are responsible. Mr Winsor, please try to understand that police senior managers rule with iron fists and in the Met at least, they have it all sewn up. They cannot bear dissent, and absolutely cannot bear light being shone upon their venality and incompetence.
It's only the senior officers who are strongly motivated to do this. They have a lot to lose – acquiring more crowns and braid on their smoothly pumiced shoulders, and a better pension, depends on them showing that their teams have hit their targets. Those of us without stripes, pips or crown on our rather tired and rounded shoulders are simply trying to pay our mortgages and get through each day safely and without having to explain the lack of resources too many times to frustrated members of the public.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Whistleblowers
Just a quick post today. PC James Patrick is a brave man. He is risking his job and pension, and believe me - the senior management of the Metropolitan Police Service absolutely cannot bear criticism.
It will be interesting whether in the end he keeps his job/pension, or perhaps the Met will settle out of court? And if this ends in his favour, will the floodgates open? Will officers like myself then be able to reveal our identities and start exposing the disgraceful and dim-witted management? I hope so. Goodness know, the whole edifice of Met senior management needs prying open. In fact the whole culture within the UK police - attitudes of the bosses towards the officers, and towards the public - needs transforming into something decent and humane.
One more thing - I have noticed that wherever the newspapers discuss PC Patrick recently, they seem compelled after his name to add '...currently under disciplinary proceedings..' as if to imply he might be under-performing/dishonest/negligent. However as far as I know he is only on a disciplinary because he's had the guts to speak out, and the organisation simply cannot have that. The papers seem to be using him to attack the Met, but simultaneously they seek to undermine him . Why are these papers always so filled with hate? But that's another question - one I don't wish to go into today.
It will be interesting whether in the end he keeps his job/pension, or perhaps the Met will settle out of court? And if this ends in his favour, will the floodgates open? Will officers like myself then be able to reveal our identities and start exposing the disgraceful and dim-witted management? I hope so. Goodness know, the whole edifice of Met senior management needs prying open. In fact the whole culture within the UK police - attitudes of the bosses towards the officers, and towards the public - needs transforming into something decent and humane.
One more thing - I have noticed that wherever the newspapers discuss PC Patrick recently, they seem compelled after his name to add '...currently under disciplinary proceedings..' as if to imply he might be under-performing/dishonest/negligent. However as far as I know he is only on a disciplinary because he's had the guts to speak out, and the organisation simply cannot have that. The papers seem to be using him to attack the Met, but simultaneously they seek to undermine him . Why are these papers always so filled with hate? But that's another question - one I don't wish to go into today.
Monday, 30 December 2013
Contact Points
One disgraceful facet of Sir Bernard's Local Policing Model is how people are being mislead in relation to access to the police.
Under the LPM, the closure of half our police stations should create no problem for public access because there are now 'Contact Points'.
Let's look at this. On my borough six months ago we had four stations open to the public – two of those 24/7. There was no problem with public access. Now there is only one station open for the public.
To replace this shortfall we now have 'Contact Points'.
These are half a dozen locations around the borough where, in theory, you can speak to a police officer. However, these Contact Points are open only for one hour at a time: two evenings a week, and one afternoon. So that's three hours each week they are open. Also they are staffed by PCSOs, not police officers. Police Community Support Officers do not have access to most police systems and so cannot create crime reports. There is almost nothing they can help you with. A PCSO told me:
“It's frustrating – when somebody comes here, the only thing I can do is apologise and send them to the main station.”
The public don't even seem to be aware of these contact points, so nineteen times out of twenty nobody turns up.
The Borough Commander has seen fit to place some of these Contact Points in unlikely places such as our local hospital. Firstly, the PCSO doesn't know where to go, so she ends up loitering in a corridor. Second, you arrive thinking you can report your crime, but then have to search the entire hospital to find the PCSO. Third, she then tells you she can't do anything, and suggests you go to the one station that's open 24/7.
The waiting room of that station often now has a queue stretching out of the building on to the street and a very stressed receptionist behind the counter.
Some Contact Point locations are neighbourhood police offices, where there is no public entrance, so the PCSO has to stand outside on the pavement, shuffling his feet.
The purpose of Contact Points is analogous to being in hospital waiting room when a nurse says 'Hi!' to you so she can record that you've 'been seen', and so help the NHS performance indicators.
It's the same thing – a Contact Point cannot actually give you any service, but Sir Bernard desperately wants to be able to hide the problems.
But this is a lie. There are problems. Appalling problems. Worse, it's a betrayal of trust. Why can we not instead be honest with the public? – everybody knows our budget has been cut. If only police senior managers weren't so terrified of criticism. At least in the UK, this is a trait they all seem to share.
Instead of telling people the truth, we are insulting their intelligence and wasting their time – they make a trip to a Contact Point only to be told we can't help and are directed to the only station that's open.
Again, it's policing by the performance indicators. I find it disgusting, and it makes police officers and PCSOs look like fools.
Under the LPM, the closure of half our police stations should create no problem for public access because there are now 'Contact Points'.
Let's look at this. On my borough six months ago we had four stations open to the public – two of those 24/7. There was no problem with public access. Now there is only one station open for the public.
To replace this shortfall we now have 'Contact Points'.
These are half a dozen locations around the borough where, in theory, you can speak to a police officer. However, these Contact Points are open only for one hour at a time: two evenings a week, and one afternoon. So that's three hours each week they are open. Also they are staffed by PCSOs, not police officers. Police Community Support Officers do not have access to most police systems and so cannot create crime reports. There is almost nothing they can help you with. A PCSO told me:
“It's frustrating – when somebody comes here, the only thing I can do is apologise and send them to the main station.”
The public don't even seem to be aware of these contact points, so nineteen times out of twenty nobody turns up.
The Borough Commander has seen fit to place some of these Contact Points in unlikely places such as our local hospital. Firstly, the PCSO doesn't know where to go, so she ends up loitering in a corridor. Second, you arrive thinking you can report your crime, but then have to search the entire hospital to find the PCSO. Third, she then tells you she can't do anything, and suggests you go to the one station that's open 24/7.
The waiting room of that station often now has a queue stretching out of the building on to the street and a very stressed receptionist behind the counter.
Some Contact Point locations are neighbourhood police offices, where there is no public entrance, so the PCSO has to stand outside on the pavement, shuffling his feet.
The purpose of Contact Points is analogous to being in hospital waiting room when a nurse says 'Hi!' to you so she can record that you've 'been seen', and so help the NHS performance indicators.
It's the same thing – a Contact Point cannot actually give you any service, but Sir Bernard desperately wants to be able to hide the problems.
But this is a lie. There are problems. Appalling problems. Worse, it's a betrayal of trust. Why can we not instead be honest with the public? – everybody knows our budget has been cut. If only police senior managers weren't so terrified of criticism. At least in the UK, this is a trait they all seem to share.
Instead of telling people the truth, we are insulting their intelligence and wasting their time – they make a trip to a Contact Point only to be told we can't help and are directed to the only station that's open.
Again, it's policing by the performance indicators. I find it disgusting, and it makes police officers and PCSOs look like fools.
Saturday, 14 December 2013
Disappointment Car
The Commissioner has had officers working his Local Policing Model (LPM) for a few months now. I can't keep quiet about what I've seen. This is the same system that failed so utterly when he introduced it in Merseyside.
Constables on the LPM spend every day running from one appointment to the next at one hour intervals. They can't all be dealt with in five minutes, and so the officers inevitably have to cancel some appointments. They then get disciplined. Also, they accumulate crime reports which they never have time to investigate.
Colleagues have brought this to their Chief Inspector's attention, and she appears only to care that:
The sergeants, inspectors and upwards seem obsessed only with attending all the appointments. They give the Borough Commander the names of the officers who miss appointments. The quality of the work and victim focus doesn't interest them. But a pensioner who has been burgled, and is crying her eyes out, will need an officer to spend a few hours with her. The PC can't be looking at his watch, thinking about the next one. Nevertheless, the inspectors and Chief Inspectors keep sending emails: "You have to deal with each one properly, but if you cancel any you may be subject to disciplinary action." So much for victim care. The system is so driven by inflexible rules and the computer diary system, that even if the officer is early for an appointment it counts as a 'miss'.
If the Borough Commander put enough officers on the LPM teams perhaps it might work, but they are appallingly understaffed. The LPM teams are also expected to resource all the crime scene cordons, constant-watches in custody (sitting with self-harming prisoners), temporarily replace office-bound PCs who are sick, and anything else that requires a pair of hands.
Sir Bernard has closed the specialist teams that dealt with the prisoners ('Case Progression Unit') and incidentally provided excellent training for new officers and trainee detectives. So now the LPT officers are expected to be a Jack-of-all-trades. They attend appointments, arrest and deal with prisoners even though they are alone and on foot, and fill in any other temporary gaps in the organisation, despite that there are hardly any of them. The Met being the size it is, and the level of crime we have in London, we need specialist teams to deal with the prisoners. If an LPT constable deals with her own prisoner she will have to cancel the day's remaining appointments and will not be able to patrol.
Supposedly these former-CPU officers are now freed up and able to patrol, but where are they? Sir Bernard's brave new world - the Local Policing Team - has pulled an almost unbelievable achievement - overnight it has magicked all the resources away into the ether.
The LPT constables all have crime reports piling up but never any time to investigate them. They describe daily irate emails from understandably frustrated victims wondering what is going on with their crimes.
Taking into account travelling time, and the time needed to create the crime reports in the station, each victim who has booked an hourly appointment gets less than ten minutes with an officer. The appointment car is now referred to as: "Disappointment Car".
Many of the appointments seem to be jobs that the response team should have attended. I can illustrate this best by giving you an edited excerpt from my book. This chapter describes the experience of an LPM officer in finding one of his appointments was a gang rape that occurred the night before. Because of the pressures from management to achieve the attendance targets (15 minutes for an I-grade, and 60 minutes for an S-grade), paradoxically the response team didn't go to the the call. In fact many calls are passed down to the LPM teams in this way.
He went to an appointment without first checking the details and found himself the first officer visiting a victim of gang rape. The victim had called 999 last night, the moment she woke up after having been drugged. A car was sent, but had to deal with something it came across.
An I-grade must be attended within 15 minutes, but all officers were tied up with prisoners and other calls. The patrol sergeants and teams inspectors have been told that at all costs they must hit these attendance times. So a moment before the 15th minute expired the rape was downgraded to an S-grade (60 minutes).The sergeants and inspectors' attention then switched automatically to the next I-grade that was closest to running out of time. The rape victim was still waiting to be seen, and as the 59th minute ticked by with no unit available the call was downgraded further to an E-grade, so that the 60 minute target was not missed.
Now that the incident was an E-grade it was completely off the team inspector's list – just another appointment for the LPT to deal with the next day.
This common practice is an unintended result of the absolute obsession about making the 15 or 60 minute times. Surely the rape victim would have preferred to be visited that day even if outside the 60 minute target?
I recently heard an inspector telling a reporter "Under the LPM we now have more officers out there." She was lying, but that inspector's boss - our Chief Inspector - would have been furious if the inspector had spoken the truth. It's all about maintaining the fiction.
Officers have fed these problems and many others up to the Borough Commander, but she is frightened of reporting these issues upwards. They know that the top bosses in the Met – the Commanders and Deputy Commissioners - do not want to hear about problems. They want to be able to tell Mr Hogan-Howe that the LPM is an unmitigated success.
Officers such as Chief Inspectors and Borough Commanders are by definition very ambitions, and unfortunately their promotion prospects depend largely on implementing new systems and bringing the performance figures back to the Commissioner. If they report to their line managers “The LPM isn't working, and these are the reasons...” they can kiss goodbye to their next promotion.
So, as usual there is little interest in receiving feedback from those officers actually on the ground doing the work. Senior management say “The LPM isn't going to change in the near future.” In their normal way they continue in denial, losing precious opportunities to iron out problems.
The system functioned unimaginably better when the LPT officers were Neighbourhood Teams – genuinely working in and around communities.
Constables on the LPM spend every day running from one appointment to the next at one hour intervals. They can't all be dealt with in five minutes, and so the officers inevitably have to cancel some appointments. They then get disciplined. Also, they accumulate crime reports which they never have time to investigate.
Colleagues have brought this to their Chief Inspector's attention, and she appears only to care that:
- The PC has visited the caller rather than dealt with his problem by telephone. Let's remember that 90% of calls to police are either trivia or not police matters. ("I'm upset that my local post office is closing.")
- The PC has handed the victim a 'Victim Card'. The number of these given out is a statistic the senior managers can trumpet around as an achievement.
- The PC has ticked the 'Victim Card' box on the crime report.
The sergeants, inspectors and upwards seem obsessed only with attending all the appointments. They give the Borough Commander the names of the officers who miss appointments. The quality of the work and victim focus doesn't interest them. But a pensioner who has been burgled, and is crying her eyes out, will need an officer to spend a few hours with her. The PC can't be looking at his watch, thinking about the next one. Nevertheless, the inspectors and Chief Inspectors keep sending emails: "You have to deal with each one properly, but if you cancel any you may be subject to disciplinary action." So much for victim care. The system is so driven by inflexible rules and the computer diary system, that even if the officer is early for an appointment it counts as a 'miss'.
If the Borough Commander put enough officers on the LPM teams perhaps it might work, but they are appallingly understaffed. The LPM teams are also expected to resource all the crime scene cordons, constant-watches in custody (sitting with self-harming prisoners), temporarily replace office-bound PCs who are sick, and anything else that requires a pair of hands.
Sir Bernard has closed the specialist teams that dealt with the prisoners ('Case Progression Unit') and incidentally provided excellent training for new officers and trainee detectives. So now the LPT officers are expected to be a Jack-of-all-trades. They attend appointments, arrest and deal with prisoners even though they are alone and on foot, and fill in any other temporary gaps in the organisation, despite that there are hardly any of them. The Met being the size it is, and the level of crime we have in London, we need specialist teams to deal with the prisoners. If an LPT constable deals with her own prisoner she will have to cancel the day's remaining appointments and will not be able to patrol.
Supposedly these former-CPU officers are now freed up and able to patrol, but where are they? Sir Bernard's brave new world - the Local Policing Team - has pulled an almost unbelievable achievement - overnight it has magicked all the resources away into the ether.
The LPT constables all have crime reports piling up but never any time to investigate them. They describe daily irate emails from understandably frustrated victims wondering what is going on with their crimes.
Taking into account travelling time, and the time needed to create the crime reports in the station, each victim who has booked an hourly appointment gets less than ten minutes with an officer. The appointment car is now referred to as: "Disappointment Car".
Many of the appointments seem to be jobs that the response team should have attended. I can illustrate this best by giving you an edited excerpt from my book. This chapter describes the experience of an LPM officer in finding one of his appointments was a gang rape that occurred the night before. Because of the pressures from management to achieve the attendance targets (15 minutes for an I-grade, and 60 minutes for an S-grade), paradoxically the response team didn't go to the the call. In fact many calls are passed down to the LPM teams in this way.
He went to an appointment without first checking the details and found himself the first officer visiting a victim of gang rape. The victim had called 999 last night, the moment she woke up after having been drugged. A car was sent, but had to deal with something it came across.
An I-grade must be attended within 15 minutes, but all officers were tied up with prisoners and other calls. The patrol sergeants and teams inspectors have been told that at all costs they must hit these attendance times. So a moment before the 15th minute expired the rape was downgraded to an S-grade (60 minutes).The sergeants and inspectors' attention then switched automatically to the next I-grade that was closest to running out of time. The rape victim was still waiting to be seen, and as the 59th minute ticked by with no unit available the call was downgraded further to an E-grade, so that the 60 minute target was not missed.
Now that the incident was an E-grade it was completely off the team inspector's list – just another appointment for the LPT to deal with the next day.
This common practice is an unintended result of the absolute obsession about making the 15 or 60 minute times. Surely the rape victim would have preferred to be visited that day even if outside the 60 minute target?
I recently heard an inspector telling a reporter "Under the LPM we now have more officers out there." She was lying, but that inspector's boss - our Chief Inspector - would have been furious if the inspector had spoken the truth. It's all about maintaining the fiction.
Officers have fed these problems and many others up to the Borough Commander, but she is frightened of reporting these issues upwards. They know that the top bosses in the Met – the Commanders and Deputy Commissioners - do not want to hear about problems. They want to be able to tell Mr Hogan-Howe that the LPM is an unmitigated success.
Officers such as Chief Inspectors and Borough Commanders are by definition very ambitions, and unfortunately their promotion prospects depend largely on implementing new systems and bringing the performance figures back to the Commissioner. If they report to their line managers “The LPM isn't working, and these are the reasons...” they can kiss goodbye to their next promotion.
So, as usual there is little interest in receiving feedback from those officers actually on the ground doing the work. Senior management say “The LPM isn't going to change in the near future.” In their normal way they continue in denial, losing precious opportunities to iron out problems.
The system functioned unimaginably better when the LPT officers were Neighbourhood Teams – genuinely working in and around communities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)