Okay so it's pretty clear that I am not going to have the time to be able to do anything with this for some time. Losing time to blogging when the little ones are little is time wasted for me.
I will try and edit all the posts to just have the 'interesting' stuff left of the more entertaining policing stories, and sort out the messy labels.
In the meantime, all the furore about pay and conditions.
My view:
- We are well paid
- A pay freeze is reasonable and expected
- I don't get paid any overtime anyway, I'd love to know where all these astronomical figures quoted in the media come from, they don't remotely relate to response team budgets (which is as "front line" as you get)
- Noone has actually defined what front line policing actually is. It isn't neighbourhood policing, but my local outfit are trumpeting how they've managed to save neighbourhood police all their budget.
- Media reports are fuzzy in the details. I can't quite figure out what is supposed to be happening compared to what already is.... I need to read the report fully I guess!
There's a lot more in the Winsor report I know and the fed are getting all stroppy but in all honesty the only difference I am going to see is a pay freeze. Which as I said, is reasonable and expected....
Update
Okay, so I've had a bit more of a look. Special Priority Payments are going. Well I'll always be sad to have a bit less money in the bank but I never budgeted on having these anyway. I also never quite figured the logic in who got how much and when, and they were generally a bit flawed. A material loss for myself but I always saw these as an unguaranteed 'bonus' anyway.
Competency related threshold payments are going. This will upset older service people (I haven't been in the rank long enough - i.e. over 10 years- to qualify) but I disagreed with them anyway- I saw lazy, ineffective officers being given these when they weren't deserved (and before anyone thinks it, I will happily admit I would have claimed it, disagreeing with it or not. Why wouldn't you? An extra grand a year for no extra work apart from form filling). I can see this one causing the most runcus as it will probably affect quite a few people.
Superintendents bonuses are going. GOOD. Need I say more.
Office staff are likely to get a pay cut? Well it has always rankled with me that whilst I work stupid hours and have my duties changed at the last moment, a geezer sat behind a desk doing nice office hours gets paid the same.
I like the antisocial hours pay bump, because I'll get that. I would have carried on doing response work whether or not this perk came in as it's what I joined to do, and it's nice to see a bit of reward for doing the same thing.
I can see this expertise allowance job causing issues. There's already lot of whinges around on the police forums as to why a neighbourhood officer should get this. I can kind of see their point because there are a considerable number of cases whereby those on neighbourhood teams ended up on there because of their ineptitude on response teams, and I don't see how that should be rewarded. However, neighbourhood teams do have a problem with retention. Unlike firearms teams. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say they don't need an extra payment. They already have the best and latest kit and there is no problem with recruitment on existing terms as it is already seen as a prestigous role, whereby you can avoid the tedious humdrum of minor stuff that swamps the response teams the rest of the time.
