Show me the.....

Well, a couple of days a long way from the grey walls of Suburbiaville, where by some terrible mistake of planning I forgot to take the phone, and I'm feeling a bit better about actually going to work.

It's surprising (read: not at all) to find that after a bank holiday weekend the email inbox barely registering anything new at all. As crime doesn't happen on bank holidays, not least in offices within police stations, there has been nobody in to send force wide emails on minute (but god help you if you don't implement it) changes in policy, or the unneccessarily detailed breakdown of the last so many hours crime patterns. I shall wait for the deluge upon my next non-bank holiday login.

Before I get criticised for criticising people not working the bank holiday- I know, I wasn't there for all of it either, but it was only my second weekend off this year that just so happened to be a bank holiday weekend. I did get calls to ask me to work various days within it but I balanced it up and thought the ire of the duties office was a better bet than the wrath of the wife.

Anyhoo one thing has caught my eye. Ever eager to clamp down on expenditure on every public sector (excepting, of course, within their own unaudited, mileage-claiming, second home owning, self-pay-rising, family employing walls) the government has put forward the suggestion that PC's and Sergeants should have overtime payments abolished in favour of a higher basic salary.
The details are in the most recent Police Review, for those who are able to log in.

I can hear Inspector Gadget's hollow laughter already. Inspectors and above forfeited their right to overtime back in 1996 for a higher basic salary.

Now, this higher basic wage would be a fantastic idea for anyone office based. An extra 3 grand a year for doing precisely nothing more. For muppets like me still flogging out rotating shift patterns and the unpredictability that response policing inevitably generates, we'll probably lose out. There's been at least two or three occasions this year already where circumstances have dictated I have had to stay at work long enough to work into a rest day. Things like this aren't planned, and are generally actually an inconvenience, but at least the following month when you've forgotten all about the extra tiredness and rapidly rearranged childcare stuff there's an extra couple hundred quid to play with.

I don't want to see overtime scrapped in favour of a higher basic rate. I'm no overtime bandit unlike some other safeguard-aholics I work with, but I still wouldn't want it on principle. However, it worries me that if it went to a vote, there's a lot of Pc's and skippers working in office based units, with no intention of being in a situation where they could end up being late home, who would vote yes if it came to it.

I think policing would suffer, too. Don't pay the overtime and there's a real risk that an hour before the shift end, every car is going to be parked up in the back yard with the log books shelved. At least now, if you're late off, there's extra money to be had off it. Be late off with no recompense at all, and especially if your finishing on time colleagues will get exactly the same cash, then there will be a real motivational issue. Coppers generally are decent people who want to help the people who call 999, but we're not complete fools and we all have bills to pay- and if we get the same money for whenever you finish what's the point in taking the last minute shoplifter that'll make you 4hrs late home.

But of course, McNumpty et al don't care about this, they only see the pound signs, and if they think they'll go down, then it'll be worth it whatever the price, if you catch the irony.

Moving on

I'll let the pay business slide for the moment. It seems for once the fed are actually being half-organised and might actually give us an opportunity to do something to show our displeasure beyond yet another email proforma telling us to write to an MP. We'll see what happens. The much vaunted power of the internet seems to have failed for me.

For as of course life goes on. I've been anchored to the custody desk, so for once with this freezing weather I'm not so fed up of the same 4 walls as usual. My sergeanting colleague wandered in the other day. He has now adopted a permanent expression of.... I can't quite describe it, but resigned acceptance about sums it up. He told me we're now down to 4 Pc's covering Suburbiaville, whose population and problems have not been reduced by a third to match the loss of the PC's. The governor won't be happy, as his statistics will have reduced by a third too. Never mind eh.

Which brings me on. Things I am likely not to see in a custody suite:

1) A PCSO. They're not allowed to arrest anyone.
2) A safer neighbourhood constable, unless they were really unlucky and were in the wrong place at the right time.
3) A safer neighbourhood sergeant. They're not even custody trained round my way.
4) Anyone under 16 who actually demonstrates some kind of regret or sorrow for being arrested.
5) Anyone in a suit before 0930am.
6) Anyone from SMT, unless someone has died.

Feel free to continue the list.

Clarification

Well, the last post didn't cause that much controversy.... never mind.

A couple of things had arisen though- I had completely forgotten that our glorious government had made protesting within a mile of Parliament Square illegal. I didn't really think much about it before but now it has become something I was actually seriously contemplating doing it really winds me up! If the government don't like being told by their electing public that they're not popular, they'll just make it illegal for the public to tell them about it. They don't want to run the risk of actually being confronted by one of their constituents. Its much easier to dismiss a protest when it's something your secretary can deal with via the postbox. I would love to see what the Met would do though if a several hundred old bill turned up outside the Houses of Parliament. Probably bus in all their PCSO's to give everyone a PND.

Anyhoo I did note that one of the things the Fed is now advocating is a mass protest rally. I'll take the credit for that ;-)

Now that this situation is getting a fair bit of news coverage the comments pages on some of the rags are getting letters sent in. I can't remember which one (and I can't be bothered searching) but someone was saying how pathetic this all was over 0.6%. (someone commented on the last post in the same theme)

So, to clarify. For myself, and I think the most of us, this is really not about the money. We are relatively well paid, especially compared to the other emergency services. Although there are unique aspects to our job that don't apply to the others- but more on that another time, if there's the interst.

If the government had backdated the 2.5% to make it a proper 2.5%, I personally wouldn't be jumping up and down.

What is galling is the way the government have gone about this pay rise. They canned a long standing police pay rise mechanism linked into inflation, which was accepted by "us" in return for the right to strike. They then enter into "binding" arbitration which recommends a 2.5% rise. They then, having stalled the issue long enough, accept the 2.5% increase, but only implement it 4 months after it should have been so that the overall increase is 1.9%.

Underlying all this of course is the fact most of us are seriously hacked off with the target obsessions of this government which has a direct impact on the way street level officers go about their jobs. Which has been, for the most part, a negative impact. Most people have seen or heard a story about how some minor petty offence- e.g playground scraps-which in all honesty should be dealt with by words of advice was dealt with according to the letter of the law- which whilst not illegal is not exactly proportionate. But its the pressure from the senior management, under pressure from the government, to improve detection rates which causes this.

Its not about the money. Its about the government constantly interfering and imposing their will. Now I will counter this to acknowledge there is a need for a publicly elected body to be concerned with the manner in which the country is policed but the manner and the method through which this government has gone about it has been woeful, and this pay issue has just been the final straw.

Time to Listen

Right.

This pay decrease we're getting. The fed are writing "angry and frustrated" letters and suggest you do the same. They are apparently holding a meeting to discuss it. ACPO meanwhile are officially disappointed.

Is it just me, or is this mostly a lot of hot air and vigorous arm waving and jumping up and down? I'd like to be proved wrong, but I'm not confident.

I don't think the government really give two hoots about letters from the federation or the opinion of ACPO.

Parliament go onto their 3 week christmas break on the 18th December. (3 week break!) They come back on the 7th January according to here.

I'd like to stand outside at Parliament Square and meet them as they go home to whichever one of their homes they're off to. I think that if enough of us are there giving them abuse as they go off to ponder which christmas tipple to have they might just start to listen. Let them leave their decadent halls with the sounds of hundreds of angry police officers ringing in their ears.

I say hundreds. Here's something to test the "power" of the internet. Is this a good idea? How about we start something from the ground up? Lets be honest, this won't affect ACPO. Can you see them recommending any kind of protest?

So how about it? Parliament Square, 2pm, 18th December? I'm not advocating anything other than a show of numbers and perhaps some light-hearted banter with an MP. If too short notice, how about we meet them coming back on the 7th Jan?

Email me, leave a comment, tell your friends, suggest it to a fed rep! - lets see if there's anything in this. I somehow feel I don't want to trust this issue completely to those who represent us- no disrespect to the fed, they just haven't got the clout, and ACPO wouldn't dare risk their rank (come on and prove me wrong!)- I feel I need to do something myself. And this is what I came up with.

I am interested to see if this post will go with a whimper or a bang.

Two pennies

Every blog has been ranting about our pay award. 1.9%.

Now I don't think we as a rule a particularly badly paid especially when compared to some other emergency services. Can't say I particularly like a pay increase below inflation though, that's really a tad off.

I don't know the ins and outs of the whole history of police pay but as far as I can tell some time ago an agreement was reached with the incumbent government that in return for the right to strike we would be guaranteed a certain pay increase each year. Quite what the mechanisms were regarding that I have no idea but the point is this government has reneged on that agreement.

MPs have such a cushy life which is what really makes this sting. Take a look at Coppers Blog for the best comparison of MPs claiming expenses for everything left right and centre. I have to buy my own torches, batteries and belt kit as the job issue ones are invariably poor quality. MPs can even claim a cycling to work allowance! At their rate, I'll have a pound a day thank you very much. Not much, but it'll buy me and the wife a takeaway at the end of each month. Oh except we don't have a cycling allowance.

I would've accepted 2.5%. What has really wound me up is the way the Jacqui "I live in an awfully nice area" Smith has said she accepts the 2.5% recommendation but won't backdate it to when it should have been implemented, making it a reality of 1.9%. Its underhand, sneaky and frankly I'd like to..... (I've been pondering what to say, and I still can't think of anything postable)

Here's the reality for me. I parade 6 officers to cover an urban / suburban population of approx 70,000. I spent 9 hours of my last shift writing a report regarding one individual person. On night shift there are dozens of spare car park spaces but come the morning every one is filled by someone, but who I never know as they're never with me on response work. Safer Neighbourhood teams have been set up with people taken from response teams to do the work response teams don't have enough time and resources to look at. The ethos of management revolves solely around perfomance indicators (and inextricably linked- whether the Superintendents get their bonus). "Support" Squads are set up with fat overtime budgets to target specific crimes (which are always but ALWAYS linked to performance indicators and bonuses) whilst team inspectors can only authorise overtime when it is completely unavoidable (i.e. arrest). They face discipline if it is overbudget and yet if there is an underspend the money is taken away from them to feed another support squad.

I knew there was a reason I didn't initially want to post about this. It winds me up just how messed up this system is. And the blame completely lies with the Labour Government as far as I'm concerned. I've not been in quite long enough to have worked under the Tories but this lot are obsessed with target culture and imposing a financial reward and sanction scheme on a job that essentially cannot be measured effectively with any statistical means. And those aspects which can be measured cannot give an accurate reflection of what they are meant to. 4 out of 5 crimes aren't investigated? So we are expected to put out witness appeals for every car window smashed as John Random forgot to put his TomTom away? There is often a reason why crimes are not investigated beyond their initial investigation. We don't have the resources to stand there at the following day asking people if they were present yesterday, to pore over hours of CCTV on the offchance a suspect may have been captured. I've known people get furiously angry for us not checking 8 hours of CCTV when they found their car window had been smashed in a car park. No suspect description, not known if he was a he or a she or in a car of their own, utterly unrealistic proposition. But my goodness she went mad at me for not doing it.

This post has gone on long enough, apologies.