Bureaucracy Gone Mad!

I saw an interesting article on the BBC website today which says that according to the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, police officers in England and Wales are bogged down in red tape and afraid to use their own judgement. A video clip of the report can be found here.

In an interim report, Sir Ronnie Flanagan said forces would "over-record and under-deliver" for fear of missing something or being criticised.

And he said "excess bureaucracy" must be cut to free up police time.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said changes were needed to make police "more effective" at fighting crime.

This isn't exactly new to us on the factory floor. Red tape bureaucracy slows our jobs down so much, it's a wonder that any police officers are seen on the streets at all.

First of all on the bureaucracy list of madness is a so called piece of accounting called "bench marking" Where years ago officers could use a thing called "discretion" to decide on the outcome of incidents and encounters, this "bench marking" means that each officer must make an individual number of arrests, process, stops and intelligence reports by the end of the month, "or else!"

For those who joined the force...sorry! service, recently, you may not know what "discretion" is, so here is the dictionary definition:

dis·cre·tion

the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment;
freedom of judgment or choice: It is entirely within my discretion whether I will go or stay.

and there you have it, it is the freedon of judgment or choice and discretion was one of our biggest tools in the job and has been chipped away bit by bit by petty bureaucracy and I include "bench marking" within the bounds of it too.

It was great, in the old days you turned up to an incident, eg. a common assault which quickly transpires that there's counter allegations. The usual kind of job where they could have easily sorted this out with an apology but the decide to waste everyones time by calling the police.

No one actually has any injury yet both are complaining to you that they have had a scrap. "Six of one" jobs are common and counter allegations are a familiar phrase you hear, especially when one realises he's about to be locked up.

You would then turn to each IP (Injured Party) and explain that due to the fact they are counter alleging assaults, both will be arrested and possibly charged to go before court. So are they likely to drop it now, rather than later when wasting everyones time? Usually they would and all would be forgotten with a handshake. The incident would be updated with "no party willing to pursue allegations" it will then be closed and job's a goodun!

In today's red tape world both parties would have to be arrested and investigations would have to take place into what would happen. Hours and hours of officers time is then wasted: awaiting custody space, booking in the prisoners, writing up the notes, then interviewing (as we all don't have case building teams) bailing, gate keeper appointments, CPS appointments (who will likely boot the case out) and if they make a decision to charge, the file needs to be made. As well as all this the crimes would have to be put on the system even if both parties are unwilling to pursue the complaint!

So, if I turn up to an incident and a crime has been committed but no party is willing to pursue or no party is there, the crime gets recorded as a "Crime Related Incident" What is the point in that? All it does is upset the figures, over inflates them and it means that more time is wasted by the officer because they have to put it on the system!

Basic things like stopping and talking to people these days is a nightmare! In days of old you just spoke to them, took name, date of birth, address details and that was that. In red tape world you have to record what they were wearing, location of stop, time of stop, and what ethnic background they wish to be counted as being part of! The form is now the length of a fixed penalty notice and can take about ten minutes to fill out if done neatly. No wonder people you stop get the hump if you're having to fill out this form and waste their time too!

God forbid if you have to search them! as even more questions need ticking or filling in. But that's not the end of it. You then, on return to the nick, have to input all these onto the computer assuming you can find a terminal that's available in the writing room as all the other officers are completing their bureaucratic nonsense!

I welcome Sir Ronnie's interim report as it states quite clearly what we've been saying for years and it's about time that someone has finally stood up and said "enough is enough!"

Among his recommendations are:

• A drive by police chiefs to encourage officers and staff to "rediscover their discretion to exercise professional judgement"


• The introduction of voluntary police community support officers to supplement neighbourhood teams


• The creation of standardised forms for recording crimes to minimise excess bureaucracy


• A nationwide consensus on "what is and isn't important" for police to record in an effort to cut paperwork.

Sir Ronnie added: "We risk diverting officers' priorities to recording crimes rather than getting out on the streets solving them and preventing them."

Some forces are taking advantages of technology, for example the British Transport Police are using handy little PDA's (Personal Digital Assistants) which record stops and searches on handy drop down boxes and simple section filling. Once complete, one button sends everything you need to whoever needs it and prints a slip for the person stopped too. According to Jane's Police Review, the 400 hundred officers given them, have vastly improved logged intelligence submissions and seen officers spend more time on the beat. The PDA allows them to log incidents without having to come back to the police station.

I'm all for this kind of equipment (if it works!) as it makes life easier and cuts down on what I need to carry. Some people joke about the amount of forms I have to carry in the pockets of my stab vest and find it amazing that we have to complete all these documents and submit them for the most simple of reasons.

One of the main reasons we have to complete so many of these forms is for recording of statistics. The Home Office apparently needs all this information to see how many black, white, Asian, Chinese, Arabic etc we stop and to make sure we are getting an accurate record of where they were born. This is so they can pass on the information to any focus groups and yogurt knitters to assess if we are being over-bearing on a particular ethnic group regardless if they have committed a crime or not.

So next time you call the police and they don't show within a time span that you define as respectable, please bear in mind that yours is not the only crime being committed at that particular time, we don't have officers we can pull out of a hat and send to you and the others are probably stuck dealing with the petty bureaucracy explained above that will not allow them to leave the police station!