Friday 31 August 2007
Rest Backlog Leaves Officers Exhausted
I was reading Jane's Police Review when I found this article. It's intermixed with some of my own thoughts on this subject.
Officers in the south of England are facing backlogs of up to 40 owed rest days because they are so under-resourced and are exhausted from working 12 days in a row, according to their federations.
Other officers on night shifts are so tired they are sleeping through their time off at home with their families.
John Miskelly, chairman of Surrey Police Federation, said he is worried about the stress and effect of the long hours, particularly when officers are driving home from a shift.
He added that incidents such as the climate change protests, the recent foot and mouth outbreak, the Derby and anti-terrorism operations have meant it is not unusual for operational officers to be working 12 days in a row.
This reminds me of the extremely long hours after 7/7. We all understand the need for exigences of service and the need to provide reassurance for the public in times of terror but when we get major events on top of all of this, for example the Tour-de-France, Notting Hill and DSEI etc. plus sickness and officers on restricted duties, those of us left to police the "front line" are having to do the work of not just one officer but maybe two or three.
A colleague of mine yesterday, logged onto a computer to find that next weekend, which he was on rest for, was cancelled. He was extremely annoyed and quite right so. He had booked a weekend break which he had already had to move the booking due to a family illness and now there he was finding out that without even a buy-your-leave (no pun intended) his rest days were cancelled. Once again the front line officers are being used without thought or care. There are plenty of other squads that have uniforms tucked away in a locker somewhere, why not use them?
New Years day, Notting Hill, DSEI etc all days off are cancelled and reallocated but you try and get them back! I gather a mixture of toil and pay from my o/t but when I attempt to obtain that time off in lieu back it's nigh on impossible and dare you ask for it off during a shift!
We are being asked to work harder and longer each time. I work a five week roster which is so archaic, Noah himself voted against it! Part of the roster is that I work seven nights then get three days off but invariably one of those days is cancelled for an event eg. football policing. Since the new Wembley has opened rest day cancellations have gone through the roof. The public want to see us on the streets fighting crime not gathered around a football stadium and my wife wants to see me at home on rest days, especially when the baby arrives! Then you have the problem with who's left behind to police the area you would normally walk the beat on. During the play off cup finals we were all at Wembley for the entire weekend. I missed two rest days off of nights which meant that after sleeping part of the Friday, I had half a day off so pretty much worked the best part of fifteen days straight. The area I normally covered was left with just two police officers to respond to calls. They worked either twelve hours day and the night turn worked twelve hours night. Needless to say they were shattered and the night turn still had another three nights left to go before they had time off (assuming it wasn't cancelled!).
Up to 1,800 Met officers at a time were called to the camp near Heathrow to police the protest and officers from Surrey, Thames Valley and the British Transport Police helped with the operation in the surrounding areas.
One mounted officer was knocked off his horse during the confrontations with the demonstrators, who carried shields and threw missiles at police lines. He is not thought to have been seriously injured.
Surrey Police provided officers to carry out night shifts and routine patrols in sites around the county. But officers are now having a backlog of up to 40 days owed to them because they are so under-resourced.
Officers then have to travel for up to an hour and a half away which is stressful and can cause implications for the officers and their families.
Our former Commander said "We don't choose where officers live" Well that's all very well and good for him considering he is on thousands a year and can afford to live relatively close to the office but for the front line officers it's a little different. Coupled up with the pay disputes it's becoming harder and harder for officers to be able to afford or upkeep homes. So when a Commander comes out with that sort of ludicrous clap-trap you wonder if all the officers who are leaving to become plumbers and electricians are not quite so mad after all!
Thank God For Annual Leave!
Two weeks off! Starting now! I'm not going anywhere just decorating the nursery for littleun for when it arrives. I haven't had a proper holiday since our honeymoon in Mexico two years ago but any rest is good rest.
Today was wind down day. I wasn't going to be particularly hunting down paperwork unless I really had to. We don't have fancy teams of case builders, we have to do all the file prep ourselves. Then the powers that be wonder why we aren't pulling in the figures we're supposed to each month and also wonder why we're not out in the vehicle but sat in front of a computer screen instead. We can't win!
There were only a few shouts today, nothing worth mentioning really. One funny thing happened though was the local pirate DVD seller lost about 100 DVDs because I happened to pass him just as he was selling them. When I asked him where they were I saw a group of kids standing by a bin. I went over and it was full of them! You should have seen his face when I confiscated the lot! I said to him "Well, I take it you don't want them as they're all in the bin?" He didn't say a word, his jaw hit the floor and was just pointing to them as I put them in the back of the motor. They were all Bollywood titles, God knows how much it's going to cost him to replace them!
We had a group of officers from another local force come into the nick today, looking at transferring to us. We lost about six ourselves from our nick recently via transfer. The grass isn't always greener on the other side I say and been proved right on many occasions. One mate of mine found it really stressful being in a new force and wants to come back but unfortunately he's burnt his bridges as he slagged our force off. The top bods at FHQ heard about it and now he's been put on the back burner and the only offer to come back was one of less than popular squads which many are trying their hardest to get off.
This has been a hectic week. What with Notting Hill Carnival last weekend, my shoulders are only just recovering after wearing that body armour and Custodian stood there for two very long days! Thankfully it was pretty uneventful for me. The last time I was there we had a near riot! Then they wanted to place me on officer protection training for two days straight after! Two days of a solid beasting after standing around for all that time would have finished me off. I wish they would think about these training dates when organising them!
We ended up having to arrest a 61 year old woman yesterday who was wanted on warrant. For someone so small she certainly had a lot to say! She was wanted for failing to appear at court for an arrest my mate, who I was with made back in June. She was evil! She bit, spat, punched, kicked, shouted vial abuse and yet people who gathered round could see this happening yet, we were the ones who were causing her trouble! People took down our numbers, one woman made a point of stopping people passing by and showing them what was going on! She then wanted to know why we were arresting her. I politely told her that it was of no concern of hers but she said "Many black people die in custody!" I said to her "I'm NOT in the habit of killing people no matter what colour they are!"
Why can't people just mind their own business? She could see the chaos this woman was causing but as far as she was concerned, it was us that was causing it! Too many people these days interfere where they shouldn't. Our job is hard enough and dangerous enough as it is with out people sticking their unwanted noses in. Ok so, she had the concern for the welfare of this woman on her mind. I've no problem with that. What I do have a problem with, is people telling us what we should be doing and we shouldn't be arresting them or because of a persons skin colour they assume that we are going to treat them different or worse, hurt them!
....I will say this once and once only, I don't judge any person differently whether they are of a different race, gender, sexual preference, age or social background.
Today was wind down day. I wasn't going to be particularly hunting down paperwork unless I really had to. We don't have fancy teams of case builders, we have to do all the file prep ourselves. Then the powers that be wonder why we aren't pulling in the figures we're supposed to each month and also wonder why we're not out in the vehicle but sat in front of a computer screen instead. We can't win!
There were only a few shouts today, nothing worth mentioning really. One funny thing happened though was the local pirate DVD seller lost about 100 DVDs because I happened to pass him just as he was selling them. When I asked him where they were I saw a group of kids standing by a bin. I went over and it was full of them! You should have seen his face when I confiscated the lot! I said to him "Well, I take it you don't want them as they're all in the bin?" He didn't say a word, his jaw hit the floor and was just pointing to them as I put them in the back of the motor. They were all Bollywood titles, God knows how much it's going to cost him to replace them!
We had a group of officers from another local force come into the nick today, looking at transferring to us. We lost about six ourselves from our nick recently via transfer. The grass isn't always greener on the other side I say and been proved right on many occasions. One mate of mine found it really stressful being in a new force and wants to come back but unfortunately he's burnt his bridges as he slagged our force off. The top bods at FHQ heard about it and now he's been put on the back burner and the only offer to come back was one of less than popular squads which many are trying their hardest to get off.
This has been a hectic week. What with Notting Hill Carnival last weekend, my shoulders are only just recovering after wearing that body armour and Custodian stood there for two very long days! Thankfully it was pretty uneventful for me. The last time I was there we had a near riot! Then they wanted to place me on officer protection training for two days straight after! Two days of a solid beasting after standing around for all that time would have finished me off. I wish they would think about these training dates when organising them!
We ended up having to arrest a 61 year old woman yesterday who was wanted on warrant. For someone so small she certainly had a lot to say! She was wanted for failing to appear at court for an arrest my mate, who I was with made back in June. She was evil! She bit, spat, punched, kicked, shouted vial abuse and yet people who gathered round could see this happening yet, we were the ones who were causing her trouble! People took down our numbers, one woman made a point of stopping people passing by and showing them what was going on! She then wanted to know why we were arresting her. I politely told her that it was of no concern of hers but she said "Many black people die in custody!" I said to her "I'm NOT in the habit of killing people no matter what colour they are!"
Why can't people just mind their own business? She could see the chaos this woman was causing but as far as she was concerned, it was us that was causing it! Too many people these days interfere where they shouldn't. Our job is hard enough and dangerous enough as it is with out people sticking their unwanted noses in. Ok so, she had the concern for the welfare of this woman on her mind. I've no problem with that. What I do have a problem with, is people telling us what we should be doing and we shouldn't be arresting them or because of a persons skin colour they assume that we are going to treat them different or worse, hurt them!
....I will say this once and once only, I don't judge any person differently whether they are of a different race, gender, sexual preference, age or social background.
Thursday 30 August 2007
The POA Strike
has ended after their union agreed to fresh talks over pay. As I suspected, the goverment steps in and a High Court injunction was granted against the Prison Officers' Association (POA) but many members initially refused to go back to work. The government had called the strike illegal and unjustified. It denied it had failed to address concerns about pay and falling morale among prison staff. Twenty Thousand staff obviously didn't think it was "unjustified" The POA said the government had failed to deliver on "promise after promise" and it decided to call the strike without prior warning to avoid attracting a court order. Again, this sounds very familiar!
What angers me most about this is that once again, the government can pull strings and make something illegal. This strike concerns pay, which, let's face it, it's what we go to work for. I know some work for free but "fresh air" doesn't put food on the table and when a pay rise is rejected or is frozen below the rate of inflation your wages are worth less and less. But, why am I telling you this, dear reader, you already know this.
If the prison or police service was the London Underground we would have had our 5% pay increase and 55 days off a year with bonuses and if we didn't get what we want we would strike until we got it.
But apart from it being on the news occassionally, did anyone actually notice they went on strike? So a few prisoners didn't get their 15 minute walk around a yard and the slop bucket was over flowing for a bit longer than they wanted but lets look at the facts, these are prisons after all, not holiday camps. So if Billy Burglar cannot get to his PS 3 or XBox for his allocated time is he going to sue for breach of his Human Rights? Best bet is, don't end up in there in the first place!
If the police "service" cannot get their wage rise will the general public back us? They moan and groan about the Underground banging on about wages but will they look at us as "just being greedy"?
As I write this, 13,645 people have signed the online Number 10 Downing Street petition. The deadline for the petition is February next year. Yes, many of these will be police officers signing this but from what I can see the general public do appear to be in support. The vast majority of people I have spoken to about it think that it's outrageous what the government may do with the pay and they understand what job we do.
......but will the general public support us if we suddenly went on strike???
What angers me most about this is that once again, the government can pull strings and make something illegal. This strike concerns pay, which, let's face it, it's what we go to work for. I know some work for free but "fresh air" doesn't put food on the table and when a pay rise is rejected or is frozen below the rate of inflation your wages are worth less and less. But, why am I telling you this, dear reader, you already know this.
If the prison or police service was the London Underground we would have had our 5% pay increase and 55 days off a year with bonuses and if we didn't get what we want we would strike until we got it.
But apart from it being on the news occassionally, did anyone actually notice they went on strike? So a few prisoners didn't get their 15 minute walk around a yard and the slop bucket was over flowing for a bit longer than they wanted but lets look at the facts, these are prisons after all, not holiday camps. So if Billy Burglar cannot get to his PS 3 or XBox for his allocated time is he going to sue for breach of his Human Rights? Best bet is, don't end up in there in the first place!
If the police "service" cannot get their wage rise will the general public back us? They moan and groan about the Underground banging on about wages but will they look at us as "just being greedy"?
As I write this, 13,645 people have signed the online Number 10 Downing Street petition. The deadline for the petition is February next year. Yes, many of these will be police officers signing this but from what I can see the general public do appear to be in support. The vast majority of people I have spoken to about it think that it's outrageous what the government may do with the pay and they understand what job we do.
......but will the general public support us if we suddenly went on strike???
Wednesday 29 August 2007
Something in the air?
As I was adjusting this blog, playing with settings etc the ITV news came on and said that the prison officers in England and Wales are on strike. The Prison Officers' Association says the strike will be 24 hours and it is staging the strike - which follows a ballot of members - after pulling out of a no-strike agreement with the government.
The government said the officers were acting illegally. So what are they going to do? Sack everybody? They can't sack individuals because it's unfair. It's their first walk out in their 68 year history. Their Union, the POA (Prison Officers Association) who have 28,000 members say that 90% of their members due on duty have gone on strike. Prisoners are being kept in their cells and the POA believe that the Ministry of Justice (sounds like something from 1984) will try for an injunction to stop the strike this week.
An independent pay review body recommended a 2.5% pay rise but the government staged that rise as 1.5% in April and a further 1% in November.
The POA says that, due to inflation, this reduces the value of the award, making it a below-inflation pay increase.
Sound familiar?
by the way, in case you didn't know there is a Police Federation petition which is campaigning to stop the government undermining the Edmund Davies Formula and keep our pay rises at the rate of inflation. You can find the link here:
http://www.polfed.org/
Hello!
Hello and welcome to my Blog type thing!
I'm pretty new to all this stuff so please bear with me whilst I learn everything on this.
Well, a bit about me first of all. I'm Response Plod. I'm a police constable of nearly five years and based on a Response team in London.
I love the job! Whether it loves me or not is another question! I'm having a falling out with it at the moment and wondering if I should move onto pastures new, maybe another area, maybe even another force? not sure.
They say money doesn't make you happy but it helps! The Mrs and I have a baby on the way, our first one due in a couple of months! so overtime is the key, so maybe moving to another force could be out of the question due to the pay decrease. I could never understand why every force has a different pay rate. We all do the same job and crime and scroats are no different any where else in the world let alone this country and house prices are virtually the same every where now and the last time I checked a Mars bar was 50p in Hull the same it is in London, so why the massive difference in pay?
Our rate of pay is definitely on the table for discussion at the moment what with the failure to reach yet another agreement with the government for the second year running. The Edmund Davies Formula looks to be undermined which if that means the government breaks the contract, surely that means we can strike? Yeah right! That'll never happen! Would you want it on your conscience that someone died because no one turned up to help? I certainly wouldn't! BUT that's exactly what the government wants! Us to have a conscience and come in to work because the job will never get done. It's not like they're going to call in the military again after what happened the last time and most are out fighting in the Middle East. They should bundle all nurses, teachers, police, fire, coast guard, etc etc together with the civil servants and MP's when it comes to funding. I reckon if they did that we could all have two jags!
Well, a bit about me first of all. I'm Response Plod. I'm a police constable of nearly five years and based on a Response team in London.
I love the job! Whether it loves me or not is another question! I'm having a falling out with it at the moment and wondering if I should move onto pastures new, maybe another area, maybe even another force? not sure.
They say money doesn't make you happy but it helps! The Mrs and I have a baby on the way, our first one due in a couple of months! so overtime is the key, so maybe moving to another force could be out of the question due to the pay decrease. I could never understand why every force has a different pay rate. We all do the same job and crime and scroats are no different any where else in the world let alone this country and house prices are virtually the same every where now and the last time I checked a Mars bar was 50p in Hull the same it is in London, so why the massive difference in pay?
Our rate of pay is definitely on the table for discussion at the moment what with the failure to reach yet another agreement with the government for the second year running. The Edmund Davies Formula looks to be undermined which if that means the government breaks the contract, surely that means we can strike? Yeah right! That'll never happen! Would you want it on your conscience that someone died because no one turned up to help? I certainly wouldn't! BUT that's exactly what the government wants! Us to have a conscience and come in to work because the job will never get done. It's not like they're going to call in the military again after what happened the last time and most are out fighting in the Middle East. They should bundle all nurses, teachers, police, fire, coast guard, etc etc together with the civil servants and MP's when it comes to funding. I reckon if they did that we could all have two jags!
“There is no greater responsibility than that which you as police
officers accept. And there is no greater obligation for us in government than to
support you in discharging that duty”.
Gordon Brown, ACPO Conference 2007
So if that's the case then Mr Prime Minister, we should get our pay increase we deserve then?
The fire brigade (yes I know they are brave for entering burning buildings but most cut people out of cars these days than fight fires, I know one fire fighter who hasn't been to a fire in 2 years!) can strike. The military step in with equipment to fight the fires and the Green Goddesses have been retired and now they can use the proper pumps the brigade use.
My point here is this, they want pay rises when they are sat playing a PS3 or XBox, sitting watching DVDs or playing basketball. During the night they sleep and may not get a call for days. However, police officers are on duty all the time. I ended up having a roll around with a violent drunk whilst in a restaurant and messed up my dessert course! My wife was really chuffed! What did I get for my troubles? a Reg 9, that's what!
We can't sleep whilst on duty, we end up risking ourselves everyday for a call. Many police officers have died going to a very routine call, we deal with terrorists, violent criminals everyday, death and destruction being part of the job we work yet the government see to it that they want to upset that very thin blue line.
Perhaps they want us out and a new outfit in......
............oh wait, they're already here and called Community Support Officers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
