Oh! Mr. Winsor, What Have You Done?

The second part of the Winsor Report was published Thursday much to the misfortune of police officers in England and Wales.

According to the recommendations by Winsor, Police officers' fitness could be checked annually with disciplinary procedures facing any officer who fails the test three times.

Whilst I do agree that there are certainly some officers who need to get fitter, the nature of the job doesn't always allow this as easily as it seems.

We rarely get down time. Eat poor food, usually reheated several times due to racing off for calls. So fast food and microwave meals are usually the order of the day as its quick to eat.

We don't get the time to sit as a team and eat a cooked meal. Mainly because we aren't all allowed to be back at the nick at one time. Even allocated meal breaks don't work as assistance shouts or I Grade calls take priority over every thing.

We don't get the down time to work out. Unlike other services we can't stay in the nick until a call comes out then react. So therefore we don't get a chance to work out on equipment and even if we did, there's rarely the room to store it or the budget to buy it.

And thanks to pay freezes etc, gym membership is now considered a luxury. Thats if you have the time to fit it in with your shifts and family life of course.

If it's recommended that we have annual fitness tests. Who's time do we get fit in? Ours or The Jobs? Either way, The Job should then provide equipment or subsidised gym membership to assist.

Winsor, says there should be higher minimum educational standards for new police recruits.

I cannot understand how he thinks that someone with higher qualifications are immediately better than someone without.

A colleague of mine, left school with no qualifications at all. After lazing around for a bit he joined the Navy. After leaving there he joined the Prison Service finally becoming a copper 15 years ago. He is now an Inspector and one of the best Inspectors I've ever worked with. He has common sense, a nose for the job and is a good leader and listener.

Why will someone with A Levels or a Degree immediately make them a better prospect than him?

Winsor says some should join directly as Inspectors and Superintendents.

This will create an "Officer Class" amongst the ranks. A division that cannot be crossed where possibly the rank of Inspector will become the equivalent of the Military, Non Commissioned Officer.

What chance has a Private becoming a General? What chance then has a Constable becoming a Superintendent or even Commissioner?
I was told that I was sensationalising on Twitter when I said that an inexperienced cop could end up running a Borough or investigating a major crime.

I don't think it's sensationalising at all.

It could end up with someone who's been fast tracked through their probation and given a rank ending up in charge of officers with many years of experience just brushed over.

I've seen many officers including myself, fail the Sergeants exam by a mere one or two percent and whist I appreciate that a miss is as good as a mile. I still see brilliant officers fail to meet the grade because they cannot pass an exam. Whilst those who can, some of those make crap senior officers because they were crap Constables.

How can you have direct entry to the police as Senior Officers?

How can, for example a Director for Hovis suddenly decide to apply to become Superintendent?

They will know as much about policing as I do about baking bread.

Whilst I appreciate that senior levels are about managing budgets and people which a director will be very good at but at times that senior officer will need to make tactical decisions based on years of experience and consultations with their colleagues.

How will a director for Hovis make tactical decisions about the Notting Hill Carnival?

How will that stand up with other people from the likes of the local council when they find out that the senior officer in their meeting about the carnival has only about two years policing experience and most of that was in a class room?

Who will they trust to make the right decisions?

The officer who has made it thought the ranks with experience behind them?

Or the one bundled through the ranks?

Chief constables would have powers to make police officers compulsorily redundant to cut costs - at present they can do this only if police have served for 30 years or more.

So you can see where this is going.

Officers with years of experience who cost too much will be made redundant. Eventually replaced with new starters costing a lot less. The front line will be replaced with cost effective youngsters with little or no experience and no one to learn from.

There would also be new powers to remove police officers who are on restricted duties and cannot return to work.

So under these plans the likes of David Rathband would have been sacked.

It's the same with many other jobs and services. There are always those who swing the lead. Take the money but want to sit at home with their feet up on long term sick. Yes I agree, these do need reviewing and if necessary get them off the expensive wage bill but if you are a genuine case of ill health especially if its been brought on through an incident at work then The Job should help them, not get rid of them purely because they cost too much.

Constables would be able to move up the pay ladder more quickly but a "specialist skills threshold" should be introduced at the final pay point of all officer pay scales.

So they'll be massive queues for courses and the course grabbers especially those I know who sit behind desks getting a shiny backside and apply for courses because "why not" never use them and take up the quota for those genuinely want and need them.

What courses will be classed as "specialist" in order to get this wage increase?

I am a Response Driver, CBRN, Public Order, Search Trained and Optical Intelligence Evidence Gatherer. However, I use these skills regularly (apart from CBRN, one I hope I never have to use)

Those who gather courses to build up their wage but not experience will effectively be on the same wage as me and if not controlled properly, they will sit on these courses and watch them gather dust whilst their money rolls in.

At the moment, these courses are voluntary. That way, The Job knows that those who want to do it, are doing it for the right reasons.

The retirement age would be raised to 60 and a new system of negotiating pay rates set up.

So, I assume that this fitness test will allow for age like the military?

Also stated, it's going to be raised to 60 to bring it in line with other public services.

Do these public services suffer the same amount of stress and abuse with their jobs? Are they frequently having their days off cancelled, changed, lengthened? Do they have to work nights putting up with the evils of society while everyone sleeps?

Who wants a burnt out copper still walking the beat at 60? Theres a very good reason we do 30 years and that's because we're burnt out after!

I can't see anyone getting to 60 as they will probably be made redundant as they cost too much to keep them.

....or collapse under the stress of it all.


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The Greasy Pole

When I joined the job all those years ago, I had ambitions that I would go far.

The two major problems I have that stopped me is that I failed the Part 1 Ospre, twice, although by a small margin but a miss is as good as a mile.

Secondly, I don't know when to shut up.  I will openly state to Senior Officers that something is not right when it blatantly is not right.

Putting it bluntly, I'm a coppers copper.  I don't take crap from anyone and I enjoy working on the factory floor getting my hands dirty.

However, I have massive respect for my Senior Officers.  I may not like some of them but I respect them nonetheless.  I know that they have made it through the ranks and have stood where I stood and have seen what I have seen.

This gives me faith in the people in charge that they, ultimately, know what they are doing.

They can safely make the big decisions at murder scenes, fatalities, major incidents etc. because they have been to these incidents themselves over the years and have built up a wealth of experience and knowledge as they progressed through the ranks.

Which amazes me that the "Flagship" police force of the country, The Metropolitan Police,  is toying with the idea of "Rank Skipping"

It amazes me that at a time of budget cuts and restraints that are going to affect every rank and file officer that they want to insult the officers even more.

How can anyone who has served from a recruit, only 12 months as a PC and given intense training then fast tracked to Inspector in another 12 months then expect to become a good copper earning the respect from others "below" ?

How can I trust an officer with only 2 years "police service" much of it class room based to come out as an Inspector then make the right decisions at incidents?

This officer would have had no experience in policing what so ever and just because they may have some fancy degree in policing or been a manager for a large company, why would that mean they would be good coppers?

If you or I were to go to a company like Hovis and apply to become "senior baker" (hypothetically) they would not even give your application a second glance if you have never baked a loaf of bread before!

I still cannot see you being taken seriously if you then went on to add that you spent 12 months reading cook books and occasionally kneaded some dough.

The bakers around them would lose respect for their immediate supervisor as they would expect, when a problem arose that the senior baker would know what to do, due to their valuable experience gained in the ranks below with years of bread making at their finger tips.

The person may know how to manage people effectively and may actually be great at managing budgets but dealing with the real stuff that comes to policing, well, it's not enough to just have read some books on it once.

I really hope that the Met decide against this little venture.  It's going to be a huge waste of money to train these officers to be Inspectors and have them fall at the first hurdle.

Some may crack under the strain of being thrown in charge of a murder scene as they have not built on the experience of same or similar incidents before.

It will be a shame to see these people ridiculed by their own and the public when they find out they only have a couple of years in and they are supposed to be in charge.

What about the officers who are making their way up the traditional way, only to see some whipper snapper who was in charge of DFS last year suddenly take the promotion over them?

What if, the Commissioner was suddenly ousted by someone who was once in charge of Lloyds TSB?

Would he like it?

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