First Post... What is it like working for the Police? What do you mean it hasnt got any better?

Good afternoon people, this is the first blog post I have made in this capacity so I will probably make it quite short. I just want to explain why I have created this and the reasons behind it.

I am a Police Constable, I have been in my current role for just over 4 years now however I have almost 10 years of experience in the Police service as a whole, encompassing roles as a PC, Police staff and also volunteering as a Special Constable (same warranted powers as a PC however not paid and duties vary vastly from force to force. Some don't take statements, some do not get trained in response driving, some do not take on investigations.)

I am currently working in a response team based in a large town in the South of England, a team that should be 20 strong according to minimum number requirements however it is a team that regularly parade with between 8-12 officers. The team covers a vast area including urban towns as well as large rural areas surrounding the towns, almost totaling 20-25 miles squared. We are by no means unique as colleagues up and down the country are left covering vast areas with less and less officers.

I have been in 'the force' throughout many times of operational change including working more and more with mental health, taking on responsibility in which I am being asked to make assessments about people's mental state and on occasions taking action in a split second. I see myself taking more and more of a parental role for some people, fetching children who are reported missing, some under quite concerning circumstances putting themselves in really vulnerable positions. In this situation, it is my role to interject, put myself in between the child and harms way, a lot of the time, the person I am trying to help either doesn't understand, doesn't feel they need my help and at times hates that I am trying to help. I find myself teaching parents how to parent as well as dealing with the aftermath of more and more people drinking to excess and not being able to control themselves. There is also the shift in criminality from the more 'traditional offences' towards a more cyber/digital trend and to combat this we are expected to 'manage.' We are investigators, so we should know what to do. We just  have had to deal with it as best we can with no meaningful focused training. After all if we can't who else will. 

I have, however noticed one main trend that has remained throughout all of this change...The constant reduction of staff and funding. The days of numerous specialist teams of officers in suitable numbers each covering specific aspects of policing have gone, most of these specialist teams have been disbanded and it has reverted back to the 'standard response officer' to cover this work. Whilst this does make for a more rounded, more experienced Police officer what it does mean is a build up of work for that officer who is then also expected to focus on responding to the calls to service that come in as a matter of prority. 

All of these conditions lead to a build up of sometimes, some extremely complex and protracted investigations being put to the back burner, meaning it doesn't get the attention it requires.  This could carry on for weeks or months. What do you choose to spend your time doing? Do you place yourself out of action to respond to urgent jobs whilst you concentrate on investigating complex matters, something where you potentially have to link in with various different agencies, companies, people, some of whom have completely different policies and procedures, some who's risk assessment of the investigation is lower than yours meaning it is lower down their list of priorities so it takes them longer to give you what you need. Do you seek help from a more experienced officer because this is the first time you have investigated a fraud of £20-30K on your own? What form do you have to fill in a and where do you send it to if you need someone's medical records or bank account details? What level of security protection does it need?

All this leads to a build up of officers being stuck in an office, behind a computer screen working on admin tasks. It leads up to thousands of Police not being able to do what they so desperately want to do, protect people, to bring the criminals to justice, to stop they who do bad things to good people, to hold people who prey on vulnerable people to account, to deny the criminals who want to just take the money out of people's hands who have worked for it and value it, without working for theirs themselves. We can see the general public getting frustrated, we read the same comment sections on websites and chat forums as everyone else, we see it when the public steps in themselves when they shouldn't have to, we understand it when people say that they don't see Police officers in their towns anymore.  We so desperately want to give you answers, to explain our situation so you understand, to shout as loudly as we can "we are trying" but how many times can you say we don't have the numbers, we are single crewed all the time so it looks like there are more cars out at one time, how long before it sounds like just another soundbyte, just another excuse. 

This all leads to a build up of stress and a build up of time of due to sickness all of this leads to a build up of officers wanting to leave the service. This in turn makes for a decline in morale, a decline in officers volunteering to train in specialist duties where all that will mean is their already coveted rest days get cancelled at short notice because there is not enough trained officers for a certain operation to go ahead, a decline in skill sharing which, ultimately leads to a decline in service to the public.

This of course varies from force to force and all forces keep some of the more traditional specialist departments most people would be aware of such as the criminal investigation department (CID) The majority of home office forces however are being forced to share departments with other forces to save money which is being dictated by Government. Examples of this are roads policing teams, firearms teams leading to smaller teams of officers covering larger areas. A minority of the larger forces are in a position to still own vast amount of specialist departments (such as burglary teams, gang teams, vehicle crime teams, drug teams, prisoner investigation teams etc) this is generally down to the geographical area or higher density in population covered by the force which obviously brings with it more complexity in investigations needing larger number of officers or staff and so they are given larger budgets to be able to cover this.

From humble beginnings when the then Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel saw into statute the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. This effectively made way for the first full-time professional police service in the UK. Nicknamed 'The Peelers' they initially covered the Greater London area, this band of motley men eventually paved the way for what would eventually become the world renowned and revered British 'Bobby.' Over the years the British Police have been seen by other countries as a truly impressive force, never really surpassed in my opinion by any other country, a huge reason being that, despite the many changes, pressures and public outcries it has faced the standard British Police Officer still does not routinely carry firearms.

 

Policing has been subject to vast change, some making way for real and tangible improvements, making it better and more accountable. The Police have been given many overarching powers and with that being said, I don't think I know of anyone who would argue that they shouldn't be held to account, I do however, believe that with such an important and ever increasing responsibility being placed on it that the Police budgets and resource numbers should not be arbitrarily cut to bare 'manageable' numbers. 

I want to add that in my experience almost all the people that I have worked with or come into contact with during my time in Policing are some of the most hard working, professional, dedicated people I know. The times I have shared with my colleagues are some of the most harrowing, funny, boring, frustrating, scary, exciting and any other adjective you could conjure up. The sights and scenes I have seen that, due to the job I have chosen to do have hardened me, it has made me into a more rounded individual, I understand the value of life and how lucky I am to have the things and people that I do in my life. I have come into some people's lives when they are at their absolute lowest and I have seen horrific misery. I have, however seen that I can actually make a tangible difference to people. The obvious consequence of this though is that I have lost part of myself, the part that I didn't realise I had, the part that people who don't do this job still have and take for granted, not knowing they could loose, I am talking about ignorance. I'm not talking about what people shout at someone as an insult, when someone doesn't agree with you you call them ignorant. Im talking about what all people should be, the ignorance of what goes on behind closed doors, the ignorance of how some people live their lives, the ignorance of what happens to some of the best of people by some of the worst of society whilst they are going about their daily lives. The ignorance of the badness that goes on within their own communities. This is by no means a dig and I don't want people to lose this ignorance, this is a large reason of why I do my job, the reason why there is and always will be the need for a Police Service. Everything that I have just described will not only be felt by me, but by every one of my (ever decreasing) 123,000 colleagues.

This is why you might see this little thing when you next speak to a copper, take a look. 

No it's not a statement about being from the UK, its not there to signify a concerning racist agenda that has become more prevalent recently, we not commenting on any political policy that is trending that day. Yes we do work for the good of our country, yes we do work in the UK and yes that is our flag... But do you see that little blue line running through the middle of the flag, that is us, that is all of us, me, my partner, my other colleagues on my rota, everyone else who works on the front line, the officers, the PCSOs who take up the strain, the staff who work in the front counters who do some of the jobs that we would have to do if they weren't there, that is those who help us out in the control rooms, who we share a laugh and a joke with one minute then who have to send us in to harms way and worry about us, wonder if they have done the right thing, wonder if they could have done more to protect us. That badge that we PROUDLY wear on our front is our family, it shows people who we are, we are the thin blue line. So please don't get offended, don't take it as a personal slight against something you think it means. *** Most importantly don't tell us to take it off! ***

According to a Government report released in July 2017 named 'Wage growth in Pay Review Body Occupations' written by University College London (UCL) and National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) which explored wage growth amongst different occupations and compare the differences in public sector and non-public sector occupations. This report shows in black and white that when it comes to real terms wage increases and incorporating inflation (the general increase in prices and the fall in the purchasing value of money) that over the last decade Police Officers have seen their average pay fall by £2 per hour in real terms. There has recently been an announcement from the government and Home Secretary that they are finally going to cut the 1% pay increase cap for Police Officers and therefore gifting them a 2% pay rise. This sounds incredible doesn't it, since in the private sector you'd be lucky to get a guaranteed pay rise each year, right? Well yes that is correct and PC's don't have to go through University (edit: yes they do now! 😑) The only difference is that they don't have to worry about the debt that comes with studying at University.  We also get a generous pension contribution by the employer compared to some private sector workers (this has reduced year on year and officers that have started since April 2015 no longer benefit from final salary pensions, they have less contributions paid in by the employer and pay a larger percentage of their wage.) UK inflation has been set at 2.9% which straight away means that the pay doesn't rise as much as inflation (in real terms this means we are still getting a pay cut).

In policing there is less and less avenues for progression, the specialist departments that used to offer a wider breadth of progression, experience and expertise have shrunk, taking on less and less officers and are often shared by multiple forces, therefore increasing the number of applicants. The candidates for positions are usually 'earmarked' by the time they are posted and generally you will have to wait for someone to retire or leave prior to applying.

Due to the shrinking of numbers, officers are routinely single crewed most shifts, this brings with it obvious safety issues, not to mention being unable to investigate incidents properly. Ask yourself how would you deal with a scene of 5-10 people with victims, suspects, witnesses and potential evidence in situ on your own.  

*** What would you do first? What would you be feeling? What would you be thinking about? What would be your priorities? What would you communicate to control? What assistance would you ask for? ***

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I stand by everything that I have written about above and I manage it all because I am working a job that I love, I have worked so hard to get where I am and I am incredibly proud to be doing what I'm doing and cannot think of anything I would rather be doing. It is interesting, varied and most of all important. I am making a difference and I know most of my colleagues would say the same.

What I can't stand is the constant erosion of the Police in the media and from the Government. 'Cutting the fat' is one thing, reducing the service into something that is unworkable, unmanageable simply by working with numbers and statistics is dangerous. You are risking people's safety, both the officers and the public. I am still proud of UK Police Service and I still believe we are one of the best in the World. I do think, however we need to seriously think about what we want the Police to look like in the future, the way we are going I can't see that it will be as effective or professional as it is now.


Okay that wasn't short was it, sorry!

Until next time folks... 

-TFBM...

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