Author Archive for Lex Ferenda

Police Bonuses?

Published on August 17, 2010 in Uncategorized. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

The public sector continues to be scrutinised as the spending axe threatens pay, conditions and pensions. The police service is under particular scrutiny and will undoubtedly be hit hard when the interim review on public spending reports next month.

There was an appalling article in the Telegraph the other day hitting out at police bonuses. Readers of the article, not familiar with police pay, could be forgiven for not understanding any of it, other than the overriding authors contention we are getting extra money for nothing.

By way of explanation, let me say that it was the last Government that introduced these different payments. They were not wanted by the police service in general. The Government didn't like all officers being paid the same and introduced two payments to tackle perceived poor performance and to reward front line and specialist skilled policing.

Competence Related Threshold Payments (CTRP) were introduced as part of our salary and were to be paid to around 90% of all officers that qualify. Only those officers at the top of their pay scale qualify, so it is in fact only paid to around 40% of officers The idea was that these performing got a further pay increment and those that were not, did not, and this would encourage poor performers to improve.

Special Priority Payments were introduced to reward those officers that were working on the front line or those that had specialist skills. This was the Governments attempt at introducing pay differentials for officers. The payments are made to 40% of officers and reward those working shifts, for example, and those whose skills need to be retained. The amounts can vary from around £1000 to £2500 per anum.

I understand the aims of the Government when these rewards were introduced. They are part of the police pay package and do not represent new money being paid to officers. To suggest police are getting some extra reward for doing their job is misleading. Some officers effectively got a pay rise and others did not.

The rewards that should, in my opinion, be reviewed are those paid to the Superintending Ranks. They get performance bonuses for meeting targets.  The risk here is that senior officers, who have control of significant resources, are using those resources to get their bonus. You can argue that is the idea, but if the Divisional Commander has met his anti social behaviour target for the year but is failing on burglary, he or she may decide to ignore the continuing public concern regarding anti social behaviour and focus all resources on burglary so that they get their bonus. I guess the coalition Government will decide this is another good reason to have elected police 'commisioners.'

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/08/police-bonuses.html

Are These Senior Officers Corrupt?

Published on July 24, 2010 in Adrian Harper, Johnnie Johncox and Surrey Police. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

Two Surrey Police senior officers have stood trial recently for misconduct in public office. The trials were held separately at Winchester Crown Court and there was a ban on reporting. Both officers have been found not guilty and so there has been very little subsequent press coverage. A little bit here.

Superintendent Johnny Johncox was caught by a speed camera and put a report in suggesting that he was attending an important meeting at HQ. His line manager, Chief Superintendent Adrian Harper, exempted him from any fine and points. It turns out, he was actually going to see his girlfriend.

Chief Superintendent Adrian Harper was also caught going through a speed camera. He claimed he was attending an important meeting at Epsom and was late. The person he was supposedly meeting at Epsom had no record of any such meeting and the meeting was put in Mr Harper's electronic diary after the date. Assistant Chief Constable Ian Dyson exempted Mr Harper from any fine and points on the basis that he was attending this important meeting.

A Court has decided that these officers have not committed any criminal offences. They remain suspended from duty and will undoubtedly face internal discipline proceedings. They are likely to be sacked.

Dismissal is a severe punishment, but I find it very intriguing that if we assumed their original excuses for speeding were correct, why were they ever given exemptions? I can assure you that junior officers would not be given an exemption for attending a meeting. It appears that the rules are different when you reach the dizzy heights of the senior officer's dining club. Next time you get done for speeding tell the police you were attending an important meeting. I am sure they will let you off too.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/07/are-these-senior-officers-corrupt.html

Is This How we Should Treat Volunteers?

Published on July 19, 2010 in Specials and training. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

I have never been the biggest fan of Specials in the police. Most are well meaning but incompetent. Some get off on the uniform and power thing. None are properly trained.

The new Government is focused on volunteering. This is seen as the way forward in all areas of society. It seems likely that in future all recruits to the police will first have to have been a Special for up to two years. I sincerely hope that along with this policy we improve the training for Specials.

I noticed this story on the web. A criminal is being chased, by police, in a stolen car. A Special sergeant is nearby and wants to get involved. Perhaps injudiciously, he does a three point turn in the road. The stolen car ploughs into the side of him seriously injuring the passenger in the police car. The IPCC supervise an investigation and the Special sergeant is prosecuted and fined, with costs, £1300 and banned from driving for 6 months.

If Mrs Miggins was manoeuvring in the road and a stolen car being driven at excessive speed crashed into her would she have been prosecuted? What happened to the driver of the stolen car? Was his punishment as severe as this? I have my doubts.

The loss of this mans licence might have cost him his paid job. If I was this Special sergeant, volunteering my services for free and doing the best I could with the training I had received and I lost my licence for 6 months and had to pay £1300, I think I would tell the police to stick their volunteering.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-this-how-we-should-treat-volunteers.html

All Change for Targets?

Published on July 3, 2010 in Bureaucracy, Public Confidence and Satisfaction, Targets and Teresa May. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

North Korea Celebrate Winning the World Cup

Like other bloggers, I was pleased to hear Teresa May announce that the Policing Pledge and Public Confidence and Satisfaction targets were going and we would just be measured on crime levels.

I have said before that senior managers will fiddle the figures and focus resources to get quick results rather than work properly and ethically towards achieving real results. For example, in my quite small Force, we have 35 communications officers; and that is after we have just got rid of some following a review. Their job is to take every opportunity, internally and externally, to convince the public that crime is low and we are doing a good job. We also have 57 administrators in CID and another 35 working with the Neighbourhood Teams. Part of their job is to allocate tasks but a large part is to contact victims of crime and disorder and to convince them that we are doing our best to detect their crime, even if we do just detect 22% of them.
Why do we need 35 communications officers and 92 administrators? Because the ACPO team want to increase our levels of public confidence and satisfaction to meet targets and they have introduced a propaganda machine, that the North Koreans would be proud of, in order to achieve it, rather than do the job properly and invest in front line policing.

Our Chief Constable has announced to the Force that we are going to ignore Teresa May's wish to abandon the Policing Pledge and Public Confidence and Satisfaction targets. This is very worrying because, with the budget cuts coming, the next thing I can see the Chief doing is cutting police officers and keeping his propaganda machine. What we should be doing is cutting all these back room police staff roles that actually produce nothing tangible and in fact increase the bureaucracy that infests the police officers role, and concentrate on real policing.

I am all for being measured on levels of crime, but don't measure Forces own levels of recorded crime. We can think of a hundred and one ways to keep those down. Forces should be measured using the British Crime Survey, an independent survey they cannot influence other than by doing the job we should be doing, reducing crime and disorder in the short, medium and long term.






The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/07/all-change-for-targets.html

The Drink Drive Debate

Published on June 19, 2010 in Drink Driving Limit. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog


Like almost all police officers I have had to deliver death messages. Some stand out, particularly the young and unexpected ones. I remember calling round a ladies house on a Saturday afternoon. She answered the door with two young children running around excitedly as a policeman was on the doorstep. Her and her children's lives fell apart after I told them their husband/father was in the mortuary having just been wiped out by a drunk driver. There are others I recall, such as the parents of the 16 year old boy knocked off his bike and smashed to bits by a drunk driver who could barely stand up.

I haven't become the virtuous non drinking driver and I will have a couple of drinks when I go out but I absolutely support the recent report recommending that the drink drive limit is reduced from 80 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood to 50.

A few years ago now I worked in custody and had the opportunity to test myself on the drink drive machine. I could drink four pints of beer in about an hour and a half before I reached the limit. There is no way that I am safe to drive after four pints and I would have been a severe risk on the road. You lose between 7 and 13 micrograms of alcohol every hour. This means I could actually drink five pints in two hours and possibly pass the test.

Over the years I have stopped and breathalysed dozens of people. I know that many of them have had six or more pints over the course of an evening. Some of these people were blowing under the limit after an evening of six or seven pints. They could not believe they were getting away with it.

I have heard some of the wailing of people done for drink driving. They go to Court and swear they only had two pints and they thought they were OK to drive. Absolute lies and deceit, unless it was two pints of spirits.

Most countries now have a limit of 50 micrograms. We should reduce our limit as soon as possible. We probably should not drink and drive at all but I do not support a zero tolerance policy. A limit of 50 will still allow people to drive after a couple of pints. Some people won't like that but it is a damn site better than the current situation and more likely to become a reality.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/06/drink-drive-debate.html

Bloody Sunday!

Published on June 15, 2010 in Bloody Sunday, IRA, Londonderry, Martin McGuiness and saville enquiry. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

So the Saville report has been published after 12 years and almost £200 million. And after all that it tells us the bleeding obvious, that leaders probably didn't make the best decision in the world deploying paratroopers in Londonderry in 1972.
It shouldn't be missed that the report also states that an IRA sniper was firing a weapon during the protest march and that Martin McGuinness, who was then the number two in Londonderry IRA, was probably carrying a sub machine gun that he fired. He has denied this.

Paras coming under fire almost certainly started firing back at where they thought the threat was coming from and there was obviously panic in this guerrilla war situation for which they were not trained. It is a tragedy that innocent civilians were killed, but it will also be a travesty if any soldiers are prosecuted.

David Cameron has leapt up and apologised on behalf of the country. The decision makers at the time might owe an apology. Martin McGuinness and his terrorist thugs probably do too; I don't feel I do.

Has this whole twelve year inquiry just been the most expensive counselling session in the history of the world for the victims families? Or does it also appease the IRA and assist the aim of handing over Northern Ireland too?

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/06/bloody-sunday.html

Has Civilianisation Gone Too Far?

Published on June 13, 2010 in Civilianisation, police officer/staff mix and police staff. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

Stop reducing police officer numbers now!

At the National Police Federation Conference in May the Federation produced figures showing how the additional investment in the police service made over the last 10 years has largely been in the form of police staff rather than officers.

Nationally, since 1999 there has been an average 16% increase in police officers. This compares with an average increase of 54% in police staff. Thousands of police staff have been introduced, not only to deal with additional legislative demands and bureaucracy, but also taking on roles that have been traditionally performed by police officers.

Some Forces have taken this change of staff mix to new levels. Surrey Police has been highlighted in this regard, as in 2007 they were the first police force to have more police staff than officers. They have since been followed by Northamptonshire and Wiltshire and others are catching up. In Surrey, since 2000, police officer numbers have decreased 260 from 2100 to 1840. Over the same period, police staff numbers have tripled from 760 to 2300.

These figures are quite astounding. We keep being told that police staff are being introduced as a cheaper alternative to expensive police officers. Like all Forces investment has been made in PCSO's. Surrey has about 240 PCSO's. If we take those away from the 1540 police staff increase that still leaves 1300 police staff replacing 260 police officers. There have been no savings here. Surrey could have increased by around 850 police officers instead of 1300 police staff.

Where are these 1300 additional police staff and what are they doing? I don't think anyone has the answer to that one. What I do know is that we have created whole departments and career paths for police staff. What benefits are they bringing to front line officers or are they simply putting more demands on officers to feed the self perpetuating bureaucratic machine that they belong to?

The Police Federation is advocating that there should be a broad review and evaluation of all these changes in workforce mix. There should be some standardisation of the roles that police staff and police officers perform. Why can one force ‘civilianise’ a role whereas another deems that it is only suitable for a police officer? What value are we getting from this huge increase in police staff? The public want more police officers on the streets.

Forces that have more police staff than officers have no resilience in their response and criminal investigation departments. At times of high demand within the Force or in order to provide mutual aid to other forces neither have the capacity or resilience to provide resources in the medium to long term. Even in the short term the gaps can only be covered by overtime, which the Government is demanding must be cut by 40% with no reduction in performance. Using proactive resources and/or neighbourhoods may be impossible as these officers are not being trained in the secondary skills to provide public order units, search teams etc.

Police officers generally join for a career in the Force. Their initial training is more expensive but that needs to be balanced against the costs of training police staff who have a much higher turnover and require some expensive bespoke training for their roles.

Crime has been falling in England and Wales since 1995, long before this huge increase in police staff. There are serious threats ahead for the police service. There are going to be budget cuts, potentially serious cuts; more unemployment, cuts in benefits and threats of civil unrest are likely over the next few years with rises in crime and disorder a reality combined with a reduction in staff/officers. A staff mix of more staff than officers may not be resilient enough to deal with these potential threats or indeed some other day to day threats and demands and the 2012 Olympics, whose estimated demand is 10 to 15,000 officers per day.

We need to review the current staff mix within those forces leading these changes to ensure that there is sufficient resilience to enable officers to be available for the demands we face. The so called value for money that police staff provide needs to be reassessed when it appears we are pouring money into new police staff posts and we have little idea what additional value they bring.

We need to ensure that we have the right number of sworn officers to enable us to be able to tackle the issues we may face supported by the right mix of police staff. We are at risk of becoming a police service run by police staff where the only contact police officers have with the public is dealing with confrontation.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/06/has-civilianisation-gone-too-far.html

Police NOT responsible for killings in Cumbria

Published on June 3, 2010 in Cumbria, IPCC, arming police and murders. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

I think I am getting paranoid. When I heard about the tragic murders in Cumbria and the fact that this shooting spree had gone on for two hours my heart sank. Mainly for the victims and relatives of this attack, but also because I was just waiting for the police to be blamed.

Why hadn't armed police arrived within five minutes and found and dispatched the offender?

So far not a peep of this. Apparently this time this tragedy is not our fault. Give it time and I am sure someone will decide it might be our fault after all. Let's get the IPCC to look at it. (See post below.) I am sure they will have some stupid advice for us.

Regards Inspector Gadgets call to arms on this issue, I am afraid he is sadly mistaken. Arming the police will not prevent incidents such as this occurring occasionally. Arming the police will ensure that betwen rare incidents such as Cumbria and Hungerford, dozens more people, including police officers, will be killed in firearms incidents. Arming the police will alienate us from the public. And if you gave some of my colleagues a gun I would have to resign as I know it is just a question of time before one of the idiots shoots me. Accidentally, I mean.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/06/police-not-responsible-for-killings-in.html

Police Responsible for Missing Girl Having Sex

Published on June 2, 2010 in IPCC and Missing Children. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog


Sorry, I have been banging on about this for ages and I am sure you are getting bored with it.

I have written before about all this really useful advice we get from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC.) One minute they criticise us for not investigating a crime and tell us we need to do more and put more resource into that. The next we don't respond to someones call and we need to put more resource into that. So we move resources around in never ending circles to try and comply.

What really annoys me is that mostly it is about ensuring that everyones backside is covered rather than actually providing a better or more effective service.

This story caught my eye. A 15 year old girl is reported missing by her mother and we didn't rush around and take a report immediately. The girl turns up two days later and reveals to her mother that she has been having sex. This now turns out to be our fault as we didn't respond immediately.

To the layman this might sound harsh but every police officer knows the local teenage boys and girls who go missing on a regular basis. Most of them are sexually active, taking drugs and drinking. They go missing week in and week out and know the system very well. They also know they are vulnerable young people and we have to try and find them. Most of them think it is great laugh that the police waste thousands of hours looking for them.

What happens is the parents, children's home or sometimes hospital dial 999 and report them missing. As soon as they have done that their backside is covered and it becomes the responsibility of the police. They no longer have any responsibility for their charge. We go and fill in a huge missing person report and show them as missing on the police computer. We usually ring their mobile and often they answer it and say they are OK but they won't tell us where they are, unless they want a lift home. Our backside still isn't covered, so we phone relatives, visit friends and go round and round in circles until they decide they are ready to go home and ring us up for a lift.

I do feel really sorry for the parents of some of these children. It is really hard for them. For others it is of no surprise or consequence to them and no surprise to us that the kids are off the rails.

On this occasion we didn't rush around that night and take a report. We did so the next morning and we went round in circles trying to find the girl. She pitches up at home two days later and tells her mother she has been having sex. She won't make a statement to support a prosecution so there is nothing we can do about it, but the mother wants to blame someone and so it is now our fault as we didn't go and take a report straight away. So if we cannot answer your call for help when you are being beaten senseless and robbed it might be because we are wasting time rushing around immediately to take a report of another regular missing person as our backside needs to be covered. You can always complain to the IPCC and I am sure they will come up with more words of wisdom.

For the record I am not confusing those regular missing children with genuine missing children who are seriously vulnerable and at risk. We can spot those and deal with them appropriately.

The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/06/police-responsible-for-missing-girl.html

Police Hang Woman in Phone Box

Published on May 23, 2010 in IPCC, phone box and suicide. Closed

written by Lex Ferenda from The Thinking Policeman: A Police Officer's Blog

Which one of you lot is feeling suicidal?

I have written before about the advice that often comes from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC.) Invariably they give advice that would be useful in an ideal world where resources are infinite. I have said before that we are not perfect and the people we deal with have high expectations. Occasionally we make mistakes and we should apologise when we do so. The sooner the better.


The IPCC look at complaints and whether it is about response, custody or investigation, invariably the advice is that we must do more. So some of our limited resources are moved around the board from one area to another until the next complaint when they get moved again.


This story caught my eye. A drunken woman with a number of issues rang the police to demand we attended to help her gain access to her sisters flat. She later rang again and during this call she said I will 'top myself' if the police did not attend. The operator missed that comment and that was a failing for which we should apologise. The article focuses on the missed comment but the advice from the IPCC made clear that the police should attend immediately any incident where someone has threatened to kill themselves.


What the IPCC decided was that the call was initially correctly graded as a 2. That means that we should attend within an hour. But as soon as the lady mentioned topping herself, it should have been graded 1 and we should have attended immediately. De facto, the police once again are responsible for killing this woman.


My problem with this is that every day the police get hundreds of calls from people under the influence of drink, drugs, mentally ill or just plain attention seeking. Operators talk to these individuals and make a judgement call as to how vulnerable they really believe they are and allocate resources appropriately. Very occasionally we may get it wrong.


If we now follow the guidance of the IPCC, (and God help you if you don't) every time anyone mentions suicide we have to rush to attend. There are consequences for this policy. Firstly, when you need urgent help from the police you may not get it because we are rushing around attending calls from those people crying wolf threatening their lives again. Secondly, most people these days call from a mobile. If we don't really think they are vulnerable, how many hours do we spend trying to locate someone? Thirdly, when the police attend what do they do? They will speak to the person and make a judgement call, just like the operator did. But one of these callers may still go on to kill themselves when the police have left. The IPCC will investigate and advice will be given that we must always attend and we must always call an ambulance, as they are the medical professionals. The ambulance crew will attend and make a judgement call, and so on and so on.


Public services cannot be held responsible for every aspect of peoples lives. We don't live in a society with infinite resources and we cannot stop everyone from harming themselves. We always need to act reasonably but we are not responsible for every problem in society. People and families need to take more responsibility for themselves.


The original post can be found http://thethinkingpoliceman.blogspot.com/2010/05/police-hang-woman-in-phone-box.html