Auditors

[Techie1 + 2,024]

Northumbria Chief Constable Steve Ashman wants to scrap some of the bureaucracy that comes with the job.

A chief constable plans to release sergeants from their desks and move away from what he calls a “tick box mentality”.

Northumbria Chief Constable Steve Ashman says the current system where “sergeants sit in front of a computer and check the checking of the checkers” is “nonsense”.

He plans to arm frontline operational sergeants with laptops enabling them to access incident data away from police stations so they can work remotely.

CC Ashman told Police Oracle: “You can put a lot of barriers in place in policing and a lot of constraints. For example, we are looking at something that will remove the strict requirement for sergeants to supervise every single crime that comes through.

“Why? Because it is not adding any value at all and we should start trusting PCs.  With the training and development we have given them, they are well-paid individuals who can do their jobs on most occasions.

“If you free them up, the sergeant is free to do his or her job and focus their supervisory effort where it is needed most likes complex crimes or with officers who are struggling. You cannot do that if you have got to supervise every single theft or burglary.”

Earlier this week Police Oracle reported on CC Ashman’s plans to look beyond Northumbria’s borders when promoting because forces can “stagnate” if they do not recruit from outside.

He also spoke of his eagerness to see senior officers leading rather than simply checking or being “supervisory managers”. It is a forward thinking move brought about by a determination on CC Ashman’s part to allow officers to do their jobs - and also the harsh reality of extreme budget cuts.

 “I want us to get away from that tick box mentality when it comes to policing. What we want to say is ‘you have actually got to get out there and lead’ even though we are the hardest hit in terms of funding,” he says.

“We receive the lowest amount of money in terms of our total budget from the public by way of our tax precept by a mile.

“Therefore we are the force most reliant on the government’s grant in this country. So, when that grant is cut we are the worst hit – that is a reality for me and us as a force.  

“We are squeezing and squeezing and squeezing and if we carry on working like we have in the past it just won’t work.”

Such cuts financially – while never welcome – could bring about a cultural change many officers would surely relish.

“There is a tick box mentally,” says CC Ashman. “For example, with property lists, the sergeant will supervise the PCs and then the inspectors will supervise the sergeants’ supervision and then you will have a remote team who will do the checking of the inspectors – it is nonsense. What we want to do is to say actually you have to get out lead.

“We have actually come to the realisation that we have got to fundamentally reengineer the way we do front line policing. We have got sergeants whose daily job it is to sit in front of a computer and check the checking of the checkers and it is nonsense. 

“So whether it is looking at our resource management system and some of the bureaucracy associated and scrapping all of that. Whether it is looking at property lists and a slavish adherence to that, we will be looking at all of that. Whether it is the requirement to supervise every crime that comes in - we are going to scrap all of that too.”

The system would work with officers, particularly sergeants, being given the choice of where to focus their efforts and with more responsibility and more work away from their desks.

CC Ashman adds: “We will say you choose where your effort is needed most and to the best effect because we trust you otherwise we would not have made you a sergeant.

“Now you need to get off your backside and get out there and lead which is what they signed up to do. We, the leadership of the service, certainly here in Northumbria, have made it impossible for them to leave the station in the past so I want to address that now.

“You cannot cut it all loose – they will have laptops, certainly frontline operational sergeants will, so they can access incident data outside the station without having to come back.

”But we will trust them to get out and get on with their jobs to the best of their ability.”

View on Police Oracle

[HazRat 762]

I applaud the CC did this, but wonder if it will make much of a difference. Most of the bureaucracy in this job is created by middle management. So unless he gets them recalibrated all he will achieve is getting Sgt's to do their work remotely.

I dispair over how much admin and checking the checker we have. My team submit their daily work return on two different spreadsheets. It's completely lost on the leadership team when people complain about being tied to the desk so that someone else can feel reassured that work has been done. I trust that my teams go out and do their work, but the higher up the food chain you go, you appear to loose that trust.

Apparently the Commissioner doesn't want us counting activity, neither do the AC's. So somewhere between Insp and DAC someone had decided that we're going to count activity. 

[Milankovitch + 3,445]

I don't think advertising for people to promote from outside of the force will go down all that well but it's quite a good idea.

 

When Police Scotland was formed we ended up with a lot of internal vacancies that an officer from anywhere in Scotland could apply for. You don't get many PCs from Edinburgh applying to be a Sergeant in Wick because they are that desperate for a promotion but you definitely get capable, experienced PCs in Fife wanting to work as a Sergeant in Edinburgh for instance. Easy commuting distance but the hassle of changing forces whilst trying to get a promotion at the same time made it a no go really. The number of posts to be promoted into is ever shrinking it seems but it certainly shook things up a wee bit, for the better I think. Even for specialist roles, it opened up a lot of roles to officers from some of the smaller forces who couldn't get these roles in their own forces as they were too small (things like full time PSU etc).

[Policey_Man + 765]

23 hours ago, Milankovitch said:

I don't think advertising for people to promote from outside of the force will go down all that well but it's quite a good idea.

I think its a great idea and it's going to be the way forward. The College of Policing wants all vacancies at all levels advertised and open to people across the country and I think they have been pushing this for some time, so I think it's going to happen. More and more you're seeing Sergeant and Inspector vacancies advertised for external candidates.

[Policey_Man + 765]

On ‎18‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 17:37, HazRat said:

I applaud the CC did this, but wonder if it will make much of a difference. Most of the bureaucracy in this job is created by middle management. So unless he gets them recalibrated all he will achieve is getting Sgt's to do their work remotely.

I dispair over how much admin and checking the checker we have. My team submit their daily work return on two different spreadsheets. It's completely lost on the leadership team when people complain about being tied to the desk so that someone else can feel reassured that work has been done. I trust that my teams go out and do their work, but the higher up the food chain you go, you appear to loose that trust.

Apparently the Commissioner doesn't want us counting activity, neither do the AC's. So somewhere between Insp and DAC someone had decided that we're going to count activity. 

I'd say that's spot on HazRat...

I love this Chief's idea, but I do actually wonder how much of a reality it will turn into?

The point he makes about property is an interesting one. Yes, this is an important part of police work, but the bureaucrats in the property stores like so many other parts of the police family, seem to forget that we are police officers and that police work should come first. I'm immensely fed up of demanding e-mails from administrators who have no idea of what we do on a daily basis, all they worry about is that we haven't responded to their e-mail or done X task for them. It's time to put the police officers in the driving seat, in every way and to enable us to put police work and our victims first.

[HazRat 762]

On 18/02/2017 at 22:45, Milankovitch said:

I don't think advertising for people to promote from outside of the force will go down all that well but it's quite a good idea.

 

10 hours ago, Policey_Man said:

I think its a great idea and it's going to be the way forward. The College of Policing wants all vacancies at all levels advertised and open to people across the country and I think they have been pushing this for some time, so I think it's going to happen. More and more you're seeing Sergeant and Inspector vacancies advertised for external candidates.

It is a good idea, but only if the process is not sham, i.e. the force is only going through the motions and has no intention of taking any external candidate. One force did this last year. All external candidates were unsuccessful.  Not one candidate was suitable to be taken forward to interview? Really?

[Policey_Man + 765]

2 hours ago, HazRat said:

 

It is a good idea, but only if the process is not sham, i.e. the force is only going through the motions and has no intention of taking any external candidate. One force did this last year. All external candidates were unsuccessful.  Not one candidate was suitable to be taken forward to interview? Really?

Agreed. That does sound rather odd.

I suppose until the idea beds in, you're going to have the argument of not upsetting the hard working existing PCs and others who have already given a lot to the Force and who are awaiting internal promotion. Some people won't be prepared to move forces and homes to get these jobs....

Edited February 20, 2017 by Policey_Man

[stewie_griffin + 484]

I think he's overestimating the power of mobile data. 

If a supervisory sergeant is having to spend his whole shift in front of a computer at his desk, then having to spend his whole shift in front of a laptop in a vehicle isn't much of a game-changer.

The real challenge is changing the nature of the supervisory work that has to be done and that (as others have said here) is difficult.

I regularly work as a supervisor at a patrol level and my duties are essentially as follows:

1. I spend 6 of my 11* hours as 'On-street Monitor' (OSM) for the entire division driving around, assisting the troops with difficult calls, taking charge of vehicle pursuits, high-risk calls (eg where someone might be barricaded), attending all scenes where there's some use of force etc etc.

2. The rest of the time, I'm organising the team. A large part of this is reviewing reports- I simply access the report in the computer, read it and then either click 'approve' or 'reject' and move on to the next one. It's very simple and mostly paperless.

Above me there's a Staff Sergeant (similar to a UK Inspector) in the division and above him there's a 'Duty Officer' who is an actual Inspector - he drives around to any siginificant call across the whole service area.

[MerseyLLB 8,426]

The majority of bureaucracy comes down to ad hoc policies which are put in place.

Charge an offender who is 17 and under local authority care with a domestic offence and you'll have to complete a Domestic checklist, a child referral, a YOT referral and a looked after child form - on top of your usual casefile.

This is the kind of bureaucracy which bogs officers down.

Adopting a one size fits all system like Niche (stand by for grumbles but it's a very flexible system) can lead to minimising double keying because various departments can view everything they need on one electronic file with data importable via macros. 

I have transferred to Kent where nothing interacts with each other and I would estimate that most jobs take me TWICE the time they used to in Merseyside.

There's simply no rhyme nor reason for it.

[Remmy + 1,401]

14 minutes ago, MerseyLLB said:

The majority of bureaucracy comes down to ad hoc policies which are put in place.

Charge an offender who is 17 and under local authority care with a domestic offence and you'll have to complete a Domestic checklist, a child referral, a YOT referral and a looked after child form - on top of your usual casefile.

This is the kind of bureaucracy which bogs officers down.

Adopting a one size fits all system like Niche (stand by for grumbles but it's a very flexible system) can lead to minimising double keying because various departments can view everything they need on one electronic file with data importable via macros. 

I have transferred to Kent where nothing interacts with each other and I would estimate that most jobs take me TWICE the time they used to in Merseyside.

There's simply no rhyme nor reason for it.

I wasn't a big fan of niche to begin with, but now I have see GMP's systems, I can appreciate just how good it is.