Complaints against officers

[Fedster + 1,307]

HMICFRS also warns again about response and detective problems at many forces.

Zoe Billingham led the inspection

 

Lives could be at risk if urgent action is not taken to boost under-staffed police response teams in a quarter of forces, the police inspectorate warns.

The HMICFRS PEEL effectiveness report says in many areas there are not enough response officers to deal with incidents, or there are so many calls to deal with that staff cannot allocate them quickly enough.

It warns that these forces need to take urgent action “otherwise, the lives of vulnerable people could be at risk”.

The Greater Manchester, West Midlands and Cambridgeshire forces are among those identified in this category.

In the same report the inspectorate warns that, a year after warning of a national crisis for detective numbers, there is still a huge shortfall.

It calculates that there are 17 per cent fewer investigators than needed across forces in England and Wales and there are not enough trainees to make up for this.

One force, which is not named, has half its investigator positions vacant.

HMI Zoë Billingham said: “In the face of substantial increasing pressures, dramatic increases in demand and rising numbers of complex crimes like sexual abuse, child abuse and domestic abuse, most forces continue to do a good job in keeping us safe.

“But I have major concerns that policing is under significant stress. On occasions, that stress stretches some forces to such an extent that they risk being unable to keep people safe in some very important areas of policing.

“About a quarter of forces are all too often overwhelmed by the demand they face, resulting in worrying backlogs of emergency jobs, with officers not attending incidents promptly, including those involving vulnerable people.”

The inspectorate says two-thirds of forces are good or outstanding and that almost half have “increased or maintained” their neighbourhood policing numbers.

Ian Hanson, chairman of Greater Manchester Police Federation, told Police Oracle: “This report won’t come as a surprise to anybody in policing. It’s absolutely apparent that we don’t have enough police officers and the public should be very concerned about that.

“This is a result of draconian cuts presided over by the government and in particular Theresa May when she was Home Secretary.

“The government needs to wake up to its responsibilities and stop deceiving the public with this nonsense about police funding being protected.”

But Matthew Scott from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners described the report as “positive”.

He added that while there are challenges identified, PCCs will be raising more money through council tax “to deal with these issues”.

Policing Minister Nick Hurd said: "I welcome the latest effectiveness report from HMICFRS and am particularly pleased that the inspectorate judges that most forces are effective at keeping people safe and reducing crime."

He claimed the next round of funding is "strong and comprehensive", and added: "Forces and police and crime commissioners must go further and act on HMICFRS’s recommendations because they play a crucial role in responding to crimes, such as domestic abuse, as more people grow in confidence and report them."

Full Story - Police Oracle

[Hyphen + 693]

I can’t believe it’s only a quarter! 

How many times do people have to say this sort of thing. It’s been the case for years. I don’t think we are far from breaking point though or a couple of high profile cases where there is a tragedy due to being unable to respond.

The problem is the cuts have had very little to do with money, the issue is the ideological and the government are extremely anti-police. Something has to give though.

[SimonT + 1,185]

This report makes me think my force isn't doing too badly. 

We generally get to all our emergency calls. Even if it's a blues run across the whole county.. 

It's our priority and prompt calls that fall like wheat before the scythe. So I'm certainly not suggesting we are doing OK. If you need us, expect to wait a long time, most of the time. Especially if you call 101

[HazRat 762]

So the MPS requires improvement under the heading 'Investigating crime and reducing re-offending'. With a shortage of nearly 1200 in the detective rank I think they've got someway to go to move towards 'good'. I don't think that its 'innovative' direct entry DC will ever bridge the gap. They are loosing more out of the back door through retirement or resignation that the pace of recruit for those coming in the front door cannot keep up. I don't have the answers, but they need to understand why the detective stream is not as attractive as it once was.

[Policey_Man + 765]

On ‎23‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 23:05, HazRat said:

So the MPS requires improvement under the heading 'Investigating crime and reducing re-offending'. With a shortage of nearly 1200 in the detective rank I think they've got someway to go to move towards 'good'. I don't think that its 'innovative' direct entry DC will ever bridge the gap. They are loosing more out of the back door through retirement or resignation that the pace of recruit for those coming in the front door cannot keep up. I don't have the answers, but they need to understand why the detective stream is not as attractive as it once was.

I think part of the problem is that the detective programme is in a negative cycle. People see the horrible workload and the pressure on DCs so don't want to do the job. People see that DCs can't get off Borough. So again don't want to do the job. With nobody coming in, the DCs already in post can't leave and can't reduce their workload. So when they leave or finally get a posting off Borough. But they aren't replaced or are only replaced by a PC investigator or TDC which loses experience on Borough. And the cycle continues...

If we got more people on the DC track, it would reduce workloads and would enable more of the experienced DCs to leave Borough. Morale would improve and people would see the light at the end of the tunnel as people aren't trapped on Borough for years, which would encourage more people to apply as they could then go on to the more sexy roles in SC&O, etc...

[James255 + 26]

The Met still have the silly residency requirement, and it even applies to direct entry detectives.

Edited March 27, 2018 by James255