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[Fedster + 1,307]

Record number of civilians hired by forces.

Gap filler: 'In order for us to have set the roles up permanently, it would have taken far longer to plan and implement, creating bigger risks around resilience and service levels being maintained'

Date - 28th August 2018
By - Nick Hudson - Police Oracle

3 Comments

 

A record number of civilian investigators are plugging the gap to cover dramatic falls in officer numbers as policing reports facing up to “hundreds of years of time off” through stress.

The unprecedented cuts to the police service has seen a fourfold increase in outside sourcing since 2014.

A total of 126 civilian investigators were used by West Midlands Police and 89 by Staffordshire Police in April – compared to a combined total of 51 for the two forces four years ago.

New designated jobs include work in the Financial Crimes Investigation Division and the Public Protection Unit, ranging from missing people to vehicle and drug crime. The police staff investigators are also assigned alongside safeguarding agencies while carrying out duties relating to child abuse and adult vulnerability.

In the last five years, recruiting temporary staff has become a necessity for the West Midlands force as it needed more time to plan how the role could dovetail into the investigations area of business as a longer-term strategy.

At the time, the force did not have enough permanent employees with the skills to undertake the roles to support officers.

The West Midlands force has spent more than £4million on the investigators since then.

A force spokeswoman said: “In order for us to have set the roles up permanently, it would have taken far longer to plan and implement, creating bigger risks around resilience and service levels being maintained.

“Since then, a number of officer posts have been converted into permanent investigator roles undertaken by police staff.”

In Staffordshire, investigative officers receive six to eight weeks training covering interviewing techniques, taking witness statements, criminal law, administration and working with police systems, building a case file, first aid and how to create a case file for an investigation.

Jobs include carrying out house-to-house enquiries following a crime, providing support for detectives and neighbourhood officers to help them focus on more advanced tasks and to progress an investigation.

A spokeswoman for Staffordshire Police said: "The detective will make all the decisions around an investigation and be assisted by the investigating officer.”

At West Midlands, the civilian officers get up to £26,802 a year, at Staffordshire, £24,030.

Campaigning Rob Quarmby, membership development officer at City of Wolverhampton Liberal Democrats, said: "The unprecedented cuts to the police service have meant that officers are under more strain now than ever before.

“We are now seeing police officers taking hundreds of years of time off in stress.

"We always thought the thin blue line was getting thinner but it's now the sick blue line."

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[Ether + 1,401]

Do we think some of this stems from the recruitment process and the type of people being employed?  

Is diversity of the workforce more important than ability? 

[Beaker 817]

Do we think some of this stems from the recruitment process and the type of people being employed?  
Is diversity of the workforce more important than ability? 

Friend works in FMIT I found out this week (he never tells anyone about his jobs, and never has). He's a former investor for other agencies. If he took a policing role as a PC he'd get a pay cut, and his skills would be sidelined somewhat at least until he was out of his 2 years. Some people complain about civvie investors, but they're also complaining about direct DCs. The SMTs can't win whatever they do.

[Reasonable Man + 1,231]

Do we think some of this stems from the recruitment process and the type of people being employed?  
Is diversity of the workforce more important than ability? 

Some of what? The levels of sickness, the lack of investigative skills, or the recruitment of civilian investigators?

[JulietAlpha1 + 515]

2 hours ago, Beaker said:

Friend works in FMIT I found out this week (he never tells anyone about his jobs, and never has). He's a former investor for other agencies. If he took a policing role as a PC he'd get a pay cut, and his skills would be sidelined somewhat at least until he was out of his 2 years. Some people complain about civvie investors, but they're also complaining about direct DCs. The SMTs can't win whatever they do.

I don’t agree with some of the schemes being tried at the moment but the direct-entry detective scheme isn’t one of them. Ideally, detectives would come from a patrol background with basic experience of volume crime investigation and a grounding in operational policing should the need be to get hands on. However, there is a recruitment crisis in detective work. There needs to be a solution because people just don’t want to join CID.

[Beaker 817]

However, there is a recruitment crisis in detective work. There needs to be a solution because people just don’t want to join CID.

I'd also say that they'd need to bring them in on a parity wage if they're experience of investigation is on a par. Likely my friend is on £25k-ish looking at what civvie investigation pays. You would have to be slightly nuts to move over to shifts and more work for less money.

[Ether + 1,401]

11 hours ago, Beaker said:

Friend works in FMIT I found out this week (he never tells anyone about his jobs, and never has). He's a former investor for other agencies. If he took a policing role as a PC he'd get a pay cut, and his skills would be sidelined somewhat at least until he was out of his 2 years. Some people complain about civvie investors, but they're also complaining about direct DCs. The SMTs can't win whatever they do.

Utterly agree with this, actual skills are viewed as irrelevant until someone has done 2 years. I find it bizarre and outdated. 

[Ether + 1,401]

9 hours ago, Reasonable Man said:

Some of what? The levels of sickness, the lack of investigative skills, or the recruitment of civilian investigators?

Yes, is some of the sickness down to the type of people recruited today in comparison to previously. IE are the police as a whole recruiting people who are simply not robust enough? You will always get sickness through injury, stress etc, but with the levels of sickness, should recruitment be reviewed? 

[Ether + 1,401]

7 hours ago, Beaker said:

 

 

I'd also say that they'd need to bring them in on a parity wage if they're experience of investigation is on a par. Likely my friend is on £25k-ish looking at what civvie investigation pays. You would have to be slightly nuts to move over to shifts and more work for less money.

 

This is the real issue, suitably qualified and experienced people should be able to be employed on a wage match system. 

[Beaker 817]

40 minutes ago, Funkywingnut said:

Utterly agree with this, actual skills are viewed as irrelevant until someone has done 2 years. I find it bizarre and outdated.  

Likely after 2 years those skills will have atrophied if they're not using them as well. Working in tech I know that you may be an expert in an area today, but in 2 years if you're away from it you'll be rusty at best, and totally clueless due to the level of changes isn't out of the bounds of possibility. 

[Ether + 1,401]

1 hour ago, Beaker said:

Likely after 2 years those skills will have atrophied if they're not using them as well. Working in tech I know that you may be an expert in an area today, but in 2 years if you're away from it you'll be rusty at best, and totally clueless due to the level of changes isn't out of the bounds of possibility. 

Are police officers who take a career break for 2 years still able to rejoin? 

[Beaker 817]

Are police officers who take a career break for 2 years still able to rejoin? 

No idea, I would assume so.

[Ether + 1,401]

8 hours ago, Beaker said:

9 hours ago, Funkywingnut said:

Are police officers who take a career break for 2 years still able to rejoin? 

No idea, I would assume so.

Then surely the same argument would be relevant that after a period of time skills are lost?  

[Beaker 817]

Then surely the same argument would be relevant that after a period of time skills are lost?  

Which is something I agree with. All skills are perishable to some degree. Some skills will be just as slick after 10 years, others might be gone after 6 months. When you work in a field of constantly evolving methods and regulations you're highly unlikely to still be as good after an extended period. Some things that are second nature start to slip, and if you don't practice they're eventually going to stop being automatic.

[Mac7 808]

Friend works in FMIT I found out this week (he never tells anyone about his jobs, and never has). He's a former investor for other agencies. If he took a policing role as a PC he'd get a pay cut, and his skills would be sidelined somewhat at least until he was out of his 2 years. Some people complain about civvie investors, but they're also complaining about direct DCs. The SMTs can't win whatever they do.

No disrespect but this angers me. I took a pay cut to join the police, because I wanted to be a cop first and foremost. I had skills that were sidelined and could have been useful to financial investigation but the sense of public duty and pride to be a cop was more important to me than a salary.