Met police firearms

[Fedster + 1,307]

Force admits historic underfunding and failing to match investment with its size.

Loo-dicrous: A sign that points to major problem for Police Scotland and the SPA

Date - 31st May 2019
By - Nick Hudson - Police Oracle

 

Officers working in “diabolical and unhygienic” conditions have pleaded with government to mend a national embarrassment of a crumbling police estate where stations are “held together with hazard tape”.

MSPs were given graphic descriptions as the Scottish Police Federation released damning photographs to illustrate what amounts to a “complete and utter embarrassment” that even threatens officer response to incidents.

The photos show buildings with peeling flooring, mould on locker room walls, stair treads missing, leaks around electricity points, temporary fixes with buckets or funnels to catch rain water or pipe becoming the permanent solution – and toilets doubling as kit cupboards.

The federation blames the Scottish Police Authority for “not fulfilling its function” by failing to get to grips with the capital spending issue – leaving communities in danger from a “lack of regard for essential pieces of equipment”.

Federation general-secretary Calum Steele told Holyrood's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing the conditions are breaching health and safety obligations, with a £300 million cash injection needed to bring them up fire and building standards.

Police Scotland admitted to Police Oracle it needs “significant” monies to address “historic under investment and previous poor investment decisions” as well as accepting current allocated funding does not match the force’s actual size and scope.

Capital funding would need to be doubled to take the force from the bottom of those across the UK to mid-table on capital spending with Police Scotland spending equating to £1,126 per employee compared to £10,857 per employee spent by the Met in London – a force of comparable size.

• Leaking roof, Maryfield station

Mr Steele said: "We have relatively modern buildings, we have new buildings and we have frankly decrepit buildings.

"The Paisley office is pretty much held together with black and yellow hazard tape. The Ayr office, I think, was probably carved out of asbestos.

"Even our relatively new buildings are falling into a state of disrepair because no money is being spent on maintenance. They look tired and they look shabby."

He added: "There are some fairly significant risks and dangers to the manner in which our buildings are slowly declining."

Mr Steele said the fact that the force and the SPA know they have buildings that do not meet the fire and building regulations standards and still continue to operate them quite clearly shows that they are not meeting the health and safety obligations."

Other federation officers painted similarly grim pictures of what the workforce have to put up with.

SPF West chairman Andy Malcolm said: “The mould on the walls of the locker room in Stirling was first highlighted to the force in October 2018 but nothing has been done to fix the problem due to a lack of funding.

“This is just one example of the estate issues in the east and there is simply no money to fix them.

“As a result, officers are being left to endure diabolical and unhygienic conditions such as these.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg. The crumbling estate and the state of the vehicle fleet is damaging our ability to respond to incidents.”

He added: “Communities are being failed by the lack of regard for essential pieces of equipment.

“Police Scotland is currently focused on buying the new sat nav for the ship at a point where the ship is sinking.”

• All kitted out, the toilets in Dunfermline

Paul Connelly, chairman of the SPF West area committee, said: for the Scottish Police Federation, said: “Police officers are expected to deal with the most traumatic incidents and I don’t think that it’s unreasonable for them to have cars that are fit for purpose and buildings that are windproof, water tight and rat free.

“It’s not credible for Police Scotland to say that their estate and fleet are in good condition when they have been given a fraction of the capital budget they requested.”

SPF North chairman Gordon Forsyth said daily tasks are being made more difficult due to the condition of the buildings and the vehicles used.

What appears to be simple repairs are being left to deteriorate due to the lack of funding in the estates budget.

“The photos taken at Burnett Road police station in Inverness showing the peeling flooring and stair treads missing and being fixed back down with sticky tape, which is in itself a metaphor.

“Officers using damaged chairs or having torn carpets in their offices again appears to have a simple fix, but divisions are being severely constrained by their budgets.

“As was found in the Forfar office too often we are seeing temporary fixes with buckets or funnels to catch rain water from leaking roofs or pipe becoming the permanent solution.”

Deputy Chief Constable Will Kerr said the safety and wellbeing of staff is a priority for the force.

And he admitted: “Police Scotland requires significant capital funding to address historic under investment as well as previous poor investment decisions.

“The current allocation is significantly smaller than would be proportionate for an organisation of our size and scope.

“Across a multitude of demands, we are prioritising the capital budget and are investing in the right areas to achieve as much as we can, as quickly as we can.

"This month we published an ambitious strategy to develop a sustainable, modern and demand-led property estate that will deliver something fundamentally different and innovative, but less expensive and more effective, for our citizens."

View On Police Oracle

[Dirty harry + 75]

The lack of investment isn't helped by a private sector contractor (mitie) doing maintenance. They would rather come onsite and patch things up multiple times rather than repair/replace on the first visit. 

[obsidian_eclipse + 1,202]

I remember when we used to have handymen employed by the police directly. Many of them were getting on in years I must admit, however they used to do all sorts of maintenance that people wouldn't necessarily pay attention to as they went about almost invisibly - from planing doors, fixing squeaky hinges and changing light bulbs to more advanced carpentry. They even had a uniform not too consisting of black tea shirts with epaulletes and cargo trousers which would today confuse them with PCs - however we used to wear white shirts, NATO jumpers, ties and woolly trousers.

When they scrapped that role, along with the in-house cleaners, things changed considerably. We even used to have a few cleaners who retired but had continued to come in and volunteer because it was too quiet and they enjoyed the company and banter among police officers and staff. They would bring in homemade cakes, make cups of tea and wash the pots. All of that went and was replaced by notes and emails telling officers to wash their own pots, empty the dishwasher and tidy their desks. Certainly, those are things we should have been doing! However it does demonstrate the difference that can be made by employing people in house who want to help, if not relish the atmosphere and camaraderie, to outsourced drones who are against the clock and have other office blocks to clean. No disrespect to them of course! Many of them are sociable but don't have the time to do anything because the contracts are so tight. It can make a difference however, because there is nothing worse than mid refs being turfed out to a job to return 6 hours later along to emails because the kitchen is untidy and there was food on your desk.

[David + 4,981]

I remember our handyman. On a full-time basis he floated between a few stations in the area and jobs that he could do, were done, and done well. On occasion he'd even take and bring back vehicles to and from our garage which kept an attested officer free.

[Dirty harry + 75]

6 hours ago, obsidian_eclipse said:

I remember when we used to have handymen employed by the police directly. Many of them were getting on in years I must admit, however they used to do all sorts of maintenance that people wouldn't necessarily pay attention to as they went about almost invisibly - from planing doors, fixing squeaky hinges and changing light bulbs to more advanced carpentry. They even had a uniform not too consisting of black tea shirts with epaulletes and cargo trousers which would today confuse them with PCs - however we used to wear white shirts, NATO jumpers, ties and woolly trousers.

When they scrapped that role, along with the in-house cleaners, things changed considerably. We even used to have a few cleaners who retired but had continued to come in and volunteer because it was too quiet and they enjoyed the company and banter among police officers and staff. They would bring in homemade cakes, make cups of tea and wash the pots. All of that went and was replaced by notes and emails telling officers to wash their own pots, empty the dishwasher and tidy their desks. Certainly, those are things we should have been doing! However it does demonstrate the difference that can be made by employing people in house who want to help, if not relish the atmosphere and camaraderie, to outsourced drones who are against the clock and have other office blocks to clean. No disrespect to them of course! Many of them are sociable but don't have the time to do anything because the contracts are so tight. It can make a difference however, because there is nothing worse than mid refs being turfed out to a job to return 6 hours later along to emails because the kitchen is untidy and there was food on your desk.

I'm a cleaner in a police station, although not employed by the police. I'm employed by the council. We try and do what repairs we can and often to a better standard than mitie would. I take a lot of pride in my work and am quite familiar with alot of the people on my floor.  

[Mags-1979 3]

 

On 31/05/2019 at 15:06, Fedster said:

Federation general-secretary Calum Steele told Holyrood's Justice Sub-Committee on Policing the conditions are breaching health and safety obligations, with a £300 million cash injection needed to bring them up fire and building standards.

The trouble with spending £300,000,000 on maintenance and refurbishments is that there will always be someone that will complain that the money should be invested in frontline policing. I can see the headlines now:

"The police have fancy new toilets and plush shag-pile carpets while the numbers of officers are cut to record lows" or some such nonsense.

Police officers (I'm not one) like everyone else deserve a decent standard of living and a safe working environment but I fear it's a case of "damned if you do damned if you don't"