The "P" Word

It strikes fear into you when you hear the P word. The first rumblings of Performance Figures being down has been bandied about. I've even heard the word "Flatlining" be used too.

This is not totally unexpected as I've been lacking in personnel recently. Quite naturally my teams performance figures are down too. I am standing by to attend a meeting where I'll be expected to have loads of ideas where performance can be improved. Forget all the good work non quantifiable that has been done making people feel safer.

Well I don't feel like playing. The local management gave it the billy large one last year about a certain set of figures and I stated at the time they were setting themselves up for a fall. The reduction achieved was apparently down to all the wonderful policing operations and increased visibility. Actually we had done very little to achieve the reduction, because a prolific offender was away in jail for a longish stretch. Since he's been out surprise surprise certain crime is up.

If they were honest at the time and actually analysed why their reduction percentage was so large and perhaps presented a conclusion, we wouldn't have this problem. Crime figures always tend to return to their average. If you get an excessive variation there is always a reason why. We pay analysts to put forward an argument and explain this.

I have just seen some public perception surveys and they are dropping like a stone. Really excessive drops in public confidence with the police when compared to last year. This is not I believe down to local issues but to all the front page press stuff going on with the Greater Gods. Will anyone be brave enough to reach that conclusion and present it to our leaders.

I think they know it already!