Monday 27 October 2008

Welcome To The Pleasure Dome

Reading through the police blogs I get the impression that the constabularies appear to suffer most from the performance culture and general management pettiness. Is this because of senior officers having to prove their commitment, just to climb the promotion ladder in an arena of limited opportunity? There must be a reason.

I consider myself fortunate to work in the metropolis and a relatively busy bit too. We have been inundated with refugee police officers that have transferred from apparent madness out in the country. I am talking dozens of them. This must be causing massive problems in their old force areas, as these are top people, experienced and skilled that they can’t afford to lose.

They haven’t come for the money, so they tell me, although that is an added benefit. They have just got so pissed off with the working conditions and lack of bodies on their teams that the metropolis seems more attractive. I know some of the towns they come from, and when told what they were putting out on a night shift I was shocked. They must like what they see here, because a few months later their old work colleagues turn up too.

Although there is always pressure to perform, with a few exceptions most of the metropolis bosses let it be known that the target thing is a load of bollocks. That is until they start to get their backside kicked by upstairs or the centre.

The constabularies are trying to think up incentives to improve retention, but still the losses continue. Of course they are now trapped in a vicious circle of trying to squeeze out more from less. The remaining officers left, might just succumb to the lure of better resourced teams, with £400 extra a month thrown in too.

How much of this has been due to free rail travel paid for by the metropolis? I personally don’t think it’s all down to free travel. This came in years ago, but give credit, somebody played a blinder creating this scheme just as the metropolis was suffering losses itself due to the high cost of living, when housing allowances were cut. I might be wrong. Is there anybody out there in a position to comment?

Perhaps more officers on the response front line would solve their problems. There has been an explosion of niche departments everywhere that monitor and quality control without contributing much. They just create more actions and local directives for the hard-pressed troops on shift to complete. They are not missed at the weekends so I’m sure a few could be disbanded and staff returned to shift.

Why can’t we just go back to massive reliefs where everything is done in house and the job gets done? It used to work didn’t it? In fact I used to rather enjoy it.

* We are somewhat flush when compared to what the constabularies can put out on shift, but we paraded more in years gone by.

3 comments:

Officer Dibble said...

I've never thought of the metropolis as a pleasure dome but it is certainly drawing in the crowds.Got quite a few transferees at my place as well.All experienced officers.I think with some counties it could be a case of last one out turn off the lights.

Anonymous said...

I don't miss "my" constabulary one bit! I have to say, though, that the last 4 who came to my nick have all gone back saying "it's not what I expected". Quite what they did expect they can't seem to say. Guess they don't like the MP way of doing things. Though quite what that is I can't seem to put into words. Anyone who came and stayed will know exactly what I mean, though. mcm - any thoughts/

Stressed Out Cop said...

Was speaking to a lad the other day just transferred in - and they're trying to tempt him back with promotion etc. He's quite happy as he is - easier life so he says.