Have ACPO Finally Grown A Pair? Or……..

Last updated on March 14th, 2019 at 02:26 pm

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What on earth is going on in the rarified atmosphere occupied by the ACPO types? They’re beginning to sing from the same hymn book as us lesser mortals (or are they?)

The last few days has seen headlines such as

Lincolnshire Police chief says force will go out of business in letter to the Home Secretary

and

Cuts without reform put the public at risk

The first is obviously Neil Rhodes’ voiced opinion that his Force will go out of business if the current unsustainable funding arrangements continue.

The second is Bernie Hogan-Who’s belated entrance into the fray, in which he claims that “The police and other emergency services are looking at years of austerity. We must slash the number of forces and make a host of other radical changes if public safety is to be maintained”

My initial reaction was “About bloody time too, why have they taken nearly 5 years to speak out, we all know that already?”

And then I got to thinking……a dangerous pasttime I know

In July this the Uncle Tom’s organisation released a report updating us on how our 43 Forces were meeting the challenges posed by Austerity.  Three Forces were highlighted as needing to do much more to catch up and survive, these were Bedfordshire, Nottinghamshire and Gwent.

The Met, for example, was graded GOOD  on the grounds that

  • HMIC is assured that the MPS is using a range of methods to understand the demand placed on its services and the consequences of that demand, for example the numbers of staff required for prosecution file preparation and for crime investigation.
  • Through the use of a ‘star chamber’, the MPS has an efficient way to align human resources to emerging threats and retain staff in critical posts.
  • The force has maintained its drive on crime reduction and victim satisfaction throughout the spending review period.
  • Within this effort, it is recognised that securing the satisfaction of victims of crime in the capital is challenging.
  • The MPS is introducing ever more innovative means of interacting with the public ranging from greater use of social media to replacing traditional police station front counters with more flexible drop-in centres.

Well that’s all fine and dandy then.  Or is it?  This HMIC report is now yesterday’s chip wrapper. Nobody remembers it.  It was news for about one day in July and then……..nothing.

We had headlines from the Fed such as

More than a third of forces could struggle to provide the same service to the public if cuts continue, says HMIC

And then……….nothing.

So what if the public proclamations of Bernie and Neil Rhodes are nothing more than Cruella May leaking her vision for the future through the ‘trusted’ media of the Police in order to soften us up.  In the main we trust what the Police tell us more than we trust our politicians.

Is it vaguely conceivable that a couple of highly-placed cops could become government mouthpieces?  Surely not?  No place for politics in policing, wouldn’t happen would it? Would we be more receptive to the Home Secretary’s (and Camoron’s) Reform Agenda if it came out of the mouths of our Police Leaders who were seeming to be on ‘our side’ for once.

Or have ACPO finally grown a pair. You decide.

Personally I have been predicting a National Police Force, Fire Brigade policing and a higher level of front-line involvement for PCSOs and Specials for over a year now.  Is this what Bernie is suggesting?   At least the uniforms and vehicles will be cheaper if they’re all the same.

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4 thoughts on “Have ACPO Finally Grown A Pair? Or……..”

  1. Yes. We know contract nurses cost a fortune & hospitals are trying to reduce the numbers they use. Surely their cost can’t be offset by any greater flexibility agency staff offer, otherwise hospitals would prefer them. If for nurses, presumably also for Serco/G4S – how does BHH possibly suppose that contracted out police staff will ever be more ‘efficient’ than experienced internal staff..?

  2. “We should share support services where possible, and make them as efficient as the best of the private sector. That means opening up all but core policing functions to competition.”

    Is’t that code for “we will do less and contract out much of that reduced service to Serco/ G4S”? In other words exactly what Mrs May and the Home Office want.

  3. It is not in the character of ACPO to stand up for the whole police service nor for the wider public. They are alas mainly a group of clones, to whom risk taking is best avoided.

    The absence of any support for Lincs CC after his statement (supported by his PCC and Bedfordshire’s PCC) was very, very clear.

    It doesn’t take much for the Home Office to assert itself, with delicate phone calls and ACPO “falls into line” or remains silent. As we learnt after Nick Herbert’s departure as Policing Minister he had been a constant bully to ACPO.

    Policing and the public deserve better.

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