I Heard a Rumour, And I Didn’t Like It One Bit

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In my state of euphoria yesterday following on from the #Plebgate findings I stumbled across a piece of “information”.

I must first assure that I cannot verify this information but it is certainly plausible, and if I were still a serving warranted Police Officer I would be banging on my Fed Rep’ s door, and my boss’s door demanding some reassurance.

It has been alleged that there is a policy residing somewhere within the Home Office to continue whittling away at the number of warranted officers until you are reduced to 80,000. The additional numbers that are required to be made up of PCSOs and Specials.

Quite shocking but hardly surprising.

The ConDems already have a similar policy with the Armed Forces. They have slashed the numbers of all three Armed Forces to below the level required to defend our country. The policy is to make up the deficit with Reservists. The flaw in their grand plan is that they’re not getting enough Reservists to make it work. You can read it here if you missed it.

As I have posted before, about half of the 43 Forces of England and Wales have already lost more warranted officers than they are required to to reach their 2015 Austerity Target set by HMIC. It’ s a good job that HMIC is independent and has no connection with government is all I can say.

As I said at the beginning I cannot corroborate this rumour at all, and I vehemently hope that it is false, but it sounds like the sort of garbage the Home Office could come up with.

If any of you have contacts within the HO I would love to hear their response.

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4 thoughts on “I Heard a Rumour, And I Didn’t Like It One Bit”

  1. Sadly the federation has let the entire service and the public down hugely, if ever there were the real need for reform it’s the fed that needs reforming. They have spent far too much time in recent years, failing to see the blindingly obvious on the horizon. They were warned stark and hard by proof Roger seifert at conference a few years back, but then quickly began infighting, more concerned with personal positions than becoming ready for what was coming. There are far too many national and regional representatives, fond of the highlife on expenses, than actually doing more than making noise. Sad but true.

  2. I can’t confirm that rumour Alan but it wouldn’t suprise me. Whichever governemnt or coalition get in in the next parliament they will have to bring in another round of cuts of at least if not more than the last round i.e billions.

    What has been noticeable is that certain departments and interest groups have been jockeying and lobbying to make sure that they get ring fenced (lik the NHS) and therefore are almost (key word) protected.

    I noticed this from your blog about the armed services recently. What has been clear is that they have been actively lobbying to get themselves ringfenced.

    Increasingly it is looking like the unprotected areas will include Local Authorities and the Police.

    What’s been absent in this parliament has been effective lobbying by the Police Federation – while they seem to have been far more interested in backing lesser causes (the Mitchell case) while ignoring others (James Patrick) – they seem to have been ineffective in making the case for, at least ringfencing.

    It wouldn’t be suprising if the Home Office had plans for the Police which were not dissimilar to what they’ve tried with the armed services.

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