Oh Please Theresa, Just Show Some Originality

Last updated on March 14th, 2019 at 02:27 pm

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I was just about to doze off last night when my interest was grabbed by a tweet from @imthenicenurse

 

The Tory madness in question being Theresa May’s latest brilliant bit of thinking published yesterday while we were all looking at newsreel footage of her Majesty.

Reforming the Powers of Police Staff and Volunteers

A Consultation on the way Chief Officers

Designate the Powers and Roles of Police Staff and Volunteers

Madness, total madness, showing an absolute disregard and disrespect for the Police Service and for the rights and expectations of the Public in general and Victims especially.

Even the first two sentences of Cruella’s foreword had me cringeing

The historic office of constable is at the very heart of the policing of England and Wales. Police
officers across the country carry out a wide range of duties, keeping the public safe and
ensuring justice for the most vulnerable members of society.

We know that, it’s just a shame she takes no notice and is intent on preventing the Police from meeting their obligations.

It’s not long before the madness continues

Volunteers also play a vital role in community safety. Since 1831, Special Constables have
taken many of the same risks as full-time police officers, for no reward other than the
satisfaction of playing their part in keeping their communities safe from crime. In recent years,
Police Support Volunteers have also played an important part of policing in such roles as
manning police enquiry desks or giving crime prevention advice. There is more that volunteers
can do. This Government wants to encourage those with skills in particular demand, such as
those with specialist IT or accountancy skills, to get involved and help the police to investigate
cyber or financial crime and, as their experience grows, to enable them to play a greater part in
investigations. These reforms will also help the police to make further progress on the use of
cyber-specials.

Before I go any further I should make it clear that I have no issue with Specials (the people) some of my best friends when I was serving were Specials, and yes, Cruella is quite right in one regard, whilst patrolling our streets they do face the same risks as the Regulars, no question.  I do remember one of our Specials telling me quietly one night (yes he came out regularly to perform a full Night Duty alongside us) “I do enjoy going out on patrol with you guys, but I must be honest, if you turned up at my bus garage and took a bus out without asking to be paid the lads would all be out on strike in an hour”.  Maybe, maybe not, but he knew what he was saying.

I haven’t even worked out where to begin with this lunacy, the scale of it is just mind-blowing.

In no particular order;

With the best will in the world, even an experienced Special will have received far less training than a Regular Officer.

By definition, ALL Specials will have a mere fraction of the experience of even a Probationary Constable.

Specials and Police Volunteers are exactly that, if they don’t want to or can’t come in next Tuesday they won’t.  If they want or need to leave early they will.

In recent weeks/months I have read about Specials being Public Order trained and Bedfordshire apparently has at least one Special Dog Handler.

The big issue with deploying Specials on Specialist Duties like that is that you never guarantee how many of them will pitch up to work until they get there.  I know that’s true of everybody, but anybody who is a ‘Volunteer’ can absolutely please themselves with no obligations whatsoever.

Put yourself in the place of a victim, the reporting officer, PC SMITH takes your details and tells you that Special Constable Jones will be in touch when he/she is next on duty, whenever that may be.  Special Constables, in the main, have other jobs, they do their 40 hours somewhere else each week and pitch up in their spare time, usually evenings and weekends.  Is that really acceptable?  I’m not convinced that is the way we should be treating our victims.

Finally, getting to my headline at long last, it’s not even an original idea.  It seems our revered Home Secretary has cribbed it off the Ministry of Defence, who are busy culling Regular Armed Forces personnel and replacing them with Territorials and Reservists.  Again, I’m knocking them, they are undoubtedly good at what they do, but they are not full-time dedicated Serviceman ready to go at a moment’s notice.

It isn’t working in the Armed Services and I don’t see how it can work effectively in the Police Service.

I voted in the Mirror Poll last night and 96% of those who had voted, had voted NO, Volunteers should not be used instead of professional Police Officers.

So, people of England and Wales, your illustrious Home Secretary is proposing cutting the level of Regular Police Officers to levels not seen since the 1970s and augmenting the numbers of unpaid Specials and Police Volunteers.  I’d be interested to see if she can find 20,000 new Specials and Volunteers with enough spare time on their hands to fill the gaps.  Oh, and all this is being proposed at the same time that the Met is considering ditching virtually all of their PCSOs in order to save money because of Home Office Budget cuts.

The Lunatics have most definitely taken over the asylum.  Enjoy.

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5 thoughts on “Oh Please Theresa, Just Show Some Originality”

  1. I have also worked with some very good Specials but as you say it is at their convenience and never saw any that had the capacity to perform regular shifts. With the current cuts that what they would have to do and it would surely impact on their regular paying jobs. As for using those with specialist knowledge such as IT as part of an investigation, that’s a tall order. Having taken part in many investigations as part of an AMIT I know that investigations are intensive and time consuming and it could not be expected that a volunteer would be able to attend for weeks possibly months on end doing 12hr days or more. If they could not and only attended now and again their work would fall being others on the investigation and thus the investigation would be impacted to the detriment. Not to mentioned security and discipline! We have used specialist before, many times we used to call them consultants they were tried, proven and paid for their skills.

  2. Just wait till the volunteers start seeing the job for what it is. How the pressure builds when the demand increases and it will increase, when they are expected to do more and it starts to affect their full time job or home life. For no pay!
    Then when they make a mistake or start getting complaints, then they will be off quicker than Usaine Bolt.

    This at the same time the Met say they may get rid of all pcsos. Incredible!
    May should be thoroughly ashamed.

    1. Absolutely incomprehensible, surely she can’t be so stupid that she can’t see what will happen…………oh yes, G4$ and $erco will step in

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