On Your Marks. Set. Go.

I hope you are all well.

Now the Olympics are out of the way, we should all

be braising ourselves for the onslaught from our friends in Government.

Everything is now set in place to launch their Ideological vision for British Policing.

Because that is what this vision is, it has nothing to do with the Austerity measures the Country finds itself in, it is personal.

We have had the situation where a so called Independent advisor Tom Winsor, has presented 2 reports to the Home Office.

Each of these reports and recommendations having to go through the PNB process, where the National Federation presented facts and figures outlining greater savings than proposed by Winsor.

As you are all aware the first report went to a PAT, which resulted in various changes to our conditions of service, and at the time of writing we await the result of the PAT for the 2nd report where they was a failure to agree on several recommendations.

Prior to this failure to agree it transpired that Winsor was a Senior Partner with a firm of Lawyers White and Cass who just happened to be advising G4S, in relation to a £200 Million + Contract they had secured.

Now I don't for one minute question Winsor integrity but what I do question is his so called Independence, we now also have the scenario where the Home Sec has appointed Winsor as the HMIC of Constabularies.

What credentials does he have to be in a position to advice Chief Constables how to run their respective forces?

This is a man who admitted himself he knew very little about policing, and during his review which was completed in a relatively short space of time he had the services of a Police Advisor.

So as you can see everything is falling into place, for this Government to Systematically Dismantle the World’s Finest Police Force. 

In November we will elect a PCC who will in coordination with the Chief Constable,have to produce a Policing Plan, this plan will have to address local and national issues.

The PCC will have to ensure they view options of Cross Border Services and the use of the Private Sector.

They will be in a position to set the figure for Local Councils to claim via Council Tax for policing.

Regardless of cuts they will have to protect the frontline!!!!

They are various examples of the Private Sector creeping into the World of Policing, in June I attended a Policing Conference, where I had the pleasure of listening to the rhetoric on the future of Policing from Nick Herbert the Police Minister, Tom Winsor and John Shaw Head of Policing Services G4s, and other prominent figures.

Below are extracts and notes of what they had to say.

Herbert- Whoever is elected as PCC they will have to sign an oath of Independence and show no favour to any political party. He also highlighted the use of Private Sector as an option for Policing.

Winsor- Police Forces are entitled to buy private services from the private sector.

The only role he believes can’t be undertaken by a private contractor is The Taking of Someone's Liberty.

Highly motivated and efficient Officer can do the work of 2 to 3 unmotivated Officers.

The question I ask you reading this is ' What's morale like at your place of work'?

John Shaw- Opened his presentation by stating he did not want to discuss the privatisation of policing debate.

Interesting you would think seeing his company had just been awarded a large contract.

What he did state was he agreed with Winsor that he accepted the only role his company would not take on was the of Power of Arrest.

 Now we all know how good G4s are when it comes to providing personnel for high profile events,fortunately the debacle of the Olympics could be a blessing in disguise.

The distinguishing feature of British policing is that officers are servants of the crown; they are available on and off duty, are forbidden from joining political parties, from taking industrial action, are warranted, trained - and equally important - are accountable for their actions. Whilst private security has its role to play this should not include frontline policing.

I would hope that the Home Secretary will review her stance in relation to the proposed cuts to the Police budget,as other ministers have done after the Military / Police had to step in to assist with security at the Olympics.

Philip Hammond Minister for Defence, has admitted to having his eyes opened on the matter of privatisation. In a recent article in The Independent he recognised that his approach to privatisation had been misguided particularly in light of the G4S Olympic fiasco. He said;“That's the thing that I'm learning – that the application of the lean commercial approach model does have relevance in areas of the MOD but equally you can't look at a warship and say 'How can I bring a lean management model to this?' – because it's doing different things with different levels of resilience that are not generally required in the private sector.”

But the danger is now that the Olympics have been and gone,thankfully incident free,everything falls into place for the perfect storm.

Up to 16000 Officers fewer officers on the streets by 2015.

If we have the Riots of last year again where will the 16000 officers it took to regain the streets come from?

If this Government really wants to make the Police more efficient it has to reduce the demand being placed on the service,not by cutting funding.

This creates a vicious circle most of the demand placed on the service are from outside agencies,which are  themselves suffering cuts to their own budgets.

You can't do more with less,I fully accept we have to change our style of policing in relation to the cut in officer numbers.

But our partner agencies have to play there part and help the service with the demand they place on the police service.

For too long its been the easy solution for a variety of agencies and public alike to call the police,because we have always been seen as the only emergency service who will deal with everything.

We are here to serve and protect the public,something I believe we do to the best of our capabilities,regardless of the constraints,cuts and reduction of officers being imposed on us by this government.

We know it is our duty to serve and protect the public and our communities,it's a pity the same can not be said about the present Government

Take Care Gary.

 

CBB Chair.