Monthly Archives: November 2011

Striking Cambridgeshire police staff have forced officers to step into the breach – and cancel their days off.

The constabulary has sought to reassure families that critical services will be maintained during today’s industrial action.

All rest days have been cancelled as more than 130 officers police a mass protest in Cambridge against Government cuts and back-office staff walk outs.

As schools close, bins remain uncollected, libraries shut and patients’ operations and hospital appointments are cancelled during the day of disruption, several thousand people are expected to join a protest at Parker’s Piece. At Addenbrooke’s 34 outpatients’ appointments and three operations have been cancelled, the News has been told.

Picket lines will be mounted across the city, putting further pressure on police officers, who are not allowed to go on strike.

A force spokeswoman said: “We are aware that members of police staff may be striking on November 30 and have contingency plans in place to ensure critical services are maintained.

“As part of this planning we have provided training to staff to ensure they can carry out roles in the force control room and police service centre.

“In departments where critical services are supported by police staff we will replace those striking with staff or officers who are able to perform that role.

“We have also cancelled police officer rest days to ensure we have sufficient resources to maintain business as usual while policing planned events today.”

Union groups will meet for the rally at Shire Hall and Addenbrooke’s at 11am before marching to Parker’s Piece for noon. The group will then march for about an hour around the city centre before congregating back on Parker’s Piece for an assembly.

Police have reassured residents and traders that disruption will be kept to a minimum.

Det Sup Paul Fullwood said: “The operation is about facilitating people’s right to peaceful protest, while maintaining minimal disruption for the people of Cambridge.

“The organisers’ stewards will be supported by police officers to ensure the safety of those involved and members of the public.

“People in the city centre may notice some minor disruption during the march but are urged to go about their daily business as normal.”

Officers cancel days off to police protests

Chief inspector of constabulary, Sir Denis O’Connor 

Sir Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, said officers were trained to effectively hold a line during disturbances and did not have the flexibility to act when rioters “scatter” and target somewhere else.

He told MPs it was time for a “rethink” on public disorder training.

But he also revealed police have been told in future they may be able to access private messaging systems such as BlackBerry Messenger in times of riots.

In August, looters used social media to great effect to organise and stay one step ahead of the police.

However, Sir Denis told the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee that police have been told the capability to mine such messages is available.

He is currently carrying out a review of police tactics during the riots but said one problem is the lack of manoeuvrability on the ground when events change quickly.

He said officers were insufficiently trained for such scenarios where rioters would target one area then scatter and turn up somewhere else.

He said it was not necessarily about police numbers but how they are used.

Police insufficiently trained for riots, warns watchdog

The review of the future options for the iconic National College of Police Leadership at Bramshill is expected to be completed by the spring of next year, the NPIA has announced.

In a statement, the Agency said that property consultants Frank Knight had been appointed to review what could be done and report back in 12 weeks’ time.

The appointment is the first part of a review of the Bramshill estate in Hampshire, which the NPIA said, “may include the relocation of some of the functions to another location”.

The Agency has also confirmed that it is “looking at how it or its successors, partners and alternative providers might best use the site in future”.

However, the NPIA has emphasised that no decisions on the future of Bramshill will be made until after all aspects of the NPIA reviews are complete.

Until then the range of police training, operational support and policing events will continue to be delivered at the site, the Agency’s statement confirmed.

The review of Bramshill is part of the NPIA’s wide-ranging examination of all its sites to help the agency make significant savings required by the Home Office ahead of the Agency’s 2012 phase out and the setting up of successor bodies.

NPIA Begins Bramshill Review

See also: Question Mark Hangs Over Bramshill

Angry Police Federation officials have walked out of a meeting with pay Reviewer Tom Winsor over a disagreement stemming from a policing conference.

The staff association said Chairman Paul McKeever and General Secretary Ian Rennie and abandoned a meeting where Part II of the pay and conditions review was being discussed.

As previously reported on PoliceOracle.com, the second part of the review is due to be published the New Year and Mr Winsor has been taking evidence.

The disagreement centred on an issue at the Superintendents’ Association conference.

A statement from the Federation said that the matter could not be resolved and that the officials felt they had no choice but to terminate the meeting.

A spokesman for Tom Winsor said the Reviewer did not wish to comment.

Fed Walks Out Of Winsor Meeting

Public sector redundancies will hit 710,000 by 2017, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast today, as dwindling growth forces Chancellor George Osborne to cut harder.

Public sector job losses to hit 710,000

PFEW Chairman Paul McKeever makes statement on public sector pay cap……

29 November 2011

Following Chancellor George Osborne’s statement that public sector workers will be subject to a 1% pay rise cap following the two year pay freeze Paul McKeever, Chairman, Police Federation of England and Wales made the following statement:

“I am shocked and disappointed to learn of the Chancellor’s announcement of a two year 1% pay cap following the public sector pay freeze. This government continues to make policy in its jigsaw fashion – we simply do not know what inflation will be in four years’ time – it is another case of unknown consequences.

This represents a further erosion of officers pay – who are already under significant financial constraint after nearly two years of frozen pay. With inflation over five percent and the pending detrimental changes to terms and conditions, as proposed by Tom Winsor, officers are going to be put under immense pressure over the coming years. For a government that claims to be making the fairest decisions for Britain the police seem to be bearing an exponential burden.”

Non-emergency callers in some forces to be asked to leave message or ring back later during public sector strike

Police walk through the Occupy London camp outside St.Paul’s. Front line officers are to run 999 call centres during Wednesday’s strike.

Front-line police officers are to be drafted in to run 999 emergency call centres across England and Wales when police civilian support staff join the public sector pension strike on Wednesday.

It is expected many front counters at police stations will be closed for the day, uniformed officers will staff “custody suites” and the public will be asked to postpone non-emergency contact with the police until Thursday. Non-emergency callers in some forces are to be asked to leave a message or ring back later.

The Metropolitan police is expected to repeat its operation during last June’s public sector strike when 135 uniformed officers were used to cover the force’s central communications command.

A further 200 officers from the outer London boroughs were brought into central London to help respond to emergency calls from the public. The police are a “disciplined service” and do not have the right to strike.

A further 120 to 130 police officers from around Britain were flown to London for two days of training in operating passport checks at border control desks at Heathrow and Gatwick. It will also mean that immigration enforcement operations, including raids on employers of illegal labour, will be curtailed.

Airport chiefs have warned of possible gridlock at Heathrow and long delays at other airports as a result of the breakdown of the UK border agency’s contingency plan to cope with immigration staff going on strike.

The home secretary, Theresa May, is due to travel to Paris for a G6 meeting of interior ministers on Wednesday. It is expected she will as usual go by Eurostar which is not expected to be affected by the UKBA action.

A revolt of UKBA middle managers who were among the 800 Home Office staff who had been trained in recent months to staff the border has left ministers unable to rely on them all to turn up on Wednesday to run the passport checks.

This has led to a Whitehall-wide appeal for volunteers with the necessary security clearance to operate national security as well as immigration checks. Unions however claim that ministers may be acting illegally in being prepared to be flexible about the level of security clearance needed.

The Home Office and Ministry of Defence played down claims that military personnel had been put on standby to help out with crowd control at the overcrowded airports on Wednesday. Both confirmed that it was a contingency option that had been considered but said no official request for assistance had been made.

Union sources claimed however that military police were among those who had started training at Dover in operating low level border checks on European Union passport holders.

Olivia Pinkney, migration chief at the Association of Chief Police Officers, in a letter to all forces, confirmed that police already seconded to UKBA were being trained for passport checks: “The UK border agency plans to train 120 to 130 officers to operate the immigration controls at the border – EU and non-EU controls. In particular the focus will be on criminality and counter-terrorist matters,” implying only a limited range of checks may be employed.

Some officers have criticised the move on Twitter: “Our officers seconded to UKBA been cancelled this weekend to train to cover borders during next week’s strike – is this really a police role?” asked Met_IBB, the Met’s inspectors’ branch.

Frontline police set to staff 999 call centres during strike

Report Blames Police For Spread Of Riots

The spread of rioting across England occurred because police failed to respond robustly to initial disturbances, a new report has claimed.

The Independent Riots, Communities and Victims Panel has spent the past four months examining the causes behind the unrest, while also studying how communities responded to the violence and looting.

Its interim report says that had police cracked down harder on disorder in the wake of the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by officers in Tottenham, the riots would not have spread across the country.

If urgent action is not taken, the panel warned, there could be a repeat of the riots.

The report also calls for fundamental reform of the 1886 Riot Damages Act, through which many of those affected by the looting have been trying to claim compensation.

And there was criticism for insurers, who are accused of letting down the victims of riots.

The report will raise, I hope, the issues that lie behind why some people felt they had no stake in society.

David Lammy, Tottenham MP

The report goes on to say footfall in some of the high streets affected by the riots has still not recovered – and calls on the Government to start a fund in support.

And there was further censure for police from many of those who were questioned as part of the study, with a general view that police stop-and-searches are consistently carried out without courtesy.

Others said they felt their areas were abandoned by police, who they said were concentrating more on commercial properties.

A number of recommendations were outlined in the report, which suggests victims should be able to confront rioters and that emergency workers who risked their lives during the riots should be honoured.

Chairman of the panel Darra Singh told Sky News: “When we talked to some of the rioters themselves, what they said was that the images of the police standing back actually sent a message out to other areas.

“When you watch some of the CCTV footage and listen to the descriptions of what happened in Birmingham, Manchester and other areas… groups of people turned up and actually tested the reactions of the police.

AND – 30 YEARS AGO:

25 November 1981 – Brixton riots report blames racial tension

The investigation found the rioting was caused by a spontaneous crowd reaction to police action – rightly or wrongly believed to be harassment of black people – and had not been planned.

On the night of 10 April two police officers were attempting to help a black youth who was bleeding from a suspected stab wound when they were approached by a hostile crowd.

The rest, as they say, is history… 

Police officers will be expected to man airports and ports during the public sector strike after just 90 minutes’ training, it can be disclosed.

The Border Agency has already sought to recruit civil servants from across Whitehall as well as those based abroad to help man immigration desks and carry out passport checks

Officers from forces all over the country, who are on secondment to the UK Border Agency, will be drafted in when thousands walk out on Wednesday over public sector pension reforms.

The Border Agency has already sought to recruit civil servants from across Whitehall as well as those based abroad to help man immigration desks and carry out passport checks. Airlines have also been asked to halve the number of passengers flying into Heathrow to avoid potential gridlock.

The officers, who work for the Agency under section 97 of the Police Act, are deemed to be temporarily serving the Secretary of State outside their force.

They are believed to have received just an hour and a half’s worth of training to take on the roles.

John Tully, vice-chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “We’re talking about national security and the officers, we’re led to believe, are being given one and a half hours’ training to carry out the role of a Border Agency operative. Their normal training is at least two weeks.

“There’s very minimal briefing going on so they are going to be vulnerable. In reality, what can they do? They are not in any way trained to do the job properly – they are only paying lip service to it.

“It’s an unreasonable expectation to place upon the officers because they are out of their comfort zone, they have been given little or no training to do what is a very important role and they are being set up to fail.”

Messages posted on Twitter by the Met’s Inspectors Branch Board (IBB) also indicated disquiet at the move.

“Our officers seconded to UKBA been cancelled this weekend to train to cover borders during next weeks strike-is this really a police role?” said one message.

“They’ve then got to work in mixed teams post strike as if nothing happened yet we’re affected by the same reforms and can take no action.

“This strike isn’t life and death unlike covering fire and ambulance previously-is this really appropriate use of valuable police resources?”

In reply to another Twitter user, the Met’s IBB added: “Talk about the thin blue line – it’s getting so thin it’s about to snap.”

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) declined to comment.

Reports of police officers being redeployed during the strike came as it emerged troops were also due to be on standby for airports on Wednesday.

Damian Green, immigration minister, said soldiers could be called in to support temporary staff at checkpoints.

The Border Agency has come under scrutiny in recent weeks after it emerged passport checks for non-European nationals were suspended over the summer. Former border chief Brodie Clark stood down over the row with Home Secretary Theresa May.

A UKBA spokesperson said: “Securing the border is our priority and over the last weeks and months we have considered all options to ensure we are prepared for union action.

”We always aim to minimise any disruption caused by the decision of unions to strike, but travellers could see longer waiting times at some ports and airports.”

Police officers to cover for striking border staff

Government action is needed now to ensure that prospective police and crime commissioner candidates come forward ahead of next year’s polls, a former chief constable has said.

Bob Quick maintained that a public awareness campaign about the move is needed swiftly and insisted ministers must invest to ensure the governance change is a success.

The first elections of Directly Elected Police and Crime Commissioners are set to be held in November 2012 following the abolition of police authorities.

Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert has said the government will look to attract the right candidates and work with other organisations to further the debate.

But Mr Quick – who is former chief constable of Surrey and Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, stressed that action – rather than words – is needed.

He added “We are going to have change and the government must pay for it.

“A public awareness campaign is needed and ministers now have a serious obligation on them because we are talking about the safety of the citizen.”

Mr Quick, who now heads up security consultancy Bluelight Global Solutions, said that the government needed to attract new blood to the commissioner roles.

He added: “If there is not an awareness campaign then your only candidates are likely to be the local people who are already involved in police authorities.

“My feeling is that as many independent candidates as possible should be attracted.

“The trouble with party political candidates is that they are likely to appoint chief constables that have a leaning towards their own political order.”

Mr Quick was echoing the concerns of a number of organisations who are concerned that the right calibre of individuals must be attracted to the posts.

As previously reported on PoliceOracle.com, the think-tank Institute for Government also believes that more must be done to promote the new roles.

In its recent Who Chose the Sheriff paper, the institute maintained that political parties have not yet taken decisive action to decide how they will select candidates.

PCCs: Government ‘Must Lead Way’