Second Thoughts?

The debate about the failure to backdate the pay increase for the police rumbles on.

Anne Widdecombe added her tuppence worth in her Daily Express article of January 2nd. I hope that I am not misunderstanding her when I summarise her argument as, 'Since there is so much evidence of the police abandoning ordinary citizens threatened with youth mob pressure, and prosecuting motorists because they are easy targets, do they really deserve the award?"

Her viewpoint is shared by the Donal Blaney Blogsite four days earlier. "Years of victimising motorists, politically correct posturing and ineffective criminal investigations have come home to roost." It seems that motorists may be prosecuted, even imprisoned, for smoking, eating or using mobiles while driving. He points out the case we all noticed - of the motorist who left his car engine running to help defrost his car, and promptly received an on-the-spot fine! Donal feels that public sympathy for the police has declined.

The website of "Reform", while acknowledging that certain crimes have declined since 1994, - burglary and car crime, for example, refuse to give the police credit for this. They feel that private initiative has been largely responsible - more cars now have alarms than in 1994. They claim that, "Evidence ...suggests that police performance has not risen in line with pay increases" in the recent past. (The same could be said of productivity in the NHS.)

How far are the police culpable? Is their performance in solving the many crimes which concern people their fault, or is it the target led culture in which they operate? Or Health and Safety considerations, or political correctness? Is it the administrative burden, form-filling and general paperwork, which has been heaped on them?

The police are in a different situation to most workers, - they cannot strike or take other industrial action. Their salaries are determined by an independent panel, and they expected that any ruling would be honoured in full. There is little doubt that if the police had more contact with the public, and acted as the public wished, then they would still stand high in the opinion of the public, and the government would not be able to ignore the award made from the date it was due.

(Perhaps it really is time to devolve control of the police, to make them more responsive. The argument for electing chief constables, so they are directly accountable to ordinary citizens, seems to be gaining strength!)