Police Amalgamations.

[Sgt Lobster]

NCS & NCIS will cease to exist come April 2006. I've not seen the advertisment but will the applicants be directly employed by NCIS? If this is the case they will cease to be police officers next April when SOCA comes into being.


Lobster.

[st13]

If this is the case they will cease to be police officers next April when SOCA comes into being.


Lobster.

And thats a bad thing, how?

[Cockney Corner.]

It would be pretty easy for a Home Secretary to keep such a small number of chiefs in their place & towing the line.

The Home Secretary doesn't seem to have too much trouble keeping them in line as it is. That horse has bolted. Remember Blunkett threatening to fire a Chief Constable when, well, that wasn't actually a power he had?

[Sgt Lobster]

And thats a bad thing, how?

You would become an employee of the Home Office and cease to be a constable. Amoungst other things you would be liable to dismissal on notice & even being made redundant. If things did not go to plan, unlike officers on secondment to NCS/NCIS, there would be no guarantee of returning to your previous force.

I also understand that to progress in SOCA you will have to agree fully to their terms & conditions, not that we even know fully what they are at the moment! I would also be concerned about whether or not I would remain on a 30 year pension.


Lobster.

[Sgt Lobster]

This weeks Police Review has a nice colour map showing England & Wales divided up into 10 regional forces. Whilst some regions clearly have a number of options available to them some areas like Wales & the North East only seem to have a single option i.e. one large regional force.

Its certainly being treated seriously in my neck of the woods with large features on the force intranet & a working party having been set up. Cumbria I have been reliably informed have now resigned themselves to amalgamation with the Lancashire Constabulary.


Lobster.

[Sgt Lobster]

It seems that Home Office plans to amalgamate the police forces of England & Wales may not be going to plan. MPs are having a debate on these proposals in the House Of Commons today Monday 19/12/05. The Association of Police Authorities/APA & some chief constables are also now putting up resistance to these radical proposals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4541012.stm

Lobster.

[Sgt Lobster]

Lancashire & Cumbria Police Authorities have agreed on a voluntary merger which I understand will take effect from April 2007.

http://www.lancspa.gov.uk/showarticle.php?id=110

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4748594.stm

Lobster.

[speedkuff]

Heyyyy! it's no problem. Have a Welsh Force and an English force (Seeing as the Scots are regarded as ethnically separate - the Welsh might as well have the choice)

Then we'll all be able to have the same forms, same cars, same vans, same standards for file submission, same computers, same uniforms.

The economy of scale for purchasing the above items alone will be worth it and let's not forget the sulky faces of the Chief Constables who don't get to be local baron with their own fiefdom.

You wouldn't have to go through the pain of leaving and rejoining when you wanted to work somewhere else... Ohhh I could go on. I can see a lot of advantages in it.

[Titus_Pullo]

I have to agree with Speedkuff. From a purely selfish point of view, anyway.

I know a lot of transferees from small forces to the MPS. The one thing they often refer to is the lack of opportunities to develop their careers in small forces. The other is that in a big one you get more admin support with your paperwork.

A former West Country Pc I was talking to couldn't believe that we had Case Progression Units that allowed him back out onto the streets to (drumroll!) do some policing! He was well chuffed, good on him at the end of the day all he wanted to do was get back out onto the streets. Not carry forty going-nowhere jobs playing the NCRS game and doing response.

From a non-selfish point of view the lack of resilience around Level Two crime is pretty shocking. Some of these Acpo types from tiny forces are having a laugh when they can't mount more than one job at a time without getting a third party force in to help out. Amalgamation would allow for bigger "task force" type specialist CID units which would actually take the heat off of borough-level OCUs dealing with Level One stuff. I make Dennis O'Connor's HMIC report dead right on that one.

Don't get me wrong; big isn't necessarily beautiful. Neither is it automatically wrong. GMP is a reasonable-sized force (about 8000 right?) with a lot of resilience, it could be a bit bigger in fact. That's what some of these smaller forces are looking at.

I can't really comment on Wales, not my area of experience but in Southern and Central England I think these amalgamations are a good idea despite my reservations about New Labour's centralizing tendencies and the HO's clumsy handling of the issue.

Cheers, stay safe and keep putting the O/T in.

T_P

[Sgt Lobster]

Speedkuff,

You may well find yourself a member of a huge Yorkshire & Humber Regional Force in short order. However things won't necessarily get better unless the investment is put in to bring all the constituent forces up to the level required by the HMIC & the Home Office.

I've also got concerns about how much it will cost me as a Council Tax payer

I do agree that we have too many small forces & that an establishment of 3500 - 4000 is probably the minimum to able to provide a satisfactory level of protective services & respond to critical and spontaneous incidents.


Lobster.

[Safety1st]

Most of us will have retired by the time it comes into force...

Have you known 'anything' in the police rushed, when it comes to change?

Because I haven't...and something as big as force merging...

Without a word of a exaggeration...if it does happen...I bet it wont be until after 2010...

[Sgt Lobster]

Most of us will have retired by the time it comes into force...

Have you known 'anything' in the police rushed, when it comes to change?

Because I haven't...and something as big as force merging...

Without a word of a exaggeration...if it does happen...I bet it wont be until after 2010...

Lancashire & Cumbria will be amalgamated by April 2007 & the rest by April 2008, unless the Government has a major about face.

http://www.lancashire.police.uk/news.php#6aFebruary

Lobster.

[MrG]

Once again the government is trying to force something in without thinking it through first.
Last gossip I heard was about two southern forces. Apparently just to link their two investigation computer programs will bankrupt both forces! And thats just the computer systems. What about uniform, vehicles etc etc. I suppose everyone is on airwave now but that is about the only common system.

It's not gonna work Mr Blair! (unless you fund it)

MrG

[Titus_Pullo]

Apparently just to link their two investigation computer programs will bankrupt both forces!

Such are the desperate excuses some of the Acpo-types are coming up with to avoid losing their little fiefdoms.

If they can't even manage their IT effectively why should they be trusted to manage an entire constabulary?

T_P

[Sgt Lobster]

Our lot seem to think they can manage the Cumbria/Lancashire amalgamation without too many problems. However I would imagine amalgamating three, four or more forces would present a much greater problem.


Lobster.