The Cuts and their Consequences
SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman Neil Bowles on cuts to the police service.
“I have read a couple of letters recently in The Star, complaining about the lack of response from the Police and why ring us?
“Last year South Yorkshire Police Federation ran a campaign called “Cuts Have Consequences”.
This was designed to let the public know the devastating affect the government’s budget cuts were having on the ability to Police the county effectively and keep everyone safe. We wanted people to ask questions of their local and national politicians. This campaign was mirrored across the country by the Federations in over half the Police Forces, in a mixture of political strongholds.
“The campaign was a success as the huge amount of feedback from social media proved, and although we heard Home Office civil servants were in a tither; they stuck by their mantra “police Reform is working and crime is down”. They believed that as they repeated it so often, but nobody else did. However, one of my colleagues stood back and asked what were the consequences of these cuts?
“In South Yorkshire we saw Districts dismantled of their neighbourhood policing; centralised teams of detectives concentrating on serious crime and vulnerable people; decimated teams of uniformed specialists such as dog handlers, mounted and search teams. Does anyone remember we had our own helicopter? Officers don’t bother asking for one now, as it would never get here in time!
“The latest crime figures show a huge increase in crime locally, with violent crime going through the roof. The staffing levels of our response teams are more often not below minimum staffing levels, overtime is being paid to anyone to make up the numbers. A team would come on duty in the morning, and officers would be deployed to deal with prisoners, sit with prisoners either at hospital or in our cells. Some would start looking for missing persons. Some would have to go and relieve the previous shift at crime scenes. Whilst a couple more would be given the appointment list (those incidents that do not require a fast response). That may leave one or two officers available to meet any fresh calls that come in. On top of this each one of these officers will have their own workload of crimes and traffic collisions to investigate.
“We have shared our armed and other specialist uniformed officers with Humberside Police in a collaboration – our (SY tax funded) officers are working across the border most days, but we don’t see theirs helping us out! The Government ordered an uplift of armed officers in the wake of the terrorist atrocities in Europe. This takes time to select and train the right people, but ultimately there is no new money, and so we rob Paul to pay Peter. These extra officers are not additional to our numbers, they come from the ranks of normal policing.
“All in all, we have lost 900 officers since 2007 and about 700 Police Staff members since 2010. This is why mistakes are being made; we are slow to answer calls; slow to attend calls; slow to feed back to victims. Nobody joined the Police to give a poor service, the cuts have caused this state of affairs – that’s the Consequence!”
This article was first printed in The Star http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/today-s-columnist-neil-bowes-cuts-and-their-consequences-1-8078315.