Marshall: Blame culture across policing must change

THE ethos that “someone must be to blame” pervades across policing and must be changed, the chief executive of the College of Policing has said.

Chief Constable Alex Marshall said “his heart sinks” when he reads a report and sees officers referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. “It will not develop a culture of officers being able to explain what didn’t work out well if what we always do is look for blame,” he said.

“How will that encourage people to be open and challenge the system? It will shut them down and they won’t say anything. We don’t want good people hung out to dry and investigated for two years and disconnected from the profession as a result.”

CC Marshall, PoliceOracle.com reported, said the service should look towards the aviation industry where the focus is on learning from mistakes rather than pointing the finger of blame.

“I’m not the sure the new look IPCC will create the space we need for open and honest conversations,” he said.

“We are so very far from that culture. We need to have a place where we can do it and I want to see if we can create that.

“We should name people who are taking improvements forward, not those who might have made the wrong difficult decision. Don’t over focus on the individual working on a busy day who got the call wrong.”

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http://www.policeoracle.com/news/children_and_young_people/2016/Dec/06/good-officers–must-stop-being-hung-out-to-dry–says-chief_93631.html