Performance culture is creating unsustainable police workloads, the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said, as the latest State of Policing Report is published by the HMICFRS.<\/p>\n
In the annual assessment of policing in England and Wales, His Majesty\u2019s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said that many officers have high workloads and don\u2019t feel valued enough for the work they do. He also said that forces must do everything they can to better lead and support their officers and staff.<\/p>\n
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: \u201cThe Chief Inspector\u2019s comments are absolutely right, but a lot of this workload is driven by performance-related targets.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers aren\u2019t able to get on with the work they need to do because of bureaucracy, and the HMIC is partly a cause of that culture. I will be addressing this with them, as the independent decision making of a Constable is being compromised by targets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t agree with target policing whatsoever. There should only be one performance measurement, and that should be how a victim felt they were treated by the police. If we could move away from our officers having to spend so much time on bureaucracy, they might actually have the time to deal with the cases and the victims that are on their list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said that South Yorkshire Police and the Federation had measures in place to support their officers, but they needed a better work culture to begin with.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got stuff in place like Backup Buddy and online counselling, but we need to stop breaking officers in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course when there\u2019s an emergency we will get there as a priority, that\u2019s what the police are for. But, for example, the Victims\u2019 Code for Policing (VCOP) says you have to update a victim every 28 days at the most. I get it, we should be updating our victims, but it can be done in a far better way than a bureaucratic system that takes so much time and engages so many managers.\u201d<\/p>\n