A missed opportunity for reform, Sean O'Neill - Police Federation

But Mr Cameron’s view is not exclusive to the
Tory right. Liberal commentators repeat his claim
that the police are the last unreformed public
service. And as Crime Editor of The Times for the
past five years, paying particular attention to the
politics of policing, I am forced into broad
agreement.
When a former Chief Constable of South
Yorkshire said in a radio interview that he had
inherited a force that was defensive, authoritarian
and excessively secretive I thought he was talking
about policing today, not 20 years ago. To his list of
adjectives, he might have added the word
intransigent.
There is a considerable irony in this situation.
On the ground, in the heat of the moment, police
officers are can-do people. Despite all the rules and
regulations, the red tape and the bureaucracy, cops
tend to get things done. When G4S cannot cope
with the demands of the Olympics, the police
service steps up to the mark. When the country is
swept with riots, the police can mobilise 16,000
officers within 48 hours and dispatch them the
length and breadth of the country to quell the
disturbances. When the force’s technology breaks
down in the middle of a Saturday night hunt for a
domestic violence suspect, the quick-thinking cop
might track him down on Facebook using his or her
personal iPhone.
But when it comes to the issues of working
practices, rank structures, pay grades, shift patterns,
uniforms, methods of governance, improving
education and training within the service, direct
entry from other careers or new methods of
accountability any hint of change is greeted with
howls of protest.
Social media, which should have opened a
window to show the public the scale and
complexity of the job the police do, has become the
“Despite all
the rules and
regulations, the
red tape and
the bureaucracy,
cops tend to get
things done.”
Upholding the Queen’s Peace 89