Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

SPONSORED FEATURE
2013: Police leadership
under the microscope
By Derek Barnett, President
of the Police Superintendents’
Association of England and Wales
Depending on your own individual
perspective, the police service
enters the New Year either in
chaos or on the wave of unprecedented
success.
The media reporting of policing
issues in the latter part of 2012 made
uncomfortable reading. The row over the
Andrew Mitchell affair that resulted in his
resignation was re-ignited when Channel
4 News claimed to have found video
evidence that cast doubt over the account
given by police officers. This was further
compounded when it was revealed that a
serving police officer had been arrested –
having allegedly claimed to be a member
of the public who had witnessed the
incident at the gates of Downing Street.
Meanwhile, the IPCC launched its
biggest ever investigation into the conduct
of the police at Hillsborough, there were
calls to investigate the policing of the
miners strike and to examine historic
investigations into Jimmy Savile and the
Rochdale MP Cyril Smith.
At the same time, a record number of
senior officers have faced either criminal
or misconduct investigations and some
have been arrested or suspended from
duty.
This is all against a background of
growing discontent within the service
about the speed and scale of the policing
reform programme that has seen a 20 per
cent cut in funding, a pay freeze, radical
changes to police pensions and plans
to significantly reduce the starting pay
of police constables. There is a steadily
worsening relationship between the
government and the police service.
And yet, if one looks beyond the lurid
headlines, we see record falls in recorded
crime, increasing public confidence
and satisfaction. Two authoritative and
independent reports by Lord Leveson and
HMIC concluded that corruption was
not endemic in the police service, and the
most recent research by the IPCC revealed
that when the public are asked about
their concerns in public life, corruption in
policing is not to the fore.
There are two contrasting views of
the situation we face, one that believes
policing is in crisis and that police
leadership has failed, and one that believes
all the criticism is unfair and that left well
alone, all in the garden is rosy. As often in
these matters, the reality lies somewhere
between the two extremes.
What is needed more than ever at this
critical time is calm heads and an honest
appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses
of policing today. Never before has
leadership in policing been as much under
the microscope. That leadership must
come from within the service at all levels,
but also at the highest political level. It
cannot be in the public interest to have a
vital public service such as policing, one
that has public safety at its core, to be seen
to be in open dispute with government.
Police leadership
Notwithstanding the excellent
performance in recent years and rising
public trust and confidence, police leaders
at all levels have to recognise that there are
genuine grounds for public disquiet.
The Police Federation is a staff
association established by an Act of
Parliament. It is not a trade union and has
none of the rights and powers that unions
enjoy; its strength historically has been the
sense of unity within its membership and
the power and cogency of its arguments.
In recent months that unity and
clarity of purpose has been lacking
and we saw how individual branches
within the Federation pursued their own
agenda in calling for the resignation of
a government minister, and a national
level campaign to oppose the government
austerity measures. It is encouraging that
the newly elected Chair of the Police