LOSING THE DETECTIVES: VIEWS FROM THE ... - Police Federation

Introduction
CHAPTER 6
Organisational priorities and their effects on GO CID
This chapter continues to examine the factors that determine the workload of GO
CID, turning attention to organisational priorities and their implementation by SMTs
at both force and BCU level. A new dimension is added to the discussion by
broadening it to consider the effect of these policies on the way detectives view their
organisation and how they go about their work. The focus groups revealed that the
morale of the detectives working in GO CID has been adversely affected by the
heavy workload they are carrying. At the same time they are becoming disillusioned
with the way their forces are tackling the problem of crime. They are deeply
concerned about what they see as an institutional fixation with sanction detection
targets, and about the dubious methods employed to achieve them. Resources are
being diverted from the investigation and detection of more serious crime whilst
spurious sanction detection rates are produced to give an appearance that crime is
being addressed effectively.
New Public Management policies
The focus groups provided a rich insight into the effect that the adoption of New
Public Management (NPM) policies in policing (Long: 2003 631) is having on
members of the workforce and its consequences for the type of work they do and for
its quality. Although they did not use the term NPM, members of the focus groups
recognised the Government and Home Office to be ultimately responsible for the
way the investigation of crime is now organised and for how investigative resources
are distributed, but they held senior management at force and BCU level to be
directly responsible. Senior officers are perceived to have taken robust ownership of
government priorities, with alacrity it was sometimes claimed, because there is a
financial incentive to do so in the form of bonuses for performance.
The vituperative language used by some participants to describe members of these
higher ranks and their aspirations were extreme expressions of feelings of frustration
and anger which were shared generally within the groups. Many members of SMTs
were criticised for their failure to understand fully the criminal investigation process.
Although SMTs rely heavily upon the customary willingness of detectives to ‘pull out
all the stops’ when their knowledge and expertise are required to deal with a crisis
(some argued to the point of exploiting ‘willing horses’) the overall view was that
generally management does not really value the work GO CID perform in
investigating serious crime on their BCUs.
Critical incident management
The discussions of the SMT’s preoccupation with critical incident management
revealed how their priorities not only determine the volume and type of work coming
into GO CID but also the characteristic rhythm of the work activities that take place
there.
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