I was in the lift with Ian Blair one time, he seemed to have slightly more 'presence' than usual. As he stepped out onto the 6th (I think) floor I noticed he was wearing Cuban heels.
Great article - well-written, funny, and sprinkled with just the right amount of expletives. I remember deliberately spreading a rumour that Hogan-Howe had been sacked after being caught 'en-flagrante' with his horse. Sadly, it never took root.
Spot on Dominic. Thanks for reminding me of the utterly soul destroying banality of mandatory training on NCALT/MLE. The only thing worse was a training day involving flip charts and group participation. I do miss the corporatised Met999 breakfast though...
I once sat with a mid-ranking officer and tried to explain the benefits of a Community of Practice basis for specialised units rather than the usual hierarchical models that suppress innovation, responsibility and ownership. Their reply? ‘If I can’t exploit your good work, how am I supposed to get promoted?’
Well at least the manager was honest! Look, these reptiles will always be in charge until they *radically* change the promotion system. How does the FBI manage with three ranks when the Met has ten? We need to dramatically prune the rank structure so the reptiles find some other organisation to infest.
I was interested in your comment about leaving decisions about local policing to the lower ranks. I was posted as a Sergeant one day in great secrecy to an ad hoc control room that I found out was going to be used in a large drugs operation in an inner city ethnically diverse area. Suffice it to say that the senior officer led planning was a mess and the wheels rapidly fell off into a major public order event, which continued for several days. The ACPO officers panicked and either withdrew or tried to micro manage, one bursting into the control room in full riot gear and shield trying to shout instructions. Luckily the Ch Insp in charge of the control room and I eventually mustered the troops, led by a particularly (peculiarly?) competent senior officer and arranged charges with task force vans down the troubled streets to clear them, which allowed withdrawal of the isolated troops and restoration of order. Some senior officers get it, letting the grunts do the job, and others don't.
I've seldom seen an operational policing situation that couldn't be handled by an inspector. Anyone higher was simply getting in the way. I think investigations are different - SIOs are the other oft-neglected heroes of policing at DCI / Supt level. I once discussed Stockwell with a good friend, an officer in the Royal Marines with multiple ops tours in sandy places. He was agog at how our ops room ran. "I'd expect one of my corporals to make a decision like that," he said.
Another great and true read Dom. I was up at CX last week and while on a break I took a walk around some of the beats I patrolled as a PC on my first posting at Cannon Row (AD). Back then sitting in a vehicle was a rarity. I walked around T Square, St James’s Park, Clive steps, along Whitehall past Horseguards where they were changing, past the South African embassy where i earned many a quid on overtime fixed point duty at the 24 hr picket that was there to release Mandela, then back towards CX. I did not see one single PC on foot, not even at Horseguards where the public were overflowing off the pavement into the road in front of oncoming traffic. When i first patrolled there you would be falling over cops, including plastic ones (Royal Parks Police). I felt so disheartened and sorry for the public who clearly are not getting the service they should be. What would your thoughts be to an American style Commissioner elected by the public? imagine, he would have to Police as the public wanted, not the politicians, you know, like we used to
The Blob would never allow for a directly-elected commissioner. The democratic element, apparently, was meant to be Police and Crime Commissioners. Which gave us Khan. So I suppose the people get the police they deserve, right?
Having seen what happens in the States I don't like the idea of directly elected police chiefs or the amount of operational control that politicians have over policing. Have a look at Chicago where police are not allowed to chase on foot. I'm not sure what the answer is but directly elected chief officers is not it.
Never served in London, but the symptoms are and were found in my old urban force area. An obsession with reorganization, first bigger divisions, then back to OCUs, then the ££cuts came, back to force-level resourcing of everything in effect and now, with a new chief his 'new' force model, in effect so far back to OCUs. Each with a Ch. Supt., even if a large city B'ham has 863k population and Solihull a leafy, larger in physical size suburb has 220k population. There is an assumption that morale will improve with each change, lo & behold it doesn't. Why do "leaders" never think if morale is far better, more will be done properly?
I think a theme of my writing (as much as there is one) is (A) it's not all the fault of the police as society is increasingly fractured and doesn't know what it wants the police to do, or how to do it. (B) partly as a consequence, the police promotion / leadership model is screwed, self-serving and a gravy train for a self-selecting cohort of not particularly gifted careerists. If you offer answers, you're upsetting a very big and lucrative apple cart - look at 75% of the senior officers in the Job. How many could earn more outside? Hardly any.
Yes, we are a 'fractured' society, though I don't think the UK has ever not been 'fractured'. What has added to the mix, especially in the last few decades, is the failure of national, public bodies to provide the service expected and required - the police are only one of many.
It used to amuse me that elected, local and national politicians (yes In include PCCs) have the audacity to tell the police what is wrong and what should be done when different polling over a long periods shows public trust in them is far lower than in the police. See: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ipsos-veracity-index-2022
For many reasons, some historical and now in decline, the promotion / leadership model is flawed. In my opinion much of this is due to the failure to recognise that leadership and management are two different things. They are not the same and is often seen when senior officers change the names of their boards etc between the two words. Too many, if not all of them are "clones" that fit a model encouraged by senior officers, the HMIC and the Home Office. More concerned with reputation management - which invariably becomes an image of being successful, when reality is very different.
Nothing. Changes. At all. As someone who joined in 77 and left in '08 I avoided the twin delights of the Hogan Howe terror and austerity. I endured several re-organizations and initiatives. In 1977 there were four areas, each headed by a DAC (what did the Area DAC's do then?) They seemed to have no input at all into daily policing. At some time the Met moved to eight areas, with each acting as its own police force and then to five areas. To me it seemed to work 'reasonably' well. There was a degree of operational autonomy and issues could be, and were, targeted. One thing I noticed was increasing micro-management of everything. There was a particular AC who just loved his 'Diamond Groups' and 'Platinum Groups'. What this lead to was the chain of command being arced and Silver or Bronze being told to do something without the apparent knowledge of Gold.
I also believe that a lot of the problems lie with not enough front line supervisors - I understand NYPD work on a ratio of 1 PS to 6PC's but the politicians were obsessed with PC numbers to the exclusion of all else.
Auftragstaktik will only work if you have excellently trained junior ranks who are prepared, and allowed to use their initiative, instead we try to police using a set of rigid tactics and policies and woe betide anyone who deviates from them.
Policing a large city like London will always be chaotic and messy and there should be an acceptance of that, I'm not holding my breath though.
Hi Dom. Quo vadis? I liked your comment "PC replied ‘what have the Commissioner and I got in common? We’ve both reached the rank we’re retiring at.’" Possibly apocryphally, there was another, less polite, version, allegedly said to a former colleague at NSY. Commissioner McNee, at the end of his service, entered a lift and engaged the plain clothes officer in chat. When he found out the officer was a DC, he said "We both have two things in common. Our ranks begin with the same letter, and we both know which direction the shit is coming from"
Perpetual wisdom as always can be found here. Why then isn't this shared and understood by say College of Policing ? Why is it that those able to affect positive change for collective better seem utterly unable to do so? How do Commissioner after Commissioner with few notable exceptions produce mediocrity at best and savage destruction at worst? The best systems of policing evolve, in an almost living way, that can never be centrally controlled or predicted as its too complicated and too fluid, changing almost continually. I do feel sympathy for today's street cops, their jobs are far harder than in my day and that was hard enough.
I use hurty words and am a chippy bastard towards senior officers. The CoP would need counsellors and safe spaces if they read one of my articles out aloud. It's okay, though, I don't write for that lot. I write for *you* lot.
Shame as these nuggets of wisdom would should could make individual cop and collective cops lives and service more productive safer effective and better.
I don’t recall a Commissioner being more universally despised than Bernie Two Dads, and the competition was fierce.
Got in a lift with him once. He was dead-eyed. Like a shark.
I was in the lift with Ian Blair one time, he seemed to have slightly more 'presence' than usual. As he stepped out onto the 6th (I think) floor I noticed he was wearing Cuban heels.
Great article - well-written, funny, and sprinkled with just the right amount of expletives. I remember deliberately spreading a rumour that Hogan-Howe had been sacked after being caught 'en-flagrante' with his horse. Sadly, it never took root.
Spot on Dominic. Thanks for reminding me of the utterly soul destroying banality of mandatory training on NCALT/MLE. The only thing worse was a training day involving flip charts and group participation. I do miss the corporatised Met999 breakfast though...
I once sat with a mid-ranking officer and tried to explain the benefits of a Community of Practice basis for specialised units rather than the usual hierarchical models that suppress innovation, responsibility and ownership. Their reply? ‘If I can’t exploit your good work, how am I supposed to get promoted?’
TJF.
Well at least the manager was honest! Look, these reptiles will always be in charge until they *radically* change the promotion system. How does the FBI manage with three ranks when the Met has ten? We need to dramatically prune the rank structure so the reptiles find some other organisation to infest.
I was interested in your comment about leaving decisions about local policing to the lower ranks. I was posted as a Sergeant one day in great secrecy to an ad hoc control room that I found out was going to be used in a large drugs operation in an inner city ethnically diverse area. Suffice it to say that the senior officer led planning was a mess and the wheels rapidly fell off into a major public order event, which continued for several days. The ACPO officers panicked and either withdrew or tried to micro manage, one bursting into the control room in full riot gear and shield trying to shout instructions. Luckily the Ch Insp in charge of the control room and I eventually mustered the troops, led by a particularly (peculiarly?) competent senior officer and arranged charges with task force vans down the troubled streets to clear them, which allowed withdrawal of the isolated troops and restoration of order. Some senior officers get it, letting the grunts do the job, and others don't.
I've seldom seen an operational policing situation that couldn't be handled by an inspector. Anyone higher was simply getting in the way. I think investigations are different - SIOs are the other oft-neglected heroes of policing at DCI / Supt level. I once discussed Stockwell with a good friend, an officer in the Royal Marines with multiple ops tours in sandy places. He was agog at how our ops room ran. "I'd expect one of my corporals to make a decision like that," he said.
Another great and true read Dom. I was up at CX last week and while on a break I took a walk around some of the beats I patrolled as a PC on my first posting at Cannon Row (AD). Back then sitting in a vehicle was a rarity. I walked around T Square, St James’s Park, Clive steps, along Whitehall past Horseguards where they were changing, past the South African embassy where i earned many a quid on overtime fixed point duty at the 24 hr picket that was there to release Mandela, then back towards CX. I did not see one single PC on foot, not even at Horseguards where the public were overflowing off the pavement into the road in front of oncoming traffic. When i first patrolled there you would be falling over cops, including plastic ones (Royal Parks Police). I felt so disheartened and sorry for the public who clearly are not getting the service they should be. What would your thoughts be to an American style Commissioner elected by the public? imagine, he would have to Police as the public wanted, not the politicians, you know, like we used to
The Blob would never allow for a directly-elected commissioner. The democratic element, apparently, was meant to be Police and Crime Commissioners. Which gave us Khan. So I suppose the people get the police they deserve, right?
Yep, 100%
Having seen what happens in the States I don't like the idea of directly elected police chiefs or the amount of operational control that politicians have over policing. Have a look at Chicago where police are not allowed to chase on foot. I'm not sure what the answer is but directly elected chief officers is not it.
Never served in London, but the symptoms are and were found in my old urban force area. An obsession with reorganization, first bigger divisions, then back to OCUs, then the ££cuts came, back to force-level resourcing of everything in effect and now, with a new chief his 'new' force model, in effect so far back to OCUs. Each with a Ch. Supt., even if a large city B'ham has 863k population and Solihull a leafy, larger in physical size suburb has 220k population. There is an assumption that morale will improve with each change, lo & behold it doesn't. Why do "leaders" never think if morale is far better, more will be done properly?
I think a theme of my writing (as much as there is one) is (A) it's not all the fault of the police as society is increasingly fractured and doesn't know what it wants the police to do, or how to do it. (B) partly as a consequence, the police promotion / leadership model is screwed, self-serving and a gravy train for a self-selecting cohort of not particularly gifted careerists. If you offer answers, you're upsetting a very big and lucrative apple cart - look at 75% of the senior officers in the Job. How many could earn more outside? Hardly any.
Yes, we are a 'fractured' society, though I don't think the UK has ever not been 'fractured'. What has added to the mix, especially in the last few decades, is the failure of national, public bodies to provide the service expected and required - the police are only one of many.
Recently published polling refers to: '67% of Britons reported having confidence in the police in 2022 – down from 87% in 1981.' For London, with caveats: 'he trend suggests that confidence in the police among those living in the capital dropped sharply between 2018 and 2022, when it fell from 73% to 55%. ' From: https://www.uk-values.org/news-comment/uk-has-internationally-low-confidence-in-political-institutions-police-and-press-1018742/pub01-126
It used to amuse me that elected, local and national politicians (yes In include PCCs) have the audacity to tell the police what is wrong and what should be done when different polling over a long periods shows public trust in them is far lower than in the police. See: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ipsos-veracity-index-2022
For many reasons, some historical and now in decline, the promotion / leadership model is flawed. In my opinion much of this is due to the failure to recognise that leadership and management are two different things. They are not the same and is often seen when senior officers change the names of their boards etc between the two words. Too many, if not all of them are "clones" that fit a model encouraged by senior officers, the HMIC and the Home Office. More concerned with reputation management - which invariably becomes an image of being successful, when reality is very different.
I can only think of one senior police leader, who left early, who earned more in a non-policing body. See an old 2002 story: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/head-of-police-unit-paid-aps200-000-and-keeps-old-job-9217987.html and
Nothing. Changes. At all. As someone who joined in 77 and left in '08 I avoided the twin delights of the Hogan Howe terror and austerity. I endured several re-organizations and initiatives. In 1977 there were four areas, each headed by a DAC (what did the Area DAC's do then?) They seemed to have no input at all into daily policing. At some time the Met moved to eight areas, with each acting as its own police force and then to five areas. To me it seemed to work 'reasonably' well. There was a degree of operational autonomy and issues could be, and were, targeted. One thing I noticed was increasing micro-management of everything. There was a particular AC who just loved his 'Diamond Groups' and 'Platinum Groups'. What this lead to was the chain of command being arced and Silver or Bronze being told to do something without the apparent knowledge of Gold.
I also believe that a lot of the problems lie with not enough front line supervisors - I understand NYPD work on a ratio of 1 PS to 6PC's but the politicians were obsessed with PC numbers to the exclusion of all else.
Auftragstaktik will only work if you have excellently trained junior ranks who are prepared, and allowed to use their initiative, instead we try to police using a set of rigid tactics and policies and woe betide anyone who deviates from them.
Policing a large city like London will always be chaotic and messy and there should be an acceptance of that, I'm not holding my breath though.
I couldn’t agree more.
I also had my halcyon days in the 90’s. What a time to be part of a Divisional Crime Team! 👍🏻
Hi Dom. Quo vadis? I liked your comment "PC replied ‘what have the Commissioner and I got in common? We’ve both reached the rank we’re retiring at.’" Possibly apocryphally, there was another, less polite, version, allegedly said to a former colleague at NSY. Commissioner McNee, at the end of his service, entered a lift and engaged the plain clothes officer in chat. When he found out the officer was a DC, he said "We both have two things in common. Our ranks begin with the same letter, and we both know which direction the shit is coming from"
Perpetual wisdom as always can be found here. Why then isn't this shared and understood by say College of Policing ? Why is it that those able to affect positive change for collective better seem utterly unable to do so? How do Commissioner after Commissioner with few notable exceptions produce mediocrity at best and savage destruction at worst? The best systems of policing evolve, in an almost living way, that can never be centrally controlled or predicted as its too complicated and too fluid, changing almost continually. I do feel sympathy for today's street cops, their jobs are far harder than in my day and that was hard enough.
I use hurty words and am a chippy bastard towards senior officers. The CoP would need counsellors and safe spaces if they read one of my articles out aloud. It's okay, though, I don't write for that lot. I write for *you* lot.
Shame as these nuggets of wisdom would should could make individual cop and collective cops lives and service more productive safer effective and better.
Good point. My content is free. They can fill their boots if they like.