"Up for grabs…" – privatising the police

accountability is blurred if you are working for a third party

British Transport Police
Ministry of Defence Police
Civil nuclear Constabulary
Royal Borough Parks Police

All seem to get along quite well working in conjunction with the police, carrying full warranted police constable powers, without being subject to police disciplinary procedures.

There are also a load of private companies whose employees are sworn as constables – mainly ports police, mersey tunnel police etc. – Cambridge University… Hell, the Church even employs some (York Minster police)

They all seem to work perfectly acceptably as police officers employed directly by companies, without any problems…

TJ, I have to disagree with you and I would say that is because you have little experience in these matters.

I’m not interested in received-position PPE bullsh1Te

@THM, I may have been a touch harsh in my wording (esp as, IIRC, you may actually be a PPE graduate… 😉 ).

To be clear, it wasn’t really directed at you – more at the kind of political rhetoric that bears no relation to what is actually happening on the ground. I generally enjoy reading your posts, even if I might disagree with them.

Sancho – Member

TJ, I have to disagree with you and I would say that is because you have little experience in these matters.

Funny how after reading a few of these “degenerates into left vs right” threads, I could tell you the occupations of all the usual outspoken lefties, but none of the righties will rarely if ever hint what it is they do or have done for a living that qualifies them to be experienced in these matters.

As I mention freely if asked, I am a nurse with a mere 13 years NHS service under my little paper hat, but if I comment about something remotely political with my professional hat on, I apparently lack perspective because I am cross about my 3 year pay freeze cut and pension ‘reform’. 🙄 (Although I did once work for a short time as a civilian employed by the Gendarmerie and heard all sorts of fantastic and spooky stories from them, do I get police and armed forces ‘points’ for that? 😀 )

So Sancho, what is your experience in these matters?

I apparently lack perspective

Best of all is the view (common on Conservative Home etc) that if healthcare professionals have serious concerns about NHS reform, then it proves that Lansley is doing something right… 🙄

I seem to recall that the teachers and firefighters of STW also ‘lack perspective’ at times too. 😆

noteeth – Member
I’m not interested in received-position PPE bullsh1Te
@THM, I may have been a touch harsh in my wording (esp as, IIRC, you may actually be a PPE graduate… ).

To be clear, it wasn’t really directed at you – more at the kind of political rhetoric that bears no relation to what is actually happening on the ground. I generally enjoy reading your posts, even if I might disagree with them.

😀 no-teeth, thanks for the post. No offence taken BTW!! You had me worried with the quote though – I didn’t remember saying that (PPE Bull….), and then I realised that you were quoting yourself. But just for clarity, I wasn’t advocating anywhere on this thread the notion of competition in the police force. That was others! I merely went off on a slight tangent to comment on a much more general, but no less important, wider observation about attitudes to work.

But the “more fool you” comments from others merely made me smile and sad. Must be genuinely very trying to hate your work so much that go the extra mile on occassions becomes a chore not a pleasure!

Julian – not sure if it is for anyone to comment on others lack/breadth of experience. But if I am not mistaken Sancho’s comments came in response to an accusation made by someone else!!

There are three sort of privatisation from what I can see.

1. Privatisation of a Dynamic and fast moving sector with room for new ideas and innovation and changeable goals with open infrastructure.

Ie the privisation of BT and the opening up of telephone service providers.

This often goes well. The room for expansion of new ideas, new system, new products for customer seems to have deliver a better telecoms system for the UK. We now have some of the greater broadband acesss in the developed (although speeds lag the East).

Also the system is open and it is easy for a customer to move from BP to O2 to Virgin.

2. Privatisation of non-vital roles ie Cleaning/Cooking

These privatisation supposedly goes “well” according to supporters. But just appear to be a way of cutting corners to me basically cleaners/cooks are brought in from cheaper areas and are paid less and encourage to clean / cook faster. Whether the same standard of service is achieved is unknown because no one cares to measure it. This is normally. Often the objective is to encourage staff to work overtime therefore to pay below minimum wage.

3. Privatisation of vital closed goal sectors with stringent regulation ie Train services

These privatisation seem to end in disaster. The key strength of the private sector is to innovate and quickly apply new ideas. However this is impossible here due to regulation and closed goals.

Ie in the phone business BP can start sending you internet and eventually TV down your phone line.

In the railway system the Operators can pretty much only deliver the same thing BR offered.

The system is closed you cant move from one operator to another.

Also the regulations are strict the rail companies can import a load of foreign labour to operate the trains to reduce costs. They cant remove safety equipment to lighten the train and they can just run all the trains late and hope no one notices.

I think the police system is more like the Train service. What good is privatisation actually going to do what can a private firm do better ? I dont fancy them importing Iraqi policemen and paying them less, or cutting corners, the only last thing they could really do if try and fiddle the books to make it look like more crime is being solved than currently goes on.

(PS I know someone will come along to say privatisation of the railways has gone well !! Well true trains are running better but the amount of government backing has massively increased)

But the “more fool you” comments from others merely made me smile and sad. Must be genuinely very trying to hate your work so much that go the extra mile on occassions becomes a chore not a pleasure!

Envious?

It is widely accepted in public service that starting early and staying late for free and answering your emails from home on your days off is a clear sign if not the clearest and most measurable sign of burnout. In my time in the NHS I have seen this happen to the majority of managers who burn the candle at both ends. They do this because they enjoy their jobs and want to make a difference, (particularly those who do not claim overtime or time off in lieu) but end up being less ‘value for money’ as an employee as a result, mjuch harder to work with/for, or just off sick with stress, costing the employer money and creating additional workload for their colleagues.

In my own experience as a charge nurse/manager, there is a ‘sweet spot’ of unplanned overtime whereby it is better value for money for you to stay at work and sort it out yourself than introduce a third person to deal the issue/patient/emergency at hand, but this does not amount to very many hours per week before it becomes counterproductive as regards the rest of your job.

Police officers invariably also have their own beat or special area to attend to besides emergency calls, I can’t see how unplanned and unpaid overtime makes them carry out their non-urgent duties more effectively or efficiently.

In health we are discouraged from working too much overtime: most teams cap this at 40 hours per month even if you are paid for it (as opposed to having time off in lieu), because it is felt that in general your performance becomes somewhat poor value for money if you work long hours or stay late ‘unplanned’ too often.

And yet in THM’s world it’s ok to do all this and not get paid for it? Jesus wept.

And yet in THM’s world it’s ok to do all this and not get paid for it? Jesus wept.

Julian – be serious for a moment! I am not talking about burnout schedules. No one is advocating working too much, that is plain stupid. Off course there is a sweet spot (and interesting that you even bothered to quote my “on occassions”???) – its just interesting where people perceive that to be.

Teamhurtmore – Its that yo simply do not understand the point of view yet you denigrate it.

But the “more fool you” comments from others merely made me smile and sad. Must be genuinely very trying to hate your work so much that go the extra mile on occassions becomes a chore not a pleasure!

this is simple nonsense. Most of us public servant like our jobs – very much indeed. that however does not mean we should work for free.

What sort of a distorted sense of values is it that say s you should work for free and that the only thing that counts when seeing how well you perform is that you are willing to work for free – when as Julian pointed out this leads to poorer performance.

What a truly bizarre start to your final para TJ?

Perfectly sensible

Several people – you included seem to see it as a virtue to be willing to work for free. No one has been able to give any explanation as to why this should be so.

I am perfectly willing to do whatever is needed to be done to ensure my job is done correctly – indeed I am under legal obligation to do so. Unlike you I am sure – I cannot leave until my relief arrives.

I simply want to be paid for the work I do – yet you make the most absurd claims about this and are somewhat patronising about it.

Can you please answer the question

“why should the police work UNPAID overtime?”

TJ – dont start your usual, answer the question BS. The question is not worth answering for the simple reason it has no bearing on what I have said in this thread. I answer your questions when they make sense and/or they are relevant to what I say. Otherwise I ignore them. And pls

Unlike you I am sure

cut this out, as you prove one thing and one thing alone, you know nothing about me. Actually, on second thoughts, keep it up if only for the comic effect.

So teamhurtmore – what service do you work in that you have a legal obligation to stay at work until your relief turns up? there is not many So what is it. Healthcare? Police?

As for you attitude towards unpaid overtime – you posted this

In my experience, this question would not even need to be asked in large parts of the private sector. If there is an important part of your job that needs doing that requires a bit longer on the end of the day/work at the weekend…..you simply do it and, in my case, would want to do it. Pride in your work and your occupation – I would not expect extra pay either (edit – not suggesting that the alternative view negates pride in your work BTW!!). Perhaps this is why I find it hard to understand many of the different alternative perspectives on here!

so I do not think it is unreasonable to ask you why the police – who do compulsory overtime should do this for free. We all do the work as you suggest above – we simply want to be paid for it

Do you have an answer?

THM, what would be really useful is an idea of what your idea of what unpaid overtime ‘on occasions’ amounts to, in hours per month and number of occasions per month. I could do for my job but I would break it down slightly rather than say “up to x hours on up to y occasions”.

It would be useful to have an idea of how much ‘planned’ overtime an officer might or is permitted to choose to work each month, and how much unplanned overtime the average police officer is made to work in a month and the sorts of reasons this might be for.

THM I am aware that you seem reluctant to talk much about your own job on this forum, but I would also be interested in your experience and understanding of why people work overtime and the differening levels of stress or satisfaction you get depending on what it is for and why you are doing it.

I could give you several different examples of why I might work overtime and how happy or less happy I might be to do so, but this is about policemen not hospital staff. [edit: actually reading over them, there are very direct parallels in my job, all of which I have either chosen to do or been obliged by my duty of care as a registered nurse to do in the last twelve months, to all the examples I suggested below: THM do you have any comparable ones?]

In the case of a police officer consider:
1) You cover an extra shift on your day off for a colleague who is off sick, you are asked to do this a couple of days before with no obligation to do so.
2) You work an extra day for a large event such as a football match or politician visit. You have several weeks advance notice for this and are not obliged to do it.
3) You have to stay on late unplanned because late in your shift you have made an arrest of someone you are really glad to be taking off the streets.
4) You have to stay on late unplanned because of a major incident with no arrests, but lots of ‘damage’ such as an RTC, suicide, sexual assault or indeed to cover for another officer who has been injured in the line of duty.

Is it still ok not to be paid for the last two? Or how many hours of the last two do you think you should (as a police officer) do for free, and how many before you become at risk of burning out?

TJ, out of interest, when working for the NHS, were your union rep activities performed in paid time, or unpaid time?

FWIW zulu the union rep in my team (not my union) is quite open about doing 50/50 on paid/unpaid time. Her ‘unpaid overtime’ union activities are enormously less bloody, stressful and unplanned than her (paid) nursing overtime though. (see my thoughts about the different reasons for overtime and the effect it may have on you.)

JW – you make very valid points, but as you will know there is no specific answer to the question of hours per month. People vary in their needs etc. I have seen people burn out in lots of professions and am well aware of the consequences. But, to clarify, I have not advocated constant unpaid extra time for anyone and certainly not for Policemen. TJ even had the decency, this time, to repeat my first post. And the second sentence begins with……“if” and follows this with a…..“little”. Too subtle obviously (?) for TJ but I would guess pretty obvious for most others.

But again, this fixation on rules, prescriptive hours etc is exactly what I was getting at in the first place (Taylorism gone mad?). Perhaps it is merely a reflection of lots of facts – sector culture (perhaps), bad management (for sure) etc. But as I said, the idea of working the 9-5 that is routinely written into all the contracts that I have ever had, has never crossed my mind in practice. People know how to look after themselves but also that if extra hours are needed occasionally, you simply do them. Its as natural to me as it is un-natural to others.

Of course, limited stress can be good for performance – its when it becomes excess that the very valid problems that you mention arise. And no-one wants that.

So again, what’s your experience of planned/unplanned and paid/unpaid overtime then THM?

And given your bold bits about ‘constantly unpaid overtime’, what do you think is acceptable (expressed as hours and occasions per month, not words with varying interpretations please) for your job (whatever that is) and more pertinently for a police officer’s?

Any answers then?

Why do you think people including the police should do unpaid overtime?

You see in public services such as healthcare and police that “little bit extra” you refer to is every shift every day pretty much

Why is it bad management to want to work your contracted hours?

Oh – and what service do you work in where yo have a legal obligation to stay until your relief arrives?

JW – Well, just seems a little like <ahem> certain </ahem> people are all too keen to take the view that, and I’ll quote

working for free is allowing your employer to to get away with underpaying and is abusive

But then seem to forget all the extra little things that self same employer gives them something that they don’t have to… like paying them for time carrying out union activities perhaps, little things like that.

Seems to me that my relationship with my employer works both ways – I end up working events or staying late to finish up my workload in busy periods – in return my employer is fairly flexible if I need to go to the dentists, get away early one evening, doesn’t kick up a fuss if I turn up late one morning because the traffics bad – you know the type of stuff… no big issue if I go on the interweb and talk bollocks on mountainbike forums if the workload is a little quiet sometimes, ahem.

Act like a little kid, you get treated like a little kid perhaps?

Seems to me that my relationship with my employer works both ways – I end up working events or staying late to finish up my workload in busy periods – in return my employer is fairly flexible if I need to go to the dentists, get away early one evening, doesn’t kick up a fuss if I turn up late one morning because the traffics bad – you know the type of stuff…

And that is in effect being paid for the overtime – time off in lieu, All I ever got working in the NHS

Edit – of course actually very difficult to take as I am legally obliged to stay until my relief arrives – and if I am late on duty then the person I am relieving cannot go home.

JW – pretty much constant to varying extents, but the concept of overtime is simply of no relevance/completely alien to me, my team or my occupation, hence my OP. And that is true across lots of different types of work. But the results speak for themselves – performance, happiness and pride in our work. Hard to be globally competitive with a different attitude in my experience – hence the extreme analogy of Seb Coe (but he also knew how to manage physical stress and not to over do things!).

Hence, I go back to my OP which started that “I have no interest in the sides here” (which TJ continues to ignore as usual) but merely interested in the observed differences. And to avoid being mis-read I edited the first post to make sure that I wasn’t interpreted as saying that people who expected OT pay or didn’t do overtime without thinking, couldn’t/didn’t have pride in their work.

Ah Z11 – you mean you behave and are treated as mature adults. How refreshing!! 😉

TJ – No its not!

I don’t keep a record, they don’t keep a record – its not time off in lieu, its a relationship of mutual trust and respect, and goes far beyond hours worked.

maybe if you took your rebel hat off and treated your employer with a little more respect and a little less demanding your “rights”, you would have got a little more?

So unsuprisingly no answers then.

Its really funny how you can admit to having no experience of something yet slate in a rather patronising manner those who do

No zulu – it simply does not work like that in my world and cannot because of the nature of the service.

If I arrive late someone else goes home late. I cannot leave early unless someone else is there to cover. I cannot take a dentist appointment in my working time.

Its nothing to do with attitudes – its to do with the nature of the service and the legal requirement for cover.

But then seem to forget all the extra little things that self same employer gives them something that they don’t have to… like paying them for time carrying out union activities perhaps, little things like that.

Zulu, wrong.

Since you’re about, are you a member of a union? I asked a couple of times before but obviously it got lost in the fog of leftist handwringing. Unions have different quality relationships with different employers. Asda/walmart being the opposite end of the spectrum as I see it.

Unions have a different relationship with the NHS, who are obliged to release a certain percentage of staff or staff hours for union activities, it is not them being nice or generous, or staff-side reps swinging the lead. That my union-rep colleague does the other 50% of her union work for free is a credit to her dedication. She also does a good deal of h&s work for the hospital (in a positive rather than ambulance-chasing way) that she would not be qualified to do had her union not trained her to do (at zero cost to the NHS). I know it was zero cost to the NHS because I am her line manager and I had to make her do the course on her days off because she had already used her quota of ‘union days’ our trust allowed at the time. Value for money and all that. 😈

who are obliged to release a certain percentage of staff or staff hours for union activities,

Legal duty for employers to release staff for union activities – no legal duty for employers to pay them for much of that time, thats not the employers responsibility, or duty.

I don’t keep a record, they don’t keep a record – its not time off in lieu, its a relationship of mutual trust and respect, and goes far beyond hours worked.

And theres the rub. I know plenty of fellow nurses (and other healthcare workers) who have, over years of service put in loads of overtime only to have been on the recieving end of a disciplinary over too long a break.

One community nurse I know of was accused of fraud because he was seen by a senior manager shopping during working hours but hadn’t logged it as taking time back. EDIT and he always put over and above the hours.

I keep a full account of my days activities and any time I take back to the minute not because I am some anally retentive but because I am scared of being accused of taking time not owed to me.

Legal duty for employers to release staff for union activities – no legal duty for employers to pay them for that time, thats not the employers responsibility, or duty.

Accepetd. But my trust’s policy of working with unions starts out right at the top by making the point of unions being benificial to both employer and employee and so make efforts for union meetings to be within (paid) time for staff side reps, and instruct managers to move night shifts and weekends around to enable them to attend key union duties. It’s a bit blurby but it’s all in there and in the public domain so to speak.

Are you in a union zulu? What is your employer’s relationship like with your union or the unions that represent your colleagues?

But, like I said – its a good example of the employer offering their employee’s something over and above what they absolutely have to – so cast against the attitude of certain employees that “working for free is allowing your employer to to get away with underpaying and is abusive” I’d suggest that an attitude check is in order… give and take, swings and roundabouts, call it what you will.

On your question on whether I’m in a union. I’m not in one at the moment, I have been in one in the past, and for what its worth my dad was a shop steward (while my mum was in the offices getting phone call death threats from members of other unions as my dads union refused to go out)…

I don’t understand your problem with TJ there then zulu: your dad being a shop steward must mean you understand the difference between working for your emoployer for free and working for your union and therfore your colleagues (as opposed to employer) for free then. ❓

Unions would seem to have moved on a lot since those days though: there was no ill feeling let alone death threats in my workplace between anyone about going out or not going out on strike on 30.11.11