British Police Forces To Lay Off Almost 6,000 Officers

[Zaune]

The Guardian, who have been publishing a series of articles on "Reading the Riots" all this week.

Police forces are planning to reduce the number of frontline officers by 5,800 within the next three years, according to the latest official survey on the impact of Home Office spending cuts.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) warns that there is a risk that three forces, the Met, Devon and Cornwall, and Lincolnshire, may not be able to provide an adequately efficient or effective service to the public in future.

The report says 17,600 police jobs have gone since March 2010 to find savings of £749m. This is more than half the 32,400 uniformed officers and civilian staff jobs they now plan to shed by 2015.

The number of expected police job losses is higher than previous official surveys and does not include Britain's largest force, the Metropolitan police, or Cheshire, which have yet to publish their plans for the next three years.

The HMIC report reveals that forces in England and Wales plan to close public access to a fifth of all police stations – 264 front counters are to shut – but are planning to open 137 "public access points" in shared locations such as supermarkets and libraries.

The police inspectorate says the nature of frontline policing is changing, with forces merging response and neighbourhood teams, spending more on police investigations and police protection, and increasing the use of volunteer special constables by 9,000.

But the report adds that despite the fact that many forces have changed the way policing is delivered locally, crime has continued to fall and the response to antisocial behaviour has improved: "A survey conducted alongside this review suggests that on the whole the public have not noticed a change to the service they receive," it notes.

The report, Policing in Austerity: One Year On, says the number of officers that are "visible and available to the public" has fallen by 5,500, including a fall of 5,200 response officers. This has been matched by a rise of neighbourhood officers by 2,300.

But by 2015, forces say they plan to lose a total of 5,800 frontline police officers – a 6% reduction. So far, 2,700 frontline policing jobs have disappeared since May 2010 as a result of the five-year cuts programme.

Sir Denis O'Connor, the chief inspector, said there were particular concerns about the Met. Britain's biggest police force needed to produce a plan by this autumn detailing how it would tackle a £233m gap in its funding on top of savings of £500m that have already been identified, he said.

"There has been a pause because of all the changes at the top of the Met, executive and politically, and the Olympics," he said. "That combination has paused things. So they've got £233m to find. They make up the bulk of the outstanding money to be found nationally.

"The second thing is they have some performance issues. Crime has been bubbling up and down for them and their satisfaction levels are low. So they've got limited timescales and a lot to do."

The chief inspector added that it was important to give the Met space to detail their plans: "We would all rather this was done well, rather than done badly."

He denied the Met was "on a cliff-edge" as claimed by some insiders, and the force itself has denied speculation that as many as 8,000 police jobs could go in the capital.

O'Connor said the problems facing Devon and Cornwall and Lincolnshire were of a lower order.

Forces have to make savings of £2.4bn by 2015 as a result of a 20% cut in Home Office grants to police authorities. The HMIC says the planned reduction in the total number of police jobs, including non-frontline civilian staff, has reached 32,400 by 2015, including 15,000 uniformed officers, of whom at least 7,600 will not be in frontline roles. The bulk of the cuts will fall on the non-frontline roles in policing, whose ranks are facing a 33% reduction by 2015.

The inspectors say, however, that these "incremental cuts" are not sufficient to transform police efficiency if they are to avoid essential back office functions simply being transferred to frontline staff. Forces need to do more to find savings through collaborations and in partnerships with the private sector.

The report warns strongly that police must start to prepare for even deeper cuts in the next Treasury spending round for the period beyond 2015.

O' Connor said forces had risen to the financial challenge by cutting their spending while largely maintaining the service they provide the public, but they still need to transform the way they work to prepare for the next round of spending cuts.

Paul McKeever, of the Police Federation, said: "The serious disorder last summer highlighted in the Guardian/LSE research published today demonstrates that police officer numbers really do matter. Whichever way you cut it, the resilience of the police service to be able to react to whatever is thrown at it is being threatened."

The policing minister, Nick Herbert, said: "This report makes it clear that the frontline of policing is being protected overall and that the service to the public has largely been maintained. The proportion of officers on the frontline is increasing, the number of neighbourhood officers has gone up, crime is down, victim satisfaction is improving and the response to emergency calls is being maintained.

"While there are particular challenges in three forces, we know that the vast majority are rising to the challenge of reducing budgets while protecting service to the public."

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, accused ministers of risking public safety. "The HMIC report shows the proportion on the frontline will be falling as a result of the scale of the cuts, because so many officers are coming from the 999 units," she said. "And that's why I think this is really serious, because the government should be cutting crime, not cutting the police."

They're just trolling us now, aren't they? Not even Flash Dave could be stupid enough to go through with this.

[Sidewinder]

How bad IS the crime rate in London, anyways? Is it at a "Could be better, but demands that we 'Send in the National Guard!' are greatly exaggerating things," level? Or a "Send in the National Guard! Looters will be shot on sight!" level? How badly will the average British citizen's safety be compromised when all those police officers are laid off?

[Zaune]

How bad IS the crime rate in London, anyways? Is it at a "Could be better, but demands that we 'Send in the National Guard!' are greatly exaggerating things," level? Or a "Send in the National Guard! Looters will be shot on sight!" level? How badly will the average British citizen's safety be compromised when all those police officers are laid off?

Unemployment is about 10%, the economy's in recession, and it's just eleven months since the worst riots we've seen in decades. What do you think?

[Sidewinder]

Unemployment is about 10%, the economy's in recession, and it's just eleven months since the worst riots we've seen in decades. What do you think?

To an American, that sounds like you're a Rodney King away from watching London burn down on you. My sympathies.

[Captain Seafort]

Is it at a "Could be better, but demands that we 'Send in the National Guard!' are greatly exaggerating things," level?

About this, histrionic hyperventilating from Z aside.

[Zaune]

That "histirionic hyperventilating", as you so assonatively put it, doesn't contain a single fact I can't back up. Observe:

Unemployment: Guardian article quoting the Office For National Statistics, which puts unemployment at 8.2%; a somewhat loose definition of "about 10%", I admit, but then the official figure's probably a lowball estimate anyway.

Recession: Business columnist in the Indy with some helpful facts and figures.

Riots: You know what? You can look that one up yourself.

[Captain Seafort]

That "histirionic hyperventilating", as you so assonatively put it, doesn't contain a single fact I can't back up.

I wasn't complaining about the facts you quoted, I was complaining about the way you framed them to imply that we're on the brink of another civil war, given that Sidewinder's question was whether we were at "send in the National Guard" level. We're not, and nor are we anywhere near that. Unless you know of an organisation commanding at least passive support from a significant minority of the population and armed with mortars and automatic weapons, which is what it took last time to bring the army onto the streets of the UK to restore order.

[Zaune]

That... does not really reflect the point I was trying to make. I don't think we'll see an organised paramilitary-style insurgency in England any time soon. I'm not ruling it out completely in my lifetime, but right now the only thing the various anti-Establishment groups agree on is that the status quo isn't working; ask ten people at Occupy Wherever what they want to replace it with and you'll get fifteen different answers.

But that doesn't mean we won't see violence, and probably sooner rather than later. It's not even really about what the Conservatives are or aren't doing about this mess, long-term unemployment just fucks you up in the head like that. First it's guilt, self-doubt; you think maybe you're not getting job offers because you're a bad person, you start to feel bad about taking so much out but being unable to put anything back in. If you get through that (and some people don't; I had a close call or two), you start to get angry. You start to wonder what the hell you did to deserve being made to live like this.

I've seen this happen to my neighbours, my friends even. They start drinking too much, or taking other, less legal options for numbing the pain. They start getting short-tempered, yelling at their partners or getting into fights in the pub. Some of them start thieving, handling stolen goods, maybe dealing some mephedrone or whatever they can get hold of.

Maybe all that anger and frustration won't manifest itself in one big riot, true. We might be lucky enough to "merely" deal with a surge in bar-brawls, domestic disturbances and violent armed robberies this time around. Lucky us.

[Captain Seafort]

Maybe all that anger and frustration won't manifest itself in one big riot, true. We might be lucky enough to "merely" deal with a surge in bar-brawls, domestic disturbances and violent armed robberies this time around. Lucky us.

True, although I'd put increased theft at the top of my list. Maybe a few riots, but no worse than last summer's, so nothing the plod can't handle (which they did, once the Met had woken up). This remains nowhere near the "call out the National Guard" level that Sidewinder was asking about, and which you encouraged by your response. Hence my calling you on the histrionic hyperventilating. Yes, things are somewhat less than ideal, but it's not the 70s, and it certainly isn't NI in the 70s.

[Zaune]

I did no such thing. I pointed out three salient facts and invited him to draw his own conclusions. Or did you think "What do you think?" was supposed to be a rhetorical question?

[Thanas]

I thought so, yes.

[Zaune]

Well, it wasn't. Apologies for the confusion.

[Sidewinder]

That "histirionic hyperventilating", as you so assonatively put it, doesn't contain a single fact I can't back up.

I wasn't complaining about the facts you quoted, I was complaining about the way you framed them to imply that we're on the brink of another civil war, given that Sidewinder's question was whether we were at "send in the National Guard" level.

My apologies. In the US, the National Guard is called in to suppress riots when the police judge themselves as lacking the means to do so- nowhere near "civil war" level. I thought the Territorial Army (or whatever the British equivalent to the US Army National Guard) would do the same during times of civil unrest.

[Zaune]

We don't really have a National Guard equivalent, actually; we don't have a tier between county and federal the way the US does so we have slightly different views on posse comitatus. The regular Army don't get a lot of crowd-control training, but they can do it when they have to.

[Simon_Jester]

The US's National Guard is a weird thing. They fall somewhere in between the roles that other countries have for "national military reserve," "gendarmery," and "local provincial militia." It gets used for some of the same things as all three, even though other countries have often had totally separate organizations for each of the three roles.

[Captain Seafort]

My apologies. In the US, the National Guard is called in to suppress riots when the police judge themselves as lacking the means to do so- nowhere near "civil war" level. I thought the Territorial Army (or whatever the British equivalent to the US Army National Guard) would do the same during times of civil unrest.

No, the TA isn't much different in terms of it's role to the regular army. Moreover, when military aid to the civil power is required within the UK, it's the regulars who provide it, not the TA, be that driving fire engines or sending armoured regiments into sufficiently troublesome housing estates.

[Zaune]

No, the TA isn't much different in terms of it's role to the regular army. Moreover, when military aid to the civil power is required within the UK, it's the regulars who provide it, not the TA, be that driving fire engines or sending armoured regiments into sufficiently troublesome housing estates.

The TA do get used for that sort of thing on occasion, when they're not expected to see actual combat, but that's primarily a factor of location; the regulars are concentrated in a few large garrisons in the south of England, but there's one or two TA training centres and equipment depots in every county. They tend to get called out for disaster-relief work; building emergency flood defences, rescuing motorists stranded by a blizzard, that sort of thing.

[Vashon]

Are we going to see Parliament hang? Is it all just some devious scheme to get the royals back into power?

[Zaune]

Are we going to see Parliament hang? Is it all just some devious scheme to get the royals back into power?

That would actually make more sense than the possibility that David Cameron really, sincerely believes that Britain will be a safer place for outsourcing law-enforcement.

[DoomSquid]

That "histirionic hyperventilating", as you so assonatively put it, doesn't contain a single fact I can't back up.

I wasn't complaining about the facts you quoted, I was complaining about the way you framed them to imply that we're on the brink of another civil war, given that Sidewinder's question was whether we were at "send in the National Guard" level.

My apologies. In the US, the National Guard is called in to suppress riots when the police judge themselves as lacking the means to do so- nowhere near "civil war" level. I thought the Territorial Army (or whatever the British equivalent to the US Army National Guard) would do the same during times of civil unrest.

In Britain, the police are the ones that get the crowd control training and specialist equipment, not the military. If the police can't handle any hypothetical rioting, then the army almost certainly can't unless they're willing to fire on the crowd. As I understand it, US police really aren't trained in riot control techniques at all, and tend to back off and leave things to the National Guard if a large crowd gets truly violent.

[Simon_Jester]

Are we going to see Parliament hang? Is it all just some devious scheme to get the royals back into power?

...Please tell me you're joking.

[Questor]

As I understand it, US police really aren't trained in riot control techniques at all, and tend to back off and leave things to the National Guard if a large crowd gets truly violent.

Is the above a joke? Or are you just that pig-ignorant?

Here's a hint, what do you think this group is for?



EDIT: And all the threads on here about cops misbehaving at Occupy rallies? Were those stories about ignorant, stupid, obvious false flag operations or something?

[Zaune]

DoomSquid, are you by any chance from Northern Ireland?

[Kamakazie Sith]

My apologies. In the US, the National Guard is called in to suppress riots when the police judge themselves as lacking the means to do so- nowhere near "civil war" level. I thought the Territorial Army (or whatever the British equivalent to the US Army National Guard) would do the same during times of civil unrest.

In Britain, the police are the ones that get the crowd control training and specialist equipment, not the military. If the police can't handle any hypothetical rioting, then the army almost certainly can't unless they're willing to fire on the crowd. As I understand it, US police really aren't trained in riot control techniques at all, and tend to back off and leave things to the National Guard if a large crowd gets truly violent.

This is absolutely incorrect.

All capitol city police and medium size cities and above have riot police. We call them the Public Order Unit or POU. Officers in POU undergo routine training for crowd control and riot suppression techniques. In additional every sworn officer in the department is trained in basic techniques so they can bolster the POU numbers.